Search

Corresponding to the task 2.2 of EUMEPLAT Work Package 2, this deliverable aims to analyze the Platformization of news in the 10 countries included in the project and assess how and to what extent Europeanization is part of the debate about Europe on social media. With that aim, the team from ISCTE worked with all 10 partner universities to design and implement a methodological framework to collect, categorize and analyze the most relevant social media posts in all 10 countries in September to November 2021. This collaborative research confirms the role of social media platforms in channeling the debate about european issues, documents the struggle of news media to dispute the attention of users with other kinds of actors on those platforms and indicates that Europeanization is not a central part of the debate about Europe.

The goal of this document is to explicit both the procedures implemented in order to design a framework for studying the platformization of news in Europe (WP2, task 2.1) and the tasks that are due for the research of the issue in the 10 countries included in the EUMEPLAT project (WP2, task 2.2). The document will develop in two stages. First describing in detail the tests made for the development of the framework and the choices taken in its design. And, second, describing in detail the envisaged implementation of the framework, in order to respond to the research questions. The first part has to do with design, the second with implementation.

Purpose: Journalistic startups are thriving around the world, bringing new approaches to the news media environment in terms of concepts, contents, dissemination, internal organization, and business models. This research is relevant to create a prospective view on the evolution of the news media business in the next years, also allowing us to identify some trends and experiences which can be useful to future researchers work, and for professionals of news media companies, startups or not, to get some insights that might help to develop (or even save) their own businesses. Methodology: Through semi-structured interviews with the editorial managers of each of the research subjects, we tried to understand the genesis, concepts, processes, and goals of these startups. We made a thematic analysis of the content, using an adapted version of the IPTC NewsCodes, to understand the editorial approach in terms of Genre, Subject, Media Topic, Media, and Priority in each of the startup’s publication platform. To better understand the business, we did a business model mapping, using the Business Model Canvas conceptual tool, for all the subjects. Findings/Contribution: The main findings indicate that all the startups in this research started through the identification of a problem or a need, within a small group of friends or colleagues. They all try to fit into a niche and not compete with legacy media, and search for alternative financing sources. All the teams are small, produce mainly long form reporting and interviews, and use mostly written text - but video tends to grow in volume. All the subjects work for niche audiences, by location or interests. These results contribute to create a structured and broader view of the journalistic startups scene in Portugal, but can also help other researchers to apply similar methods to map different realities, in geographical or thematical terms. This research can also contribute to better understanding the challenges that digital news media face in this networked society we live in., Nordic Journal of Media Management, Vol. 1 No. 2 (2020)