Disruptive Innovations and Paradigm Shifts in Journalism as a Business: From Advertisers First to Readers First and Traditional Operational Models to the AI Factory

Nils Arne Bakke and Jens Barland

SAGE Open, 2022, vol. 12, issue 2, 21582440221094819

Abstract: Since the early years of the 21st century, the newspaper industries of Western liberal democracies have been in a perpetual crisis caused by disruptive digital innovators outside the industry. Until recently, the industry and researchers have conveyed a predominantly pessimistic view of the future. This paper argues that after numerous unsuccessful innovations, the industry is now in the middle of a global paradigm shift with a huge impact on journalism as a business and showing a promising path forward. The new “Readers First Paradigm†is replacing “Advertisers First†The former constitutes a new way of doing business, consisting of two main changes: a revised value proposition focusing on reader preferences and subscriptions; a fully digitized operational model built around AI and machine learning. The article shows that until recently, the paradigm shift has been largely overlooked by researchers in the field. Further, a theoretical framework of industrial paradigm shifts is developed to describe and explain the new paradigm’s emergence and growth. Additionally, a generic “ideal-type†systemic description of the paradigm is provided, identifying the individual components and how they work together.

Keywords: journalism as a business; paradigm shift; business models; digital attention economy; readers first (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:12:y:2022:i:2:p:21582440221094819

DOI: 10.1177/21582440221094819

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