Klaus Meier, Michael Grassl, J. García-Avilés, Dámaso Mondéjar, A. Kaltenbrunner, Renée Lugschitz, Colin Porlezza, Petra Mazzoni, Vinzenz Wyss, Mirco Saner
{"title":"Innovations in Journalism as Complex Interplay: Supportive and Obstructive Factors in International Comparison","authors":"Klaus Meier, Michael Grassl, J. García-Avilés, Dámaso Mondéjar, A. Kaltenbrunner, Renée Lugschitz, Colin Porlezza, Petra Mazzoni, Vinzenz Wyss, Mirco Saner","doi":"10.17645/mac.7443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.7443","url":null,"abstract":"Where does innovation in journalism come from, how is it implemented, and what factors drive or hinder its development? Scholars have explored these questions from different perspectives for over two decades. Our research holistically considers the broader factors that influence the development of journalistic innovation at the macro, meso, and micro levels, and whether it is internally or externally driven. In a three-year international research project, we have unpacked innovation with this multidimensional approach, looking at the most important innovations in journalism in Austria, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. Our study focuses on the mutual interplay between journalists, media organizations, and society. We investigated 100 case studies with 137 guided interviews with senior managers or project leaders. The results show that the focus of supporting and obstructive factors is internal and on the meso level and that many parallels exist between media systems. Internal factors are the intrinsic motivation of individuals, which need the support of open-minded management, allowing a culture of experimentation without economic pressure and assembling interdisciplinary teams. Across countries and independent of the respective media system, three external key drivers of innovation in journalism can be identified: technology, societal change, and change in the digital media universe. The study confirms once again as if through a magnifying glass that journalism is primarily a public service, especially for those innovations that strengthen the role of journalism in a democratic society.","PeriodicalId":18348,"journal":{"name":"Media and Communication","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139234029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ragne Kõuts-Klemm, Tobias Eberwein, Zrinjka Peruško, Dina Vozab, Anda Rožukalne, I. Skulte, Alnis Stakle
{"title":"Media and Journalism Research in Small European Countries","authors":"Ragne Kõuts-Klemm, Tobias Eberwein, Zrinjka Peruško, Dina Vozab, Anda Rožukalne, I. Skulte, Alnis Stakle","doi":"10.17645/mac.7205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.7205","url":null,"abstract":"Big and small states all function as comprehensive entities: they require state apparatuses, the ability to provide services for citizens, the capacity to protect themselves, and appropriate media systems to guarantee a deliberative communication space for democratic processes. Investigating media, in turn, is important since it informs us about risks and opportunities for media transformations. To examine the impact of smallness on monitoring and research capabilities in news media and journalism, we have compared four small European countries with contrasting historical backgrounds and different types of media systems: Austria, Croatia, Estonia, and Latvia. While earlier research has mainly focused on Western European countries, the current study broadens the perspective to Central and Eastern European countries. The analysis shows that smallness can influence research capabilities in different ways, with advantages and disadvantages for media and journalism research. Fewer national resources can foster internationalisation, with the side effect of less attention to country-specific problems. In the situation of growing specialisation in media and journalism research, small countries may be less capable of providing sufficient infrastructure for knowledge exchange. The article builds on research performed within the framework of the H2020 project Mediadelcom.","PeriodicalId":18348,"journal":{"name":"Media and Communication","volume":"347 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139227939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“It’s New to Us”: Exploring Authentic Innovation in Local News Settings","authors":"Ragnhild Kr. Olsen, Kristy Hess","doi":"10.17645/mac.7444","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.7444","url":null,"abstract":"Many local newsrooms across the globe have been forced to re-assess (and re-assert) their value and function during a period of intense digital disruption. “Innovate or die” has become an accepted mantra as governments, policymakers, and academics focus on shifting, for example, traditional newspapers into the digital era to maintain their perceived relevance. This article argues the need to understand and learn from the experiences of traditional commercial local news providers who have been encouraged to consider innovative solutions for their businesses. The article adopts a pooled case comparison approach, drawing on data from two separate studies examining media innovation in Norway and Australia. We outline three specific themes that appear to shape localized innovation practices: there is ambivalence or challenge to innovation discourse; introduced innovations are done so incrementally and re-contextualised to adapt to a local setting; and there is an authentic approach to innovation that prioritizes change aligning with local journalism’s social and community values.","PeriodicalId":18348,"journal":{"name":"Media and Communication","volume":"12 1-4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139232398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Transforming Crises Into Opportunities: Self-Managed Media in Argentina","authors":"Carolina Escudero","doi":"10.17645/mac.7455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.7455","url":null,"abstract":"The current situation for journalism in Argentina represents a great challenge due to the continuous economic changes linked to inflation and labour precariousness. Faced with this, a phenomenon known as self-managed media has grown over the recent years, also connected to recovered media that