Hyperlocal Media in the Nordic Region
Published in Nordicom Review
Local Media Ecologies
Published in Nordicom Review
Legacy media and social media are intertwined in a complicated relationship in local media ecologies. The recent national Swedish SOM survey on media use shows that people use Facebook more than local newspapers (both paper and online) to stay up to date with local events. In contrast, though, users still regard legacy media like subscription newsp...
Emerging Forms of Hyperlocal Media
Published in Nordicom Review
In the Nordic countries, local and regional newspapers have functioned as keystone media. This article examines the emergence of hyperlocal initiatives as part of evolving local media ecosystems in Finland, analysing the extent and characteristics of hyperlocal media, and how they relate to wider changes in the Finnish media ecosystem. The data gat...
Viable, Sustainable or Resilient?
Published in Nordicom Review
Hyperlocal media are increasingly prominent in local media ecologies. However, economic pressures are their biggest challenge and are therefore our main thematic. The study is based on empirical data from 35 hyperlocals in Sweden, the UK, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. We present a conceptual framework of viable, sustainable and resilient mod...
Public Organisations as News Producers
Published in Nordicom Review
The purpose of this article is to shed light on a new phenomenon in the media landscape, namely public organisations taking on the role of news producers. The analysis focuses on the digital news site VGRfokus, which is run by the Swedish county council Region Västra Götaland (VGR). The articulated goal of VGRfocus is to fill a perceived news gap i...
Local Democracy and the Media
Published in Nordicom Review
Local news media in Western countries are undergoing major changes, including cutbacks, centralisation and consolidation. In this study, Sweden has been scanned to map the presence of digital hyperlocal media and to investigate which online channels of communication they offer their readers, in order to determine their set-up for democratic functio...
Local Journalism when the Journalists Leave Town
Published in Nordicom Review
Editorial offices are being shut down in small municipalities, raising the question of whether hyperlocal media can fill the gap left by legacy media. However, very little is known about the shape of this gap and thus to what extent it can be filled by hyperlocal media. To inform this line of research, this study asks: what happens to the news cove...
All Seats Taken? Hyperlocal Online Media in Strong Print Newspaper Surroundings
Published in Nordicom Review
This article present data from a new mapping of Norwegian online hyperlocals, defined as local online news sites that are indigenous to the web. From an understanding of local news markets as organised social fields with great barriers to entry, we discuss the hyperlocals’ locations and business models against the system of existing print-based loc...
Logic of an Effectuating Hyperlocal
Published in Nordicom Review
This article examines motivations, rewards and strategies in hyperlocal news entrepreneurship. The material is an interview study with eight entrepreneurs who independently own and manage hyperlocal news sites in Sweden. The conclusion is that the means of the hyperlocal entrepreneur both motivate and create an obstacle for growth. The findings of ...
One Day in the Life of a National Twittersphere
Published in Nordicom Review
Previous research into social media platforms has often focused on the exceptional: key moments in politics, sports or crisis communication. For Twitter, it has usually centred on hashtags or keywords. Routine and everyday social media practices remain underexamined as a result; the literature has overrepresented the loudest voices: those users who...
