News website personalisation: the co-creation of content, audiences and services by online journalists and marketers

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates news website personalisation from a socio-economic perspective to help understand the role of journalists and marketers in online service provision. It focuses on a Belgian company that publishes the two major financial and economic newspapers in the country. Debates and day-to-day practices regarding personalisation in the company show that two professional groups are involved in the qualification of media products (content and audiences) into media goods and audience segments. In a context where media organisations explore alternative forms of service provision, this study makes an original contribution by pointing out the increase shared roles between online journalists and marketers, especially regarding gatekeeping and audience segmentation practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Personalisation
• journalism
• marketing
• economy of qualities
• media products

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the reviewers and the editor for their guidance in improving this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Unknown. (18 April 2017). La Libre lance ses chatbots. La Libre Belgique. Retrieved from http://www.lalibre.be/culture/medias-tele/la-libre-lance-ses-chatbots-58f5bc9bcd70e80512ebc0cf.

2. The term “personalisation” is preferred in this paper to other related notions such as “individualisation” or “customisation”. This choice is motivated by the lack of consensus in the literature on the differences between these concepts and to what they refer. Also, its “relatively frequent use in the context of news has given it a degree of familiarity” (Thurman, 2011, p. 413).

3. These online platforms provide users with various forms of content such as: up-to-date newsfeeds, a digital version of the newspaper, one section dedicated to stock market prices, a “personal finance” section and access to 14 curated newsletters.

4. Mediafin’s annual financial statement for 2017. (26 April 2018). Comptes annuels et autres documents à déposer en vertu du code des sociétés. Retrieved from https://www.nbb.be/en/central-balance-sheet-office. This number does not include freelancers.

5. Unknown. (2018). Mediafin enregistre une croissance de 10% grâce à la hausse du nombre de lecteurs et d’annonceurs. Document retrieved from https://www.mediafin.be/fr/chiffres-cles/ .

6. The researcher is funded by a grant that is independent from the media company. Likewise, he has never been employed or paid by the organisation.

7. “Personnalisation de l’information” in French and “Nieuws personalisatie” in Dutch.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sylvain Malcorps

Sylvain Malcorps is a Ph.D candidate in Journalism and Media studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. His work focuses on the dynamic relationship between journalists and marketers in the use of online audience metrics. He has authored publications on the relationship between journalism and business management at media organisations.