Operationalising news diversity: A comparison of Norway and Flanders

Several scholars and institutions have made attempts at defining and conceptualising news diversity, underlying its increasing relevance within and beyond academia. However, very few have operationalised it for a given media market, let alone in more than one simultaneously. In this paper, we critically assess existing theories and studies and present main shortcomings on the conceptual, methodological and empirical levels. We proceed by applying and testing two different frameworks and methods for assessing news diversity, co-developed by the authors separately from one another, to two different yet in many regards similar European media markets: those of Norway and Flanders (Belgium). In doing so, we seek to properly operationalise news diversity and expand the body of internationally comparative news-related research in times of fundamental change in the news industry, its production practices and markets. We highlight obstacles and best practices for future research.publishedVersio

In Search of Journalism Funding. Scenarios for future media policy in Norway

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journalism Practice in September 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17512786.2017.1370972.Digitization has caused disruption in the traditional business model of the news media. Policy implementation in the media sector is therefore increasingly raised as an economic question, involving concern for the ability of legacy media to serve as independent platforms for public deliberation. While media policy traditionally tends to focus on unwanted developments (i.e. local monopolies, ownership concentration, etc.), the side-effect often representing an obstacle to innovation, the question is how future media policy should account for innovation needs. Combining media economics, policy analysis and strategic management theory, this article combines interviews with key stakeholders with policy document analysis to a scenario analysis of possible future policy directions enabling innovation in the news industries in Norway.acceptedVersio

Strategic and Organisational fit in Corporate News Markets: A Principal-agent Approach to Studying Newspaper Mergers

This article analyses strategic and organisational fit in corporate newspaper mergers in the context of the digitalisation of local newspaper markets. Using the 2019 acquisition of Nordsjø Media by Amedia in Norway as case, we analyse how eight editors-in-chief perceive the process of incorporating small, low-frequency, print-oriented monopolistic newspapers into one of Scandinavia’s largest newspaper chains. The semi-structured interviews were analysed in light of perceived strategic and organisational fit in a principal-agent theoretical framework, the aim of which is to shed light on corporate ownership effects in consolidated newspaper markets. The analysis reveals the precarity of independent ownership in digitising news markets, to which corporatisation emerges as a necessary and welcomed solution. We find the strategic fit as perceived by editors to be tied to technological resources and scale economics, while organisational fit is hampered by the speed and pressure of corporatisation processes. While these results largely support findings from previous acquisition studies in the news industries, the contribution of this analysis lies primarily with the necessity of scale required by the technological transformation that forces independent newspapers to submit to larger chain operations and how it influences considerations of fit in disruptive digital news markets.publishedVersio

Kritisk tilstand: Har kritikeren utspilt sin rolle som smakens portvakt?

I denne artikkelen utforsker vi rolleforståelsen til norske musikkritikere som publiserer i allmenne nyhetsmedier. Artikkelen har søkelys på hvordan kritikerrollen reforhandles i tråd med den digitale utviklingen av musikkonsum og journalistikkproduksjon. Dybdeintervjuer med fem norske kritikere illustrerer hvordan rollen utfordres av svik tende etterspørsel, endrede lyttervaner og utydelige skiller mellom en profesjonell kritiker og nye typer forbrukervei ledere. Studien finner at overgangen fra fysiske musikkformater til strømmetjenester svekker etterspørselen etter for brukerveiledning, samtidig som musikk blir en mindre viktig identitetsmarkør. Begge disse tendensene påvirker kritikerens evne til å rettferdiggjøre seg selv overfor produsentens ressursperspektiv ut ifra en teoretisk ramme som konseptualiserer hverdagsjournalisten som en veileder innenfor områdene identitet, konsum og følelser.publishedVersio

Toward ‘Cultures of Engagement’? An exploratory comparison of engagement patterns on Facebook news posts

