I’ll provide a write-up of the defense in a later post. With this one, I actually just wanted to invite everybody to the defense (it is public, after all, and I’d like the results of my work to reach as many people as possible), to show a picture of the dissertation fresh from the press, and to publish the following summary of my work. The summary is taken from the dissertation, and it goes through the main points of it very briefly.

Compared to traditional news media, news websites hold a unique set of affordances in relation to news workers, namely instantaneity, multimodality, interactivity, and hypertextuality. This constellation of affordances constitutes a particular condition for the production and presentation of news. This dissertation is an enquiry into how institutional actors (news workers) appropriate these potentials afforded by new, digital technology (news websites).

The enquiry is conducted with an integration of quantitative and qualitative methods, and the analyses generally support the hypothesis that news workers working on Danish news websites do, indeed, make use of the four affordances, and that they do so in ways so that they maintain journalistic control in the process. The analyses include a content analysis of formal features on 93 Danish news websites, a qualitative case study of real-time coverage of emergent crisis, and a theory-building case study of audience participation in news production for news web-sites. The dissertation propose mediatization theory as a means for contextualizing the current developments within the institution of journalism, arguing that it is an institution which is accommodating the logics and formats of the media institution – but not without some resistance from its actors.

The dissertation consists of introductory chapters (Introduction, Terminology, Theoretical framework, and Research design), four research articles, and a concluding chapter, which outlines the conclusion, identifies the most important contributions to existing knowledge, and points to future research in continuation of this dissertation. Except for one of the four research articles, this dissertation is written in English; the research article in question is Danish-language.

If you want to read the entire dissertation, drop me an email and I’ll forward it to you.

MediaWatch is a Danish website with news and analysis of the media sector, and my job will be to provide short analyses of current developments in the media business – as seen from an academic point of view. I will write an article every month, give or take.

My articles will be published behind a paywall, but as a part of the deal with MediaWatch, I’ve got the rights to publish my articles here on the blog. They are, however, in Danish, so my international audience (which probably amounts to a total of 2-3 persons) will have to use Google Translate.

Anyway, here is the my first article (in Danish):

Bosten-dækning: Almindelige mennesker har også brug for en redaktør

Dækningen af bomberne i Boston er et godt eksempel på, hvordan crowdsourcing på sociale medier er ekstremt værdifuldt for medierne – og hvordan det kan løbe løbsk, hvis det ikke redigeres og sorteres, skriver Aske Kammer,  ekstern lektor, KU.

Dækningen af de dramatiske begivenheder i Boston tjener som et godt eksempel på, hvordan almindelige mennesker på én gang kan bidrage substantielt til dækningen af en stor begivenhed og køre den helt af sporet.

I det digitale mediemiljø, hvor informationsindsamling og nyhedsformidling ikke længere er forbeholdt de etablerede medier, viste efterspillet fra terrorbomberne nemlig både de bedste og de værste sider af publikumsdeltagelse. Fra konstruktive bidrag til decideret skadelig og ødelæggende selvsving over forkerte oplysninger. Forskellen på de to eksempler: Et redigerende medie, der sorterer og filtrerer informationen.

Det bedste fandt sted på eksempelvis den amerikanske nyhedstjeneste Breitbarts live-blog om menneskejagten på den sidste af de to mistænkte.

Her blev billeder og information, som almindelige mennesker lagde ud på medier som Twitter og Facebook, omhyggeligt inkluderet i den løbende beskrivelse af begivenhedernes gang.  Det gav publikum adgang til detaljer, medieorganisationerne ellers ikke kunne have fået fat på – resultatet var en mere detaljeret og bredere dækning af en sag, der havde offentlighedens store interesse.

Dette kommer måske tydeligst til udtryk i de billeder, der blev sendt ud af Twitter-profilen Shawna England af et hus omringet af svært bevæbnede anti-terror-politifolk. Disse billeder er i skrivende stund re-tweetet ikke mindre end 13.753 gange, heraf mange af de etablerede medieorganisationer.

