Quality, Innovation, and Financial Sustainability

Abstract

Entrepreneurial, independent digital media sites arose in response to disruption in the journalism industry brought on by emerging technologies. This study explores this trend in Latin America from the perspective of audiences. Based on surveys of readers of entrepreneurial digital news sites in Guatemala and Nicaragua, this mixed-methods study offers a snapshot of who these readers are and what they are interested in. Results showed readers of the Guatemalan and Nicaraguan news sites valued equally quality journalism and innovation, but differed when it came to the importance they placed on the sites’ business models. This study also illuminated a new dimension of innovation, one from the readers’ perspective. While some respondents associated innovation with use of new technologies, in general readers defined innovation as unique (to the region) and alternative (to mainstream media) ways of doing journalism; their definition, unlike that of journalists, was not necessarily technologically driven.

KEYWORDS:

• Central America
• digital-native media
• entrepreneurial journalism
• innovation
• surveys

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank Dr. Amy Schmitz Weiss, Prof. Rosental Calmon Alves, and Dr. Vanessa de Macedo Higgins Joyce for their collaboration.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, at The University of Texas at Austin.