Local and Hyperlocal Journalism

Author(s):  
Kristy Hess ◽  
Lisa Waller

There are more local news outlets operating around the world at any given moment than larger-scale metropolitan newsrooms, and yet it is the latter that have dominated journalism scholarship. As a specific area of inquiry, local journalism—often branded “community journalism” or “hyperlocal journalism”—is a relatively new but rapidly growing field of research in this period of digital disruption. Scholars argue that studying news at the local level can offer rich insights into the role and place of journalism more broadly and reveal much about why people engage with news. Local journalism has been highlighted for its distinct role in reinforcing notions of and building community and the importance of social and public connection among audiences. More recently, attention has shifted to business models sustaining local news given the turbulence facing traditional media and the rapid closure of long-serving local newspapers, especially in the United Kingdom. Scholars have also emphasized the importance of re-conceptualizing local news in a globalized and digital world, highlighting the continued relevance and importance of place to journalists and audiences. Sociology and political science have been the dominant lenses used to examine this sector; however, increasingly scholars are turning to cultural studies to understand the relationship between local news and audiences. Most recent research also indicates there is renewed optimism within the sector, especially among news providers who remain embedded and committed entirely to the local areas they serve.

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 1202-1219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Collins

Online delivery of content has changed media advertising markets, undermining the business model which has underpinned provision of ‘public media’. Three business models have sustained mass media: direct payment for content, payment for advertising and state subsidy, and the author argues, contrary to others’ claims, that advertising finance has made possible production and provision of high-quality, pluralistic and affordable public media. In consequence, substitution of the internet as an advertising medium has undermined the system of finance which, in the UK and societies like it, sustained public media. Global advertising revenues have both fallen and been redistributed, though to differing degrees in different countries, with particularly deleterious effects on local newspapers. Prices have risen, original content production has fallen and reversion to a direct payment-for-content business model is pervasive. And this despite the growth of new entrant online media and established publicly funded media (notably public service broadcasters) resulting in the likelihood of a continued general worsening of affordable and pervasive access to high-quality and diverse public media.


2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (05) ◽  
pp. 52-53
Author(s):  
Judy Feder

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Judy Feder, contains highlights of paper OTC 30794, “Digitalization Deployed: Lessons Learned From Early Adopters,” by John Nixon, Siemens, prepared for the 2020 Offshore Technology Conference, originally scheduled to be held in Houston, 4–7 May. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Copyright 2020 Offshore Technology Conference. Reproduced by permission. With full-scale digital transformation of oil and gas an inevitability, the industry can benefit by examining the strategies of industries such as automotive, manufacturing, marine, and aerospace that have been early adopters. This paper discusses how digital technologies are being applied in other verticals and how they can be leveraged to optimize life-cycle performance, drive down costs, and decouple market volatility from profitability for offshore oil and gas facilities. Barriers to Digital Adoption Despite the recent dramatic growth in use of digital tools to harness the power of data, the industry as a whole has remained conservative in its pace of digital adoption. Most organizations continue to leverage technology in disaggregated fashion. This has resulted in an operating environment in which companies can capture incremental inefficiencies and cost savings on a local level but have been largely unable to cause any discernible effect on operating or business models. Although the recent market downturn constrained capital budgets significantly, an ingrained risk-averse culture is also to blame. Other often-cited reasons for the industry’s reluctance to digitally transform include cost of downtime, cyber-security and data privacy, and limited human capital. A single offshore oil and gas facility failure or plant trip can result in millions of dollars in production losses. Therefore, any solution that has the potential to affect a process or its safety negatively must be proved before being implemented. Throughout its history, the industry has taken a conservative approach when adopting new technologies, even those designed to prevent unplanned downtime. Although many current technologies promise increases of 1 to 2% in production efficiency, these gains become insignificant in the offshore industry if risk exists that deployment of the technology could in any way disrupt operations. Cybersecurity and data privacy are perhaps the most-significant concerns related to adoption of digital solutions by the industry, and they are well-founded. Much of today’s offshore infrastructure was not designed with connectivity or the Internet of Things in mind. Digital capabilities have simply been bolted on. In a recent survey of oil and gas executives, more than 60% of respondents said their organization’s industrial control systems’ protection and security were inadequate, and over two-thirds said they had experienced at least one cybersecurity attack in the previous year. Given this reality, it is no surprise that offshore operators have been reluctant to connect their critical assets. They are also cautious about sharing performance data with vendors and suppliers. This lack of collaboration and connectivity has inevitably slowed the pace of digital transformation, the extent to which it can be leveraged, and the value it can generate.


Author(s):  
Zoran Dragičević ◽  
Saša Bošnjak

The consequence of the increasing development and use of digital technologies, in every segment of society, is the emergence of digital disruption - a powerful external pressure that is changing the way business is done in all industries. Businesses are responding to digital disruption by digital transformation, which involves organizational change, redefining and aligning digital and business strategies, new business models, increased agility of software development and delivery processes, migration and/or integration of legacy systems using cloud-based platforms and ecosystems. In such a context, one of the key responsibilities of a software architect is to maintain the agility of the organization by defending the flexibility of digital strategy and IT resources so that the enterprise is able to transform and respond adequately and rapidly to the effects of digital disruption. In this regard, the question arises as to how digital disruption and business transformation affect the change in the role, importance, competence and agility of a software architect, especially in the context of the development of complex business software systems. This paper aims to present the role of an agile software architect in the era of digital disruption and transformation, by integrating the results of theoretical and empirical research. A systematic literature review identifies the role, importance, and competencies of a software architect in implementing agile architecture. In other hand, empirical research, based on a case study in a large enterprise, provides a better understanding of the importance of software architect for aligning business and digital strategy, as well as its contribution to increasing the agility of the process of developing, delivering and integrating complex business software systems.


