Abstract
From its onset on the 1990s, both digital native (with sister headings on the analog platform) as digital native news media have experienced a constant transformation process. The accelerated technological evolution linked to the changing information consumption habits of the users demanded a constant reinvention capability. Furthermore, the need for profit and the drop in advertisement sales have pushed the media to redefine their structure, content and social media presence. The Ibero-American scene has experienced a sprout of a mixture of digital native news media. They are journalistic projects, conceived from and on the Internet, which have reached considerable renown and becoming reference media on the information level. Internet prompted a reduction of the costs related to the creation of media outlets. However, the establishment of a sustainable business model is one of the main challenges. The research presented looks at the business models of Ibero-American digital native news media based on a comparative analysis of 14 case studies, alongside interviews with their founders. The findings include, among other things, a tendency for business models based on diverse and hyper-specialized content targeted at micro-audiences. This research found an interest in horizontality, participation and user engagement, and noticed the need for these media to diversify their income sources.
Highlights
The development and establishment of a sustainable business model has become one of the main challenges in the journalism industry lately
Among digital editions derived from analog media there has been a surge of a variety of digital native news media
Besides examples of investigative journalism, we find fact-checking in the case of Chequeado, narrative podcasts related to Latin America (Radio Ambulante), minute-by-minute updates (Minuto30.com), technological dissemination (Unocero) and local journalism
Summary
The development and establishment of a sustainable business model has become one of the main challenges in the journalism industry lately. Free content and a dependency on an advertisement model have influenced the consumption habits of the audience and they have made it difficult to find effective economic return proposals. Bearing in mind that a great amount of research on journalism is carried out from an Anglo-Saxon perspective—or in an Anglo-Saxon sphere—we chose to focus on the conceptual region known as Ibero-America, understood, according to different authors (see Birle, 2016; Galindo, 2010; Martin Serrano, 2004), as a “space” beyond a mere geo-linguistic area, tracing cultural, socio-political and socio-economic relationships, that shape the journalistic traditions of the countries within it.
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