promotes innovation, providing material for use in newsrooms to produce novel content and connect with audiences. For this explorative study, based on journalists’ roles and innovation, we conducted a mixed-methods design to analyse self-managed media composed of recovered, cooperatives, community, popular, and alternative media. First, a focus group was held with 10 communicators to understand their current situation; second, 60 journalists were consulted about their roles and innovations; finally, in-depth interviews were conducted with three communicators who work on self-managed media at the Community and Cooperative Media Confederation. The findings reveal the presence of innovative actions, reported by 90% of respondents, and confirm that 70% of the consulted journalists had assumed new roles in management and administration. In addition, 80% of the journalists praised community work as fostering a sense of belonging and its associated benefits regarding motivation and freedom. These sentiments were further validated by the insights shared by the three interviewees. This sense of belonging could be included in the fifth area of innovation in journalism, which centres on the social dimension.","PeriodicalId":18348,"journal":{"name":"Media and Communication","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139228858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Value of News: Aligning Economic and Social Value From an Institutional Perspective","authors":"T. Flew, Agata Stepnik","doi":"10.17645/mac.7462","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.7462","url":null,"abstract":"Journalism is considered essential to a functioning democracy. However, the continued viability of commercial news production is uncertain. News producers continue to lose advertising revenue to platform businesses dominating digital advertising markets, and alternate consumer direct revenue streams are not yet meeting the financial shortfall. This has led to questions of who should pay for news, the role of governments in maintaining news production viability, and whether digital platforms have social or economic responsibilities to pay news publishers. In this article, we seek to make explicit what is often implicit in such debates, which is the value of news. This is hard to know in advance as news is an experience good whose value and quality are only known after consuming it, and a credence good, whose perceived qualities may not be observable even after it is consumed. As such, preparedness to pay for news can be hard to ascertain, accentuated by the large amount of free news available online. This article seeks to use a value perspective to consider the relationship between individual consumer choices and questions of news’s value to society. Applying a new institutional economic perspective, it is observed that the value of news as a consumer product needs to be examined in relation to its value as a social good in democratic societies as both a media product and part of the institutional environment in which other social actors operate. We consider news’s social and economic value within a context of platformed news distribution and declining advertising revenues that appear to be structural and not cyclical.","PeriodicalId":18348,"journal":{"name":"Media and Communication","volume":"69 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139254405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Olga Kolotouchkina, Celia Rangel, Patricia Núñez Gómez
{"title":"Digital Media and Younger Audiences","authors":"Olga Kolotouchkina, Celia Rangel, Patricia Núñez Gómez","doi":"10.17645/mac.v11i4.7647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v11i4.7647","url":null,"abstract":"The active digital engagement of children and teens from a very early age makes them the most prolific digital users and online content creators. Simultaneously, this high level of digital exposure enhances their vulnerability to online risks and the potential for them to encounter harmful online content. This dynamic has profound implications for all dimensions and stakeholders within the digital ecosystem. This thematic issue presents a comprehensive review of the significant advantages, critical risks, and challenges arising from the extensive online engagement of children and adolescents. This body of research provides valuable insights and identifies future research avenues related to emotional well-being, identity development, perceptions of social success and self-esteem, as well as examining the critical aspects concerning digital literacy and the regulatory frameworks governing digital content providers.","PeriodicalId":18348,"journal":{"name":"Media and Communication","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139269191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Generation Alpha Media Consumption During Covid-19 and Teachers’ Standpoint","authors":"Blandína Šramová, Jiří Pavelka","doi":"10.17645/mac.v11i4.7158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v11i4.7158","url":null,"abstract":"With the development of digital technologies that are part of everyday life, new cultural norms and patterns are developing with which children play, learn, communicate, and socialise in the digital age. Technologies are also fundamentally changing teachers’ attitudes to education. This study aims to determine the motivation of teachers of generation Alpha for using technology and mobile applications, what technologies were preferred by generation Alpha after the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, and for what reason. The research sample included one segment of the Alpha generation, pupils of primary schools (N = 53) and their primary school teachers (N = 83). A qualitative research design was used. The data processed by thematic content analysis identified the themes associated with using digital tools by generation Alpha, according to the teachers. The results showed the teachers’ motivation for using digital technology with generation Alpha, such as meeting their physiological, safety, social, cognitive, aesthetic, and self-actualisation needs. Generation Alpha’s media applications saturated four needs: entertainment, information, education, and games. They were covered by 12 applications. The findings show that the digital