Author(s):  
Ravi Kiran Mallidi ◽  
Manmohan Sharma ◽  
Jagjit Singh

Legacy Digital Transformation is modernizing or migrating systems from non-digital or older digital technology to newer digital technologies. Digitalization is essential for information reading, processing, transforming, and storing. Social media, Cloud, and analytics are the major technologies in today's digital world. Digitalization (business process) and Digital Transformation (the effect) are the core elements of newer global policies and processes. Recent COVID pandemic situation, Organizations are willing to digitalize their environment without losing business. Digital technologies help to improve their capabilities to transform processes that intern promote new business models. Applications cannot remain static and should modernize to meet the evolving business and technology needs. Business needs time to market, Agility, and reduce technical debt. Technology needs consist of APIs, better Security, Portability, Scalability, Cloud support, Deployment, Automation, and Integration. This paper elaborates different transformation/modernization approaches for Legacy systems written in very long or End of Life (EOL) systems to newer digital technologies to serve the business needs. EOL impacts application production, supportability, compliance, and security. Organizations spend money and resources on Digital Transformation for considering Investment versus Return on Investment, Agility of the System, and improved business processes. Migration and Modernization are critical for any Legacy Digital Transformation. Management takes decisions to proceed with Digital Transformation for considering Total Cost Ownership (TCO) and Return on Investment (ROI) of the program. The paper also includes a TCO-ROI calculator for Transformation from Legacy / Monolithic to new architectures like Microservices.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1560-1580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Penas Franco

This chapter explains the digital disruption that has occurred and is still happening in the retail industry. It explains the relative positions of the world's leading retailers Wal-Mart, Amazon and Alibaba and the business models of the two top online competitors. It focuses on the impact of SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) technologies and new retail trends enabled or boosted by technology such as omni-channel, customer experience, internet of things (IoT) and analytics, fulfillment and delivery. It deepens into IT and business model customer-centric design, the role of the customer and the store in the new digital retail and finishes with an assessment of ROI in retail digitization. The chapter concludes the fundamental IT-enabled changes of digital disruption are critical for all players, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, pure online players and those with both an online and an offline presence.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Waleed Butt ◽  
Usman Javed Butt

The digitalisation of global financial technology and marketing is central for the success of many banking organisations across the globe. Digital disruption is a change that occurs when new emerging digital technologies and business models affect the value proposition of existing goods and services for low end demanding customers or for new market customers. Digital banking or online or virtual banking is leading to the digitization of all the traditional banking activities, products, process, or services. It is needless to state that mere adaptation of digital media to comply with trends does not guarantee success. The digital trends in the banking industry has seen banks focusing on digitalization core processes, increasing awareness, financial inclusions, and undertaking sustainable practices. FinTech (i.e., financial technology) is competing with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services and reaching the unbanked segment of society, particularly in developing countries. There is a strong need to understand drivers and trends in the FinTech industry.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-132
Author(s):  
Arif Hussain Nadaf

International conflict reporting and national media discourse of warring nations continue to dominate existing scholarship on media–conflict relationships. The literature on the subject lacks significant consideration towards understanding the relevance of local and sub-national media narratives in conflict situations. The existing literature on the media–conflict relationship in the conflict territory of Kashmir shows that the issue has been largely studied from the perspective of national news media in India and Pakistan. This study while engaging with the local news media in the Kashmir region, draws empirical evidence from the local newspapers in the context of the 2014 State Assembly election campaigns which took place amid unprecedented political polarization in the region. The findings from the content analysis revealed that the contested political issues between the political parties found higher resonance in the campaign news while the deliberation regarding the conflict in the region and its resolution had the least prevalence in the news discourse. This not only confirms the significant relevance of local news media and internal political dynamics in redefining the media–conflict relationship in the Kashmir conflict but also suggests the further need to engage with local and regional news narratives in conflict situations.


Journalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 472-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy Jenkins ◽  
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

This study uses 48 in-depth interviews with managers, editors, and reporters at local and regional newspapers and their parent companies in four countries (Finland, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) to examine how they discuss changes to their business models and the ways their news organizations are adapting to emerging audience-consumption trends in the digital environment. The results show that interviewees continue to prioritize the economic importance of their print products, despite declines in advertising and subscriptions. They also believe that for local news to continue, journalists must better understand the business strategies of their news organizations. Finally, they acknowledge the value of experimenting with new approaches to monetization, including implementing paywalls and using analytics to personalize content. In balancing the merits of their print products with their desire to develop new digital offerings, local newspapers seek to operate as ‘ambidextrous organizations’ that exploit the products of the past while exploring innovations that may help sustain them in the future.


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