Begivenhederne i Bosten viste dog også, hvordan sociale medier kan forurene dækningen med information, der ikke bare er ligegyldig men i værst fald også forkert og direkte skadelig.  I kølvandet på bomberne, gav nettet plads til de mange borgere, der gerne fra sidelinjen vil hjælpe med deres eget opklaringsarbejde -  ikke bare det journalistiske, men også politiets.

Brugere på Reddit (en social nyheds- og underholdningsside) mente nemlig at have fundet frem til gerningsmændene bag bombeterroren ved at scanne politiradioer og udføre online detektivarbejde.  Indsatsen medførte, ifølge kommentatoren Ryan Chittum i Columbia Journalism Review, selvtilfredse kommentarer og konklusioner som “Dang, put the old media to shame!.” og “This is historic Internet sleuthing.”

Problemet var bare, at det var den forkerte mand – en forsvunden studerende på MIT-universitet – de havde fat i, og at en uskyldig person dermed blev udråbt til terrorist…

Der er tale om to eksempler på crowdsourcing. Altså på at offentligheden og al den viden og indsigt, almindelige mennesker ude i virkeligheden sidder inde med, lægges sammen og derved skaber et mere fyldigt billede, end det enkelte individs – eller medies – perspektiv kan. Men hvor det ene viste, hvordan crowdsourcing under en grad af redaktionel kontrol og med en vis målrettethed kan fungere, illustrerer det andet, hvordan det at løbe med en halv vind kan udvikle sig til en ustyrlig medietornado.

Disclaimer: MediaWatch is owned by JP/Politikens Hus, which also owns several of the newspapers and news websites I analyze and deal with critically in my academic work. This could cause a conflict of interests, but as 1) I have total freedom with regards to what I write, and 2) my only payment from MediaWatch is free access to their other articles, I don’t think that will be a problem.

I submitted the dissertation at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen, on January 31 this year after exactly three years of researching and writing. The defence will take place on May 3, beginning 1pm, and will be open to the public. I will publish more information on the defence here on the blog later. Furthermore, I will also put out more information on the dissertation when my teaching obligations on the university allows for it. So stay tuned!

Update April 23, 2013: The defence will take place in auditorium 22.0.11 in Southern Campus of University of Copenhagen.

Topics of interest for the theme issue include (but are not limited to):

• Institutional changes in the news market
• Ownership and its consequences
• Public and private subsidies to news media
• Google, Facebook, and other new, commercial actors in the news business
• Payment models for online news
• Free news and changes in news consumption
• Audience segmentation
• The economy of journalistic start-ups, blogs, websites with niche news, etc.
• Commercialization of news values
  

We currently have some problems with the journal’s website, but here, you can read the full CfP (English version). Deadline for submissions is May 1, and publication is scheduled for December 2013. Contributions may be in Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish) or English and should not exceed 35,000 keystrokes.

PS: you can get future news, calls for papers, and announcements via Journalistica’s Facebook site.

Ben will participate in three arrangements here in Copenhagen: First, he’ll give a lecture on my MA course about news and journalism in Denmark. Second, he’ll visit Marianne Lentz’ course on practical journalism writing, drawing upon his experience as a journalist. And third, he’ll participate in the open seminar “The production or arts and cultural journalism” alongside associate professor Nete Nørgaard Kristensen from my department. This seminar will be held on February 28 from 10am to 12pm in room 22.0.11 at the Southern Campus of University of Copenhagen. Admission to this seminar is free of charge and registration is not necessary, so everybody is welcome.

The best ideas and the most interesting projects are often conceived in the company of people with different perspectives and backgrounds. For this reason as well, I look forward to welcoming Ben to Copenhagen.