Information production, dissemination, and consumption are contingent upon cultural and financial dimensions. This study attempts to find cultures of engagement that reflect how audiences engage with news posts made by either commercial or state-owned news outlets on Facebook. To do so, we collected over a million news posts (n = 1,173,159) produced by 482 news outlets in three Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) and analyzed over 69 million interactions across three metrics of engagement (i.e. comments, likes, and shares). More concretely, we investigate whether the patterns of engagement follow distinct patterns across national boundaries and type of outlet ownership. While we are skeptical of metrics of engagement as markers of specific cultures of engagement, our results show that there are clear differences in how readers engage with news posts depending on the country of origin and whether they are fully state-owned or private-owned outlets.publishedVersio

Datafied Societies: Digital Infrastructures, Data Power, and Regulations

The datafication and platformization of social processes further the overall shift from an open, public, and decentralized internet towards a private and siloed realm that establishes power asymmetries between those who provide data and those who own, trade, and control data. The ongoing process of datafying societies embraces the logics of aggregation and automation that increasingly negotiate transactions between markets and social entities, informing governance systems, institutions, and public discourse. This thematic issue presents a collection of articles that tackle the political economy of datafication from three main perspectives: (a) digital media infrastructures and its actors, data structures, and markets; (b) the articulation of data power, public access to information, data privacy, and the risks of citizens in a datafied society; and (c) the policies and regulations for effective, independent media institutions and data sovereignty. It concludes with a reflection on the role of media and communication scholarship when studying sociotechnical processes controlled by giant technological companies

Towards Responsible Media Recommendation

Reading or viewing recommendations are a common feature on modern media sites. What is shown to consumers as recommendations is nowadays often automatically determined by AI algorithms, typically with the goal of helping consumers discover relevant content more easily. However, the highlighting or filtering of information that comes with such recommendations may lead to undesired effects on consumers or even society, for example, when an algorithm leads to the creation of filter bubbles or amplifies the spread of misinformation. These well-documented phenomena create a need for improved mechanisms for responsible media recommendation, which avoid such negative effects of recommender systems. In this research note, we review the threats and challenges that may result from the use of automated media recommendation technology, and we outline possible steps to mitigate such undesired societal effects in the future.publishedVersio

Revenue and Branding Strategy in the Norwegian News Market The Case of TV 2 News Channel

Future revenue streams for journalism are said not to lie in breaking news, but in spe - cialist journalism that can engender income to sustain news production. A case study of the Norwegian TV 2 News Channel, however, shows that its profit–making features lie not in its content but in its mode of distribution. The added value of the channel to DTT subscription packages is as much due to TV 2’s market power and news brand value as to the news channel concept itself. This article analyses the function of the news channel in today’s competitive journalistic landscape from the perspective of news sociology and media economy, presenting a quantitative content analysis of the news output of TV 2 News Channel, qualitative interviews with TV 2 news editors, and analysis of key strategy documents of the organization

Journalistic Autonomy. Between Structure, Agency and Institution

This article investigates the concept of autonomy within the journalistic institution. A review of the literature reveals that journalist autonomy is restricted at the political, economic and organisational levels of news production, negotiated at the editorial level, and exercised at the level of practice. The article addresses the limits of professional autonomy, aiming for a wider contextualisation of the question to analyse the factors that restrict and enable journalistic autonomy. By investigating journalistic autonomy within the duality of structure, the analysis finds that autonomy is attained when journalists engage in the recursive reproduction of the institution. The level of autonomy enjoyed by journalists therefore remains a fluid concept that is continually adjusted to manage the daily task of reporting the news

The Emergence of Metropolitan News: Shifting Concepts of Localism

This article presents a quantitative and comparative content analysis of four Norwegian regional newspapers owned by the Schibsted Media Group. The aim of the analysis is to establish levels of localism in the online and printed editions of the newspapers and to discuss the relation between the local, regional, metropolitan and national news levels on two publishing platforms. Results show that the local profile is increasingly becoming the defining feature of these regional newspapers, even more so online than in print. As the analysis shows an increase in the amount of everyday life-related stories in the local news content, this study finds that Norwegian regional newspapers are moving towards a more metropolitan profile