Making “Un-news”: News aggregation in Chinese press

“Un-news” is a Chinese newsroom jargon that refers to the process as well as the product of aggregation. It encapsulates clashes between digital and legacy journalism, challenges posed by and responses to technologies in the media industry. It differs from aggregation news elsewhere because of dynamic media environment in China. This ethnographic study closely analyzes manifestations of “un-news” churned out by digital aggregators who have to work under management of legacy print journalists and editors in a local Chinese press. The hierarchy of influences model is used to decompose the meanings and complexities of “un-news.” Fieldwork observations have confirmed our expectations that the hierarchy model remains structurally valid, although the content and meaning of influence have changed drastically within each level.

Pressure, compromise and overwork: How Australian regional journalists gain job satisfaction through community service

In a time of enormous change in the Australian news media industry – with outlet closures, redesign of company business models, rationalization of staff and shifts in medium uptake – this article explores journalists’ exposure to and perceptions of work pressures in their jobs. It explores the relationship of these experiences with the journalists’ job satisfaction. The study reports that journalists find the industry difficult and demanding, with time pressures, ethical compromise and overwork being their main concerns. However, the study also found that journalists still derive satisfaction from a profession they perceive as meaningful through informing their communities about matters that affect their decision making and how they live. This passion for community service alongside the notion of holding authority to account result in a sense of overarching job satisfaction. This article presents part of a study that investigated the experience of journalists in remote and regional media organizations in Queensland and New South Wales through survey and interviews.

Recommending News in Traditional Media Companies

The adoption of recommender systems in online news personalization has made it possible to tailor the news stream to the individual interests of each reader. Previous research on commercial recommender systems has emphasized their use in large-scale media houses and technology companies, and real-world experiments indicate substantial improvements of click rates and user satisfaction. It is less understood how smaller media houses are coping with this new technology, how the technology affects their business models, their editorial processes, and their news production in general. Here we report on the experiences from numerous Scandinavian media houses that have experimented with various recommender strategies and streamlined their news production to provide personalized news experiences. In addition to influencing the content and style of news stories and the working environment of journalists, the news recommender systems have been part of a profound digital transformation of the whole media industry. Interestingly, many media houses have found it undesirable to automate the entire recommendation process and look for approaches that combine automatic recommendations with editorial choices.

Service ecosystems: why the media industry prefers access, not ownership

Purpose Because of the increasing importance of access over ownership, the purpose of this paper is to propose a service ecosystem perspective to help managers navigate hypercompetition. With the rise of cloud-based services and the ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy has shifted toward hypercompetition, a state characterized by organizational advantages that are rapidly created and then destroyed by intense competitive moves. Because advantages are quickly eroded, organizations must be aggressive in the number of actions they take and the speed with which they execute these actions. The service ecosystem perspective focuses on relationships that allow organizations to jointly adjust to one another and to their environment. Design/methodology/approach This paper first reviews traditional strategies for navigating hypercompetition. Then, it presents an explanation of the service ecosystem perspective. Finally, the three north stars and media examples are provided. Findings The service ecosystem perspective asserts “north stars” that can guide managerial decision-making in hypercompetitive environments. These north stars are: cultivate system norms, facilitate feedback loops and embrace servitization. Originality/value In today’s world, organizations are increasingly seeking access to resources instead of ownership of them. The proposed approach suggests that, rather than an organization owning the resources it needs to achieve advantages, organizations are increasingly relying on accessing resources by coordinating with other organizations to draw upon the resource(s) as needed, without incurring the additional burdens of ownership. Examples from the media industry are used to illustrate the three north stars of the service ecosystems perspective.

Media Business Literacy in the Digital Age

The digital age is changing everything forever. Media is changing in many ways ranging from the way people screen it to the way it is operated as a business. Profitable mainstream media of yesterday is struggling to survive against disruptive innovation brought by new technologies and being challenged by giant technology companies such as Google and Facebook, which are forming a duopoly, especially in terms of digital advertising revenues. These conditions are forcing media managers to be more literate than ever. Although there is a definition for media literacy and business literacy, there is no definition for media business literacy yet. This study will try to make a definition of media business literacy, which should involve stakeholders, markets, products, customers, competitors, financial terminology, and financial statements. After this broad definition, the rest of the chapter will focus on the changing media industry structure providing an insight on some financial and numerical information that needs to be understood by everyone interested in media business.

