Non-journalistic competitors of news media brands on Google and YouTube: From solid competition to a liquid media market

ABSTRACT

News media are important for society, because they provide information on relevant topics based on journalistic norms, such as truthfulness and impartiality. However, traditional news brands have found new competition in non-journalistic digital media. Google and YouTube have disrupted the business model of journalism by creating platforms on which everything and everyone competes for consumers’ attention. Despite the recognised importance of this topic, empirical studies about the competitive situation of (journalistic) news media brands in the limitless digital media market are scarce. The aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which non-journalistic competitors replace traditional news media brands in relation to relevant topics. A programmed web scraping software automatically gathered Google and YouTube search results of trending topics (e.g. Industry 4.0, Blockchain, or CRISPR). Afterwards, a manual content analysis was conducted to classify the source of each search result (e.g. news media brand, corporate publisher, non-governmental organisation) (N = 556 Google results and 792 YouTube results). The findings show that news media brands still dominate on Google but placed a distant third on YouTube, behind amateurs and corporate publishing. News media brands should reconsider their strategies for YouTube with regard to presenting their content.

KEYWORDS:

• Competition
• media markets
• online markets
• online searches
• news media brands
• web scraping analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Isabelle Krebs

Dr. Isabelle Krebs, is Senior Research and Teaching Associate at the Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, Switzerland. Her research interests focus on media management, media branding, media markets and competition.

Philipp Bachmann

Dr. Philipp Bachmann, is Lecturer at the Institute of Communication and Marketing , Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland. His research interests focus on strategic communication, corporate social responsibility, media management, and new technologies.

Gabriele Siegert

Dr. Gabriele Siegert, is a full professor of communication studies and media economics at the Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, Switzerland. Her research interests deal with media economics, media management and advertising.

Rafael Schwab

MA. Rafael Schwab, has graduated at the Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, Switzerland, where he received a Master’s degree.

Raphael Willi

MA. Raphael Willi, has graduated at the Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, Switzerland, where he received a Master’s degree.