advertisement
A report, authored by researchers at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), has found that smaller, well-engaged audiences can play a significant role in sustaining digital media outlets.
The report titled ‘What if Scale Breaks Community? Rebooting Audience Engagement When Journalism is Under Fire’, looks at three digital news outlets from the “global south” as case studies, including The Quint, Philippines-based Rappler and South Africa-based Daily Maverick.
The report finds that in response to political attacks, platform capture and other challenges, these news organisations are evolving – they are moving from audience engagement at scale and are increasingly focused on “forging deeper, narrower, and stronger relationships with audiences” laying emphasis on personalised encounters with niche audiences.
According to the report, surviving solely on scaled engagement can be a difficult prospect for digital news media outlets as online/social media platforms can be subject to various forms of ‘platform capture’ and can see frequent changes their products and policies.
It suggests “remaining audience-led and rebooting engagement” in such an event.
The report claims that these audiences, once ‘weaponised’, can’t be recalibrated through direct engagement at scale, but engaging smaller audiences can have a bigger impact.
Civic engagement, according to the report, is a good alternative which can create loyal audiences. It takes the example of The Quint’s MyReport citizen journalism initiative, along with Rappler’s Move.PH.
It suggests that even though building membership programmes is not a straightforward move, news outlets are moving to membership as a natural progression along their separate trajectories of audience engagement.
“If Rappler, Daily Maverick, and The Quint can reboot audience engagement with their limited resources while facing extreme external pressures, so too can many other news organisations in less challenging circumstances,” it concludes.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)