If you’re in a hurry, here comes the closing remarks of the review:

“the book is not always successful in resisting the temptation of choosing those examples that fit the overall argument and leaving aside those that could instead have challenged it and pushed it further. I may be more conservatively inclined than the author, but it seems to me that she overestimates how ordinary people are currently helping journalism and simultaneously underestimates the continued importance of the institution.

That said, throughout the book Russell does make a strong argument for the potential advantages of having different publics participate in news-making. Even though Networked could have benefitted from a more rigorous definition of journalism and more nuances in its unfavorable judgment of the contemporary workings of the news industry, the book deserves to be recommended for its rich evidence of what the public can do (and often actually does) for journalism. As such, in spite of my complaints, this book is a good place for journalism students, researchers, and practitioners to turn if they wish to know how ordinary people with digital technology can change journalism and challenge a conservative news industry.” (pp. 146-149)

There were to many good points and observations during the seminar for me to repeat all of them here, but I’ve put together a short summary of the day.

After my short introduction, the first invited speaker was Jens Barland from the University of Oslo who presented key findings from his PhD about how Verdens Gang and Aftonbladet generate revenues in an online environment. His presentation served as a kind of rehersal for the defence of his PhD dissertation Journalistikk for markedet [Journalism for the market] – a defense that will take place on Wednesday next week. If you’re in Oslo there, you shouldn’t miss Barland’s defense for his findings are highly interesting. A key finding of his was that initiatives to develop journalistic products don’t necessarily come from journalists anymore - on the contrary, they are often spurred by the desire to expand the product portfolio of media organizations. As an example, he mentioned Sofis mode, a magazine that Aftonbladet launched in order to reach the audience segment of adolescent girls with relatively good purchasing power. A particularly intriguing possibility, which Barland mentioned, was how news organizations might continue to give away news for free online in the future but that the access to the news might require login. This way, news organizations can generate detailed and personal data on usage and subsequently target their audiences even more directly that today with ads (think Facebook’s advertising model). I guess that when content is free, you (your data, attention, and information) really are the product.

A wrap-up (in Norwegian) of Barland’s conclusions can be found in a recent post on his Journalisten.no blog.

The second speaker was Mads Vad Kristensen from Berlingske Media. Berlingske is one of the largest media organizations in Denmark and is owned by British corporation Mecom which seems, however, intended to sell off its Danish branch. This imminent sale means that profitability is even more important for Berlingske than it used to, and as such Kristensen’s presentation about the organization’s business models related to an agenda of immediate importance. Basically, Kristensen argued that it’s no problem earning money from news – the problem is that news is quite expensive to make, especially in the context of the small Danish-speaking area. But are people willing to pay what the news actually costs? Kristensen actually thought they would be if the news organizations provided them with content that met their demands. In order to do so, the news organizations should focus on five aspects, namely 1) excellence in their products, 2) individualized content where you get what you’re intested in, 3) better service for the customers, 4) testing the limits of own self-understanding, and 5) acknowledging that only the best is good enough.

The last speaker was Stig Kirk Ørskov who is the COO of JP/Politikens Hus and who started his presentation by saying that now was actually the best of times for journalism. According to him, 2010 and 2011 were the most profitable years for his news organization in a very long time, and with a variety of different platforms (print, web, and mobile) the journalistical content could find its way to the audiences anytime and anywhere. However, except for EkstraBladet.dk the websites of the organization are not yet profitable, and paywalls will be introduced as a solution for that; agreeing with Kristensen, Ørskov also expressed confidence in the readiness of the audience to start paying for online content. Speaking of paywalls, Ørskov emphasized that the three major publications of JP/Politikens Hus will probably follow different models: Politiken (the highbrow, liberal, cultural broadsheet) will go for the metered model that the New York Times is also using; Ekstra Bladet (the tabloid) will use the same model as Aftenbladet where some selected parts are within a paywall; and Jyllands-Posten (the more conservative broadsheet) would perhaps be something like the freemium model of the Wall Street Journal where the majority of the content remains available for free.

