"Newspapers have come a long way since youngsters hawked the latest edition on street corners or metal boxes collected coins from anonymous visitors sucked in by a juicy headline. Today’s publishers need to be much more savvy about distribution, getting their arms around who their customers are, w
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hat makes them pay, and how to drive the right behaviors across a varied and complex online landscape. That means applying new technologies, adopting a “test and learn” way of thinking and going where the data leads them. Gone are the days when success could be measured by how many million unique visitors a website has in a month, especially when the vast majority of those come once, never to be seen again. In a few years time, the playbook may have changed. But keeping up with the fast-moving technology world is no longer an option, it’s an imperative for survival in the digital age." (Conclusion)
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"Until the state and its aligned media operate in a fair and competitive media market, there will be little space for independent news media to survive, much less make the investments needed to innovate and survive in this raucous, frontier environment. Myanmar has a much smaller overall advertising
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sector than neighboring countries, and audiences are rapidly shifting to digital/mobile platforms. Outside Yangon, ethnic and regional news media, often operating in rural and conflict-filled environments, have little possibility of generating sufficient amounts of market-derived revenue to support their operations. To lose their voices would be to lose the plural, local and diverse voices of an inclusive society. To create a vibrant overall media sector, the government must have the political will to create a vibrant public service media sector. To repeat: at the very least, it should stop competing for revenue against the news media it licenses, regulates, can sue, prosecute and imprison. The Broadcasting Law has provisions for this; the government should embrace them. It must also further develop the legal infrastructure supporting media, including copyright, intellectual property, and online privacy laws. For all the laws governing journalists and journalism, there are few that protect their work product or that support the news media industry and its role in the broader economy." (Conclusion)
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"This report explores the recent trajectory of South African news with a specific focus on the economic sustainability of news media. Digital news consumption on mobile phone, and especially via Social Media on Smart Phones (SMSP) is fracturing audiences and reducing traditional sources of revenue.
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Printed newspapers in particular are starting to close and will be closing, this report suggests, at an accelerated rate, and while the past two or three years have seen a revival in important national-level political reporting, local and community media is increasingly losing the struggle to survive. Dozens of community papers have closed in 2015-2017, some after many decades of publishing. The Times in Johannesburg closed in January 2018. Many others will follow. In addition, as this report explores, much of the best current journalism produced in South Africa is currently financed by grants and donations from international foundations. The disruption of the news industry by digital technology has, in South Africa, been exacerbated by political manipulation of news media, including, as this report explores, a multi-pronged attack on media coordinated by what the report describes as the Zuma-centred power elite (after the 2017 PARI report “How South Africa is being Stolen”)." (Executive summary)
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"[The authors] introduce a conceptual model for organizations and other stakeholders wishing to monitor and evaluate sustainable journalism. Their chapter provides a theoretical foundation for the argument that journalistic media competes for a wide range of resources that determine their success an
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d sustainability. By carefully identifying and monitoring the distribution of these resources, which include, for instance, advertising revenue, audience attention, government resources, investor capital and skilled labor, we will better understand the nuances and dynamics of media ecologies, and possibly respond to the processes by which some organizations evolve while others fade away." (Page xxxi)
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"The accelerating digitalisation of the media landscape has released enormous forces of change in the Nordic advertising markets. The overall impression from the results of this study is that the sweeping changes digitalisation is bringing about are not just undermining the business model on which t
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he majority of commercially financed media companies in the Nordic countries have based their journalistic operations, they are also making it more difficult for the same companies to find a sustainable business model in a digital environment. The battle for advertising revenue is now an unfair fight. Media companies at the national and local level are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with the advertising solutions that global digital actors such as Google and Facebook are bringing to the market. The latter are not just more sophisticated than the domestic alternatives, they are also significantly cheaper. The results of this study indicate unequivocally that the differences in competitiveness between Nordic and non-Nordic advertising platforms will be exacerbated as digital advertising investments grow." (Executive summary)
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"From April 28, 2009 to September 15, 2015, 658 journalism-related projects proposed on Kickstarter, one of the largest single hubs for crowdfunding journalism, received full – or more than full – funding, to the tune of nearly $6.3 million. These totals – both in terms of number of projects a
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nd funds raised – trail nearly all of Kickstarter’s other funding categories, from music, theater and film to technology and games. Nevertheless, the number of funded journalism projects has seen an ongoing increase over time and includes a growing number of proposals from established media organizations." (Pages 2-3)
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"This report reviews challenges and opportunities for news media and journalism in today’s changing media environment. It documents that we are moving towards an increasingly digital, mobile, and social media environment with more intense competition for attention. More and more people get news vi
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a digital media, they increasingly access news via mobile devices (especially smartphones), and rely on social media and other intermediaries in terms of how they access and find news. In this environment, a limited number of large technology companies enable billions of users across the world to navigate and use digital media in easy and attractive ways through services like search, social networking, video sharing, and messaging. As a consequence, these companies play a more and more important role in terms of (a) the distribution of news and (b) digital advertising. Legacy media like broadcasters and especially newspapers by contrast are becoming relatively less important as distributors of news even as they remain very important producers of news. They are also under growing pressure to develop new digital business models as their existing sources of revenue decline or stagnate. The general response from legacy media has been a combination of (a) investment in pursuing digital opportunities, (b) cost–cutting and (c) attempts at market consolidation in pursuit of market power and economies of scale. Because of the competition for attention and advertising, and the limited number of people who pay for online news, there are very few examples of legacy media that make a profit from their digital news operations—despite twenty years of often substantial investments and sometimes significant audience reach. It is not clear that the new environment is significantly more hospitable for digital-born news media organisations. While they often have a lower cost base and can be more nimble in adapting to change, they face similar competition for both attention and advertising and so far represent a small part of overall investment in journalism." (Executive summary)