communication activities of generation Alpha refer to the audience’s intentionality, selectivity, and involvement with the media. The presented research opens other possible research topics, such as how new communication and mobile apps influence the behaviours of Alpha generation, value orientation, and well-being, and how effectively to use mobile apps in education praxis.","PeriodicalId":18348,"journal":{"name":"Media and Communication","volume":"22 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139267215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"News Media Monitoring Capabilities in 14 European Countries: Problems and Best Practices","authors":"H. Harro-Loit, Tobias Eberwein","doi":"10.17645/mac.7199","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.7199","url":null,"abstract":"Social acceleration has been a catalyst for rapid changes concerning the mediascapes of European societies. Democratic societies need deliberation, but what kinds of journalism and communication cultures are supported by different stakeholders and structural possibilities? The aim of this article is to conceptualise and analyse the risks and opportunities concerning the monitoring capabilities in key domains of the media field. This includes the performance and normative regulation of news media (journalism) as well as media usage patterns and competencies of different actors, all of which influence the quality of deliberative communication across cultures. The monitoring potential is related to various stakeholders who gather data and information on media and media usage, transform the information into knowledge, and use this knowledge to create evidence-based media policy. What interests and values are served by which stakeholders and how does this actual monitoring serve the media policy in different European countries? What is the role and resources of media researchers? These questions are answered with the help of an extensive literature review and a synoptic analysis of the monitoring capabilities of 14 European countries, based on original case studies. The article will, thus, broaden the conceptual understanding of risks and opportunities for deliberative communication in democratic societies—and at the same time offer an initial inventory of typical problems and best practices for monitoring deliberative communication across Europe.","PeriodicalId":18348,"journal":{"name":"Media and Communication","volume":"37 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139274727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Organizations as Innovations: Examining Changes in Journalism Through the Lens of Newly-Emerging Organizations","authors":"Christopher Buschow, Maike Suhr","doi":"10.17645/mac.7399","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.7399","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that the growing variety of new journalistic organizations and their diversification beyond the traditional newsroom may offer a deeper and broader understanding of change and innovation within journalism. Newly emerging organizations play a multifaceted role in journalism: They are both drivers and results of change; they serve as indicators of the ways in which the structures of journalism and its production processes are evolving; they reveal industry trends early on and enable longitudinal research. Despite the emergence of non-traditional organizations in journalism, existing studies on these new entities remain fragmented and have yet to coalesce into a sustained research program. Against this background, this conceptual article aims to contribute to the ongoing theoretical progress in journalism studies in three ways. First, it identifies key factors of why organizational innovations happen. Second, it systemizes recent studies exemplifying the plurality of new organizations in journalism according to different levels from organization studies, including the field level, the level of organizational populations, and the level of the single organization. Finally, the article proposes a research agenda for establishing “organizations as innovations” as a novel conceptual lens for understanding change and innovation in journalism studies.","PeriodicalId":18348,"journal":{"name":"Media and Communication","volume":"15 12","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134953858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michał Głowacki, Jacek Mikucki, Katarzyna Gajlewicz-Korab, Łukasz Szurmiński, Maria Łoszewska-Ołowska
{"title":"Researching Media and Democracy Researchers: Monitoring Capabilities in Poland","authors":"Michał Głowacki, Jacek Mikucki, Katarzyna Gajlewicz-Korab, Łukasz Szurmiński, Maria Łoszewska-Ołowska","doi":"10.17645/mac.7239","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.7239","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we look at the conditions of media and democracy discourses in Poland via the lenses of monitoring time-related capabilities. We are interested in how media–societal change in 2000–2020 has influenced the Polish researchers’ responses to deliver applied research and further foster hyper-knowledge sharing between policymakers, media industries, and academia. Through an in-depth investigation of Poland’s media researchers’ publications database (<em>N</em> = 1,000), we aim to examine the crucial interest areas considering the critical cultural junctures in three highly related areas: technology, politics, and society. The critical junctures theory review follows the mapping of changes in related scholarly analyses to uncover three sides of Polish scholarship monitoring capabilities alongside cultural conditions of researchers’ impact on democracy and the media. The overall hypothesis is that examining media and democracy in Poland reflects technological and political change, with the cultural research path dependencies in analyzing broader social context (see, for instance, a young democracy, illiberal turns and social polarization conditions, and so on). This corresponds to related tensions between the Western media’s theories and practices concerning democracy.","PeriodicalId":18348,"journal":{"name":"Media and Communication","volume":"22 20","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134953515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}