Social journalism

This research aimed to map the upcoming online journalism form of social journalism, which forms a combination of journalism and social media. In order to do so, the research comprised sixteen case studies of online news services that apply elements of social journalism. In order to make a comparison between traditional and non-traditional news suppliers, one half of the internationally selected cases consisted of online news services from traditional news suppliers and the other half of online news services from non-traditional news suppliers. The case studies were executed by means of an extensive analysis model that is based on the framework of a business model. This means the cases have been analyzed on their main features, their value proposition, their value network, their functional architecture and their financial model. The analysis focused on both similarities and differences between the categories of traditional and non-traditional news suppliers. The research findings showed that social journalism is a form of online journalism that offers the user participation and interaction possibilities in an innovative manner. The interaction possibilities originate from the implementation of social media elements within the news services, that enable interaction between users and between the news producer and the users. The participation possibilities consist of among others user created content, crowdfunding and crowdsourcing. The analysis of the similarities and differences between the categories of traditional and non-traditional news suppliers showed that the news services of both categories on many aspects display equal levels of the usage of social journalism. However, the non-traditional news suppliers turned out to offer its users more participation possibilities and to use the opportunities of social media more intensely. Moreover, the research findings showed that the traditional news suppliers use social journalism to create an extension to their regular news supply and to enrich the news experience of their users by offering participation and interaction possibilities. The non-traditional news suppliers on the other hand use social journalism to create a more democratic alternative to traditional news media, to stimulate journalistic innovation and to experiment with innovative business models.