Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines are among countries studied in a new WAN-Ifra report on press freedom.
Unlocking journalism resilience: Adapting a digital business model to promote press freedom looks at how news media companies in a range of countries are experimenting with their revenues and adapting business models to safeguard press freedom.
Also studied are Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico.
While publishers globally are adapting to the digital present, even the most experienced practitioners are hard-pressed to define what constitutes sustainable and resilient business models. The new report authored by Clare Cook - a researcher at the Media Innovation Studio, UK - responds to the challenges faced by media in politically and financially pressured environments as they seek to be more resilient.
The findings are based on data gathered between 2016-2018 under WAN-Ifra's Strengthening Media and Society programme, financed by the Danish foreign affairs ministry.
The report delves deeper into the digital shift to explore business issues of media in repressed or flawed markets. To date, little is known about their specific economic experiences while evidence of how revenue models adapt remains scant.
Despite this lack of research, business issues remain a major factor in the ability of media to contribute and impact their communities.
The report identifies how digital media face a particular set of challenges, including business pressures and restrictions. From the one side, they tackle issues relating to online registration or high levels of taxation, and the other from the added pressure of government controls on advertisers and government-controlled advertising agencies. Media are concerned about digital monetisation and distribution, as well as playing a balancing act with technology giants, Facebook and Google. Lack of data analysis and a shortage of advertising revenues were cited as key problems.
The report offers a "toolkit approach" to the business challenges being faced by media, all of which with the exception of South Africa, operate in areas considered to be politically pressured. "The main focus is to understand the deep challenges and nuances of economic experiences for media in politically and financially pressured environments in their day-to-day business operations," says the report.
"It finds much experimentation around digital revenues in the effort to adapt to changing digital landscapes, however, the amount of revenues being generated remain small in most cases. There was no one approach to revenues or the business operations but rather an acceptance that new models would emerge through an incremental process of adaptation and experimentation."
The sample highlighted by the report offers a range of media in terms of market environment, structures, maturity, outputs and digital media. Successful strategies have been drawn out and the hope is that scrutiny of practice may reveal more about resilient business models in a precarious and rapidly changing environment.
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