Statistical, Ecosystems and Competitiveness Analysis of the Media and Content Industries: The Newspaper Publishing Industry

The Newspaper Publishing Industry 
53
 
3. 
Transition to digital and online 
3.1 Introduction 
The news sector is undergoing significant changes (e.g. OECD, 2010; Boczkowski, 2005, 
(Pleijter & Deuze, 2003; Pavlik, 2000). The economic foundation for the traditional 
newspaper businesses is collapsing and the gathering and distribution of news has become 
more widely dispersed (Downie Jr. & Schudson, 2009).
The market developments described in Chapter 2 have shown how digitization and the 
internet have affected newspaper publishing markets. In this chapter these developments are 
discussed from the perspective of their impact on the value chain; i.e. on the production, 
aggregation, distribution and consumption of content. Digitization has affected all links in the 
value chain and have made the value chain increasingly complex. Digitization and the internet 
have also fundamentally disrupted traditional business models. Consequently newspaper 
publishers are experimenting with a number of (new) business models, trying to exploit the 
strengths of their product and brand in competition with an increasing number of online news 
providers. Another new phenomenon is the increasing importance of news aggregators and 
social networks that has been made possible by the digitization of information and the new 
ways of distributing and sharing news that these enable. Especially noteworthy are the 
changes in user roles that have become apparent in recent years. News consumers have taken 
on much more active and participative roles. Changes are visible in every aspect of the value 
creation process, leading to what some researchers have labelled a ‘new media logic’ (e.g. 
(Oblak, 2005) or a new media ecosystem.
3.2 
From value chain to value network in the news industry 
Traditional news production can be schematically presented as a linear value chain of content 
creation, production, distribution and consumption (see Figure 17).