Converting cultural capital into economic capital: a hybrid newspaper’s content management and performance during economic turbulence

Abstract

ABSTRACTA newspaper under siege often struggles to balance its journalistic mission with revenue mission. This study applied Bourdieu’s field theory to the analysis of one American metropolitan newspaper’s content strategies during economic turbulence. The time series analysis of five years of content and finance data showed that the content mix could affect print advertising revenue, but such effects were more indirect, nonlinear, and gradual than those affecting print and online readerships. The interviews with nine executive editors and managers of the newspaper revealed an increasingly collaborative relationship rather than a contested relationship. The newspaper’s managers should differentiate between online and offline content offerings since what appealed to the online readers may not attract local advertisers.