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"For journalists promoting the free flow of information in repressive or restrictive media environments, the issue of financial sustainability is complex. Both media in exile (out-of-country news outlets feeding independent information into the country of origin) and news outlets in restrictive news
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environments (in-country providing counter-information) exist in flawed market situations and often rely on grant funding. This is the first academic study of the revenue streams of these media, providing scarce empirical data and a typology of funding structures of these media. This article examines three main revenue categories: grant funding, earned income and donations. The major factors influencing revenue streams compared to online media start-ups in open markets are discussed. The article finds significant barriers to revenue creation and identifies the need for alternative approaches, particularly partnerships, to promote economic resilience for media under threat." (Abstract)
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"This paper critically assesses the ethical challenges not-for-profit oppositional news outlets face when generating revenues. Both media in exile (out-of-country news outlets feeding independent information into the country of origin) and those in restrictive environments (in-country providing coun
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ter-information) often rely on media development funding to survive. Yet they are increasingly expected to diversify revenue as they wean themselves off grant dependency. As a result, tension arises between the necessities to generate revenues while continuing journalism in some of the most challenging environments globally. Building on empirical data, the author reflects on the ethical implications of three main revenue categories being used: grant funding, commercial revenues and donations. The paper finds oppositional news organisations are faced with a unique set of pragmatic challenges that prompts an ethical value set which oscillates between entrenched dependence on grant funding, commercial reluctance and commercial reconciliation." (Abstract)
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"Cet ouvrage explore les systèmes médiatiques d’Afrique subsaharienne francophone et propose des clés pour aborder leurs spécificités via nombre d’éléments historiques, politiques, sociologiques, juridiques, économiques et technologiques, indispensables pour les replacer dans leur contex
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te. Présentant la littérature de référence, enrichie par les témoignages de dizaines de journalistes africains, et puisant dans l’expérience de plusieurs ONG spécialisées, ce manuel constitue une introduction générale à des environnements médiatiques méconnus et dont les dynamiques internes sont peu explorées. Pourtant, le caractère relativement récent de la liberté de la presse, la nature semi-autoritaire ou l’instabilité chronique de plusieurs des régimes politiques de la région, la prépondérance de l’économie informelle, ainsi que les dynamiques d’appropriation et de participation des citoyens contribuent à façonner des systèmes médiatiques et des modèles professionnels particuliers qui peuvent stimuler la réflexion." (Verso)
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"Since the Jasmine Revolution, a new constitutional and institutional framework has been put in place in Tunisia, laying the foundations for the liberalisation of the media. But this framework remains embryonic and the situation fragile, and there is an urgent need to address shortcomings in media g
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overnance." (Executive summary)
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"The legal framework for the changing media environment following the New Constitution still lacks the elements needed to protect the independence, transparency and accountability of the Egyptian media." (Introduction, page 5)
"Every effort should be made to encourage Algeria to come into line with global standards on press freedom, market access and media ownership. Exchange of good practice, EU strategies and wider promotion of local broadcasting content can all create the opportunity to influence change in Algeria." (R
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ecommendations)
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"The structural problems in the media ownership in Turkey have been embedded in the political system since mid-1980s. With the AKP government’s tenure, the “media pool” of uncritical government support was formed and the major media outlets were pacified by means of financial threats, self-cen
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sorship or increased job insecurity. The most substantive problem involves the economic interests of media owners. Although Article 29 of Law no. 3984 restricts media owners to hold shares, owners who have stakes in other business sectors have been seen to influence cover-ups to favour their outside business interests. A significant number of media owners in Turkey belong to industrial conglomerates with interests that go beyond freedom of press and opinion – in addition to the close relationships between the government and some of these industrial conglomerates. Groups previously uninvolved in media activities have stepped into the sector, a move which has facilitated the development of oligopolistic structures. Indeed, an increasing concentration in media ownership – most notably regarding the activities of the Dogan, Dogus, Zirve, Albayrak, Çukurova, and Ciner Holding – can be easily observed in recent years." (Conclusions)
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"The government has developed various mechanisms for creating financial dependence on the part of the media, at both the national and the regional level. Owing to these financial relations, the media outlets become servile to the government, thereby seriously undermining own professional integrity a
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nd independence. The allocation of government advertising has been conducted on the grounds of political eligibility, in a non-transparent manner, disregarding the specific criteria such as viewership, ratings and influence. The advertising campaigns were awarded to media outlets whose editorial policy was biased towards the government, as well to other broadcasters after changing ownership and consequently also editorial policy. Using the state budget funds, the government fosters the sustainability as well as the rise of many media outlets at the national and regional levels, creating unfair competition and distorting the media market. In this way, a wide network of supportive media outlets is created, through which the media space is captured in order to spread political propaganda." (Conclusions)
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"Non-transparent ownership of media, particularly those financed by foreign capital, continues to burden Montenegrin media scene. Foreign media owners, as a rule, continue to support pro-government editorial policies. Their overall operations raise doubts of existence of clientelistic relations with
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the government. Competition among national broadcasters remains unfair considering that affiliates of the media operating in more countries in the region do not invest even minimum resources in production of the content relevant for Montenegrin audience, although they are obliged to do as holders of national licences. Measures taken to prevent illegal media concentration have given limited results, because they failed to ensure that news and campaigns published by the connected media are not controlled and edited from a single centre." (Conclusions)
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