Surviving the transition to “digital first”: news apps in Asian mobile internets

Abstract

As part of a broader Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project into the mobile internet we assume the enduring importance of news media diversity, as a policy priority in a convergent media era. The purpose of this news diversity research component of the ARC project is to investigate the implications of mobile news content provision, including for the development of media diversity policies. These Asian news case studies (in Hong Kong, South Korea, the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and Japan) explore the dynamic relations between old and new media industries and the transformations underway: the governance/content management of digital news apps and how this relates to other masthead content; their availability and how they are accessed; the usage patterns of particular news brand apps; and, their affordability together with platform access and handset histories, including branded/proprietary content arrangements associated with specific portals and telecommunications networks. The research draws on industry interviews with key personnel (in senior editorial, information technology [IT] and management roles) in selected news media organisations conducted in 2013 and 2014 in Hong Kong, Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo. In broad terms the research takes a political economy approach to media industry change and draws on the rubrics of “media convergence” and multi-platform evolution.

Keywords:

• convergent media
• mobile internets
• mobile news apps
• media pluralism
• multi-platform
• news diversity

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council. It is an output of the Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, Moving Media: Mobile Internet and New Policy Modes [DP120101971].

Notes on contributors

Tim Dwyer

Associate Professor Tim Dwyer teaches Legal and Ethical Issues in Media Practice to Masters students and is Degree Director of the Master of Media Practice. His research focuses on the critical evaluation of media and communications industries, regulation, media ethics and policy. His research also explores how news practices are evolving in multi-platform media organisations, and analyses the implications of these transformations for media diversity and pluralism. He is the author of Legal and Ethical Issues in the Media (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), Media Convergence (Open University, 2010) and the co-editor (with Virginia Nightingale) of New Media Worlds: Challenges for Convergence (Oxford, 2007). Before moving to academia in 2002 he has worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1981–89), and the federal government agencies responsible for privacy rights (1990–1994), and electronic media regulation in Australia (1994–2002).