How mobile do you go: a study of 5 news media start-up cases in Portugal

Journalistic start-ups are thriving around the world, bringing new approaches to the news media environment in terms of concepts, contents, dissemination, internal organization, business models and, of course, consumption patterns. But the concept of start-up, commonly used in the IT area (traditionally more agile in terms of innovation), is not easy to be adapted and redefined for the more traditional news media environment. All over the world, innovation is growing in the news media business, and start-ups are a big source for it, even if the inherent fragility of many projects don’t allow these new companies to fully accomplish all their objectives, even when they can assure its survival after the first years of activity. This research aims to create a prospective view on the evolution of the mobile performance and consumption of news. As a case study, we try to do a panorama on the mobile consumption and performance of news in the Portuguese journalistic start-up scene, looking at a diversity of projects, with different goals, business models and audiences - and the relations established between them.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Explaining rigid dieting in normal-weight women: The key role of body image inflexibility

Ferreira, C., Trindade, I.A., & Martinho, A. (2016). Explaining rigid dieting in normal-weight women: the key role of body image inflexibility. Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 21(1), 49–56. doi: 10.1007/s40519-015-0188-x.Restrictive dieting is an increasing behavior presented by women in Western societies, independently of their weight. There are several known factors that motivate diet, namely a sense of dissatisfaction with one’s body and unfavorable social comparisons based on physical appearance. However, dieting seems to have a paradoxical effect and has been considered a risk factor for weight gain and obesity in women, and associated with maladaptive eating. Nevertheless, the study of the emotional regulation processes that explain the adoption of inflexible and rigid dietary patterns still remains little explored. In this line, the present study aims to explore why normal-weight women engage in highly rigid and inflexible diets. We hypothesize that body and weight dissatisfaction, and unfavorable social comparisons based on physical appearance with peers explain the adoption of inflexible eating rules, through the mechanism of body image inflexibility. The study comprised 508 female college students who presented BMIs between 18.5 and 25. Path analyses were conducted to explore the study’s hypotheses. Results revealed that the model explained 43% of inflexible eating and revealed excellent fit indices. Furthermore, the unwillingness to experience unwanted events related to body image (body image inflexibility) mediated the impact of body dissatisfaction and unfavorable social comparisons on the engagement in inflexible eating rules. This study highlights the relevance of body image inflexibility to explain rigid eating attitudes, and it seems to be an important avenue for the development of interventions focusing on the promotion of adaptive attitudes towards body image and eating in young women

Innovative business models

One of the biggest challenges media businesses are facing is the redefinition of distribution and consumption patterns, shifting from traditional channels such as print, real time radio and TV to online, including digital formats like on-demand videos and podcasts. This digital revolution demands media workers and managers to consider a change from the former one-size-fits-all business model to a panoply of tailor-made models.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

AI and journalism, robot journalism and algorithms

Automated journalism is also known as algorithmic journalism or robot journalism and consists of news articles generated by computer programmes. Through artificial intelligence (AI) software, stories are produced automatically by computers rather than human reporters. These programmes interpret, organise, and present data in human-readable ways. The process involves an algorithm that scans large amounts of data, selects from an assortment of preprogrammed article structures, orders key points, and inserts details such as names, places, amounts, rankings, statistics, and other figures. The output can also be customized to fit a certain voice, tone, or style. Until now, despite it being a growing trend, not that many media outlets worldwide have used automated journalism on a large scale. Pioneer adopters include The Associated Press, Forbes, ProPublica, and The Los Angeles Times. Early implementations were mainly used for stories based on statistics and numerical figures. Common topics include sports recaps32, weather, financial reports, real estate analysis, and earnings reviews.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The lessons learned from the unique characteristics of small technology-based firms.

The aim of this study is to identify how characteristics of small technology-based firms (STBFs), their unique combination of internal capabilities, structure, and processes, influence strategy formulation. Based on qualitative research using multiple case studies supported by semi-structured interviews, the study’s main results indicate the founder’s technical expertise shapes the business, mission, and vision. Lack of resources allows limited activities in strategy formulation with few matching capabilities analyses or benchmarking studies. STBFs favor competitive analysis almost exclusively in developing a market positioning strategy without regard for other methods