I think the seminar went pretty well with great speakers and good discussions in the Q&A session. Also, it was well-attended by both fellow researchers, students, and people from the news industry.

Update November 22, 2012: I earlier wrote that Jyllands-Posten would go for a “hard paywall” with all content locked away. This way, however, a misunderstanding from my part, and I have now corrected it.

The first course is called Nyheder og journalistik i Danmark [News and journalism in Denmark] and will be on MA level. It is an elective module and will be about my key research-interest, namely news and journalism and their place in a broader societal context.

The other course is a compulsory course for our BA students and is called Faktateori og -analyse [Non-Fiction Theory and Analysis]. Years ago, when I was a student myself, this course (then taught by my excellent colleague today Nete Nørgaard Kristensen) played a very important part in turning my interest towards journalism, so it’s fun for me to now come somewhat full circle and be the one teaching it.

Also, there has been a slight change of the program of the seminar as Pernille Tranberg from Berlingske Media was unable to attend. Instead, I’m happy to announce that Mads Vad Kristensen, who is digital director, will represent Berlingske Media and make us all a little wiser concerning the financial strategies and approaches of the Mecom-owned media organization. An organization, which rumor has it is currently being prepared for sale… Such a move would only make the monetizing capacity of the organization even more important.

All in all, it’s going to be an amazing seminar that brings together the best of Academia and the news industry. Attendance is free, registration not necessary. And here is the short pitch:

For several years, the traditional business models of news organizations have been under pressure; news organizations’ earnings from advertising or subscription have decreased as a lot of the public’s news consumption has moved from print to online sources, and the financial crisis has weakened revenue possibilities further. As such, news organizations have had to rethink their business models, and their conclusions and strategies for monetizing the online audience vary. Even so, it remains an open question what the business models for the future of the news industry look like and how they become economically sustainable.

This seminar, organized by the strategic research area Creative Media Industriesand the research group The Mediatization of Culture at the Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication, University of Copenhagen, presents state-of-the-art research into the evolving business models for the news industry as well as contributions from those practitioners that work with them on a daily basis.

The seminar will be in Danish and Norwegian.

You can also find the event on Facebook here.

• @Ahaheder: Ahaheder.dk, research-based web magazine on journalism
• @bo_elkjaer: Bo Elkjær, editor of Journalisten
• @ernstpoulsen: Ernst Poulsen, digital/new media journalist
• @fiwa: Filip Wallberg, associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark
• @julie_h_toft: Julie H. Toft, journalist at MedieWatch.dk
• @KaareSorensen: Kaare Sørensen, journalist at Jyllands-Posten
• @larskjensen: Lars K. Jensen, media blogger
• @LasseJensen7: Lasse Jensen, radio host and grand old man of Danish media journalism
• @LineHolm1: Line Holm Nielsen, journalist at Berlingske
• @MikaelRomer: Mikael Rømer, journalist at DR
• @orskov: Stig Kirk Ørskov, COO of JP/Politikens Hus
• @PernilleT: Pernille Tranberg, head of editorial development at Berlingske
• @rosenorn: Søren Rosenørn, managing editor at Gong
• @tafkal: Lars Damgaard Nielsen, editor of social media at DR
• @troelsbj: Troels B. Jørgensen, web editor at Kristeligt Dagblad

Furthermore, you must of course follow the hashtags #dkmedier and #medienyt and also check out @LineHolm1′s list of Berlingske journalists and @tafkal’s list of DR journalists.

Update September 28, 2012: Thanks to Line Holm Nielsen and Lars Damgaard Nielsen, some details have now been corrected/added.

Update November 3, 2012: Ernst Poulsen has put together a list of all Danish journalists on Twitter – the list is split in two parts which are available here and here.

Update February 26, 2013: And now Ernst Poulsen also has a third part of his list of Danish journalists on Twitter.