Safety of Women Journalists in Nigerian News Media

In recent decades, women journalists' professional safety has attracted an enormous research attention globally and in Nigeria. Interestingly, often similar findings are likely generated by most of the studies highlighting stiff gender-based challenges. This chapter investigated the safety experiences of Nigerian women journalists to identifying the typology of gender-based discriminations and coping strategy affected women journalists used to manage to work in a male-dominated media industry. Employing a semi-structured interview approach, 37 participants (25 women journalists, 10 men journalists, and 2 human resource managers) were interviewed from 12 broadcast media organisations in Northern Nigeria. The data were analysed using thematic analysis and the findings showed that Nigerian women journalists experience different types of gendered unsafety including discrimination in newsgathering and production and sexual harassment; most of the affected women used risky coping strategies such as ignoring; most media organisations lacked policies and frameworks to handle such cases.

Mass Media and Health Communication During the Pandemic

Importance of specialized health communication has been demonstrated fully during the recent COVID 19 pandemic. New variants of the virus continue to emerge, the larger portion of the country’s population remains unvaccinated, and booster doses are becoming essential. Therefore, the need for sustained interest in health communication through mass media is far from over. Health communication helps public understand the threat and make informed choices about the preventive measures and treatment. Done effectively, it can produce behaviour change, prevent panic and ensure the participation of populations in governments’ public health measures. Healthcare sector possesses the necessary knowledge to impart this information to the media industry which is largely unstructured and learning from experiences. Therefore, the healthcare sector needs to communicate effectively with the mass media representatives in order to influence the population in adopting and continuing healthy behaviour to fight the pandemic.

Innovation in Sports Media Content Production

ABSTRACT – This article investigates the innovation in sports content production by ESPN Brasil over the last decade as it makes changes to its media ecosystem. Qualitative research is the chosen methodology for this paper. Three criteria were established based on theoretical-conceptual perspectives on innovation in journalism: contextualization, engagement, and digital technologies. The data was collected from semi-structured interviews with professionals related to the case under study. It appears that experiments in content production are not separate from other issues in the media industry, such as the crisis in business models and the need for strategic leadership for innovation. The uncontainable pursuit of innovation is just as risky as remaining stagnant, and innovation must be in line with the media company’s main goal. RESUMO – Este artigo investiga a implementação de inovações na produção de conteúdo esportivo feitas pela ESPN do Brasil, durante a última década, realizadas como reflexo das mudanças em seu ecossistema midiático. A abordagem metodológica é qualitativa e, com base em perspectivas teórico-conceituais sobre inovação no jornalismo, foram estabelecidos três critérios de análise: contextualização, engajamento e tecnologias digitais. Os dados foram coletados por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas com profissionais relacionados ao caso estudado. Constata-se que as experimentações na produção de conteúdo não se isolam de outras questões da indústria de mídia, como a crise nos modelos de negócios e a necessidade de uma liderança estratégica para a inovação. A busca desenfreada pela inovação é tão arriscada quanto se manter estagnado e a inovação tem de ser conectada com o propósito da empresa de mídia. RESUMEN – Este artículo investiga la implementación de innovaciones en la producción de contenido deportivo realizadas por ESPN do Brasil, durante la última década. El enfoque metodológico es cualitativo y, basado en perspectivas teóricas y conceptuales sobre la innovación en el periodismo, se establecieron tres criterios de análisis: contextualización, engagement y tecnologías digitales. Los datos fueron recolectados a través de entrevistas semiestructuradas con profesionales relacionados con el caso estudiado. Parece que los experimentos en la producción de contenidos no están aislados de otros temas de la industria de los medios, como la crisis de los modelos de negocio y la necesidad de liderazgo estratégico para la innovación. La principal conclusión es que la búsqueda desesperada de innovación es a menudo tan arriesgada como permanecer estancada y que la innovación tiene que estar conectada con el propósito de los medios de comunicación.

The Commuting Behavior Evolution in Suburban Express Line after Operation: Based on Multi-Source Space-Time Big Data

Virtual Reality news (VR news) provides news reports relying on virtual reality technology, creating a strong sense of immersion and presence. It is a new format of news and a new application for immersive media. Previous researches studies on VR news mainly focus on the range of topics and the media effect, and point out the advantages and disadvantages of them. However, the content of VR news is usually neglected. This research aims to conduct a content analysis on the VR news from CCTV.com by applying the framing theory. The coding scheme is designed based on Zang Guoren’s three-level structures theory, analyzing 220 pieces of news in total. According to the objective data obtained through the analysis, the conclusion is drawn on significant features about VR news, including theme, source, tendency, narrative structure, multimodal presentation, and framework. This research has theoretical significance for it applies the framework theory to analyze the VR news, and also provides inspiration for the production of VR news and the media industry.