Sustainable Media Business

Models in the Digital Age

Africa Media Leadership Conference 2010
September 26-29: Dar es Salaam
Guy Berger, Rhodes University, South Africa
 Starting points
Who cares about sustainable media business
models in the digital age?
Why would your stakeholders care?
Why do you care?
Me? I care because of what journalism means
for me and I assume what it means for
society. Can you share this point of view?
Heres one sustainable story as example
A newspaper story
 Who are you outside the paper?
Well, press freedom, journalism in general, and
The Namibian in particular are so integral to
my life that its hard to think of myself with a
separate identity, really! Media and
democracy have been my passion and
probably always will be.
Im an idealist and always have been one. Im
also a strong individualist and Ive never
belonged to any group or political party
 If journalism could speak
How would it answer these questions?
1. Who are you?
Answer: I am social communication in public interest
2. How old are you? When will you retire?
3. Where do you come from?
4. Who are your parents? Your siblings?
5. Who are your friends? Your enemies?
6. Describe your home what kind of dwelling?
7. How do you earn your bread what sustains you?
De-constructing the topic

1. Sustainable
2. Media
3. Business Models
4. in the Digital Age
 1. Sustainable?
African media has always wrestled with this
question especially politically!
But now theres a new aspect.
Ask Seattle PI & Encyclopedia Britannica
2006-10: 38->26% in USA read a paper yesterday
Dealing with death we dream of Life eternal!
What if were entering times when media houses
arent sustainable; i.e. theres no Lazarus story?
When journalism struggles to float in a thrashing
sea full of other kinds of communications?
 2. Media (platforms)?
Physical layer:
Paper is a medium: it can have many purposes
Toilet paper is one purpose. It may carry media
meanings like patterns aiming to please. A medium!
Internet is a medium with many uses eg. e-commerce
Are cellphones media? Or tools for personal comms?
Are clothes media? Buildings? Voices and faces?
Is it intrinsic that media carry journalistic meaning?
Connections layer:
Is it intrinsic that media is 1:many? Mass media?
 Whats this mean then?
Media is not the platform: actually it can (and
should) encompass many platforms even those
that are not as obvious as radio or print!
Query platform: eg. audio is cargo, radio is just
(one) vehicle, meaning a 3rd item. De-link them.
The Media is also an institution from both the
producer and consumer point of view.
(So can cellphones really become media?)
Media is/was mass circulation & public, not
private, news. But these are dynamic categories!
 3. Biz models & media institutions
3 models to date, often in hybrid:
Audience pays;
Advertisers pay for their own content to reach audiences;
State or donors pay to get media content to reach
audiences.
Nowadays, there are issues like:
Separating production, aggregation, editing, dissemination
UGC (cut your costs of acquiring content);
Transactional revenues;
Selling services (like training, software, experiences);
Selling access to journalists (ouch, Washington Post!)
Freemium.
 Just what business are you in?
Medium or platform? Audio or radio?
Paid praise-singing?
Making money to publish, or publishing to make
money?
Community-building and citizenship?
Content supply?
Mediating buyers and sellers through advertising?
Communications facilitation an ISP?
Global game?
Credibility of meaning?
Who are your competitors in these?
 4. Digital age
Revolutionises all aspects of the value chain:
Production (and re-production!)
Distribution/transmission of product
Consumption/use (comment, remix, recommend)
Digital age expands who can play in the chain:
More media out there, and more non-media too!
Enhances glocalisation
It changes the character of play: interaction is
the name of the game sometimes.
 More questions than answers
1. Sustainable a mega-challenge
2. Media complexities
3. Business Models so many!
4. in the Digital Age a new game

How to get a fix on changes and uncertainties?

 Understanding the times
The value chain of meaning
John Hartley (2004).

Origination/ Product and Consumer/

Production distribution use
 Understanding the times
The value chain of meaning
John Hartley (2004).

Origination/ Product and Consumer/

Production distribution use
Media house Outputs Audience
(Texts)
disseminated
 Teasing out the tangles
Three ways of making meaning valuable:

1. Pre-modern mode
2. Modern mode
3. Post-modern mode
 1. Pre-modern mode
Source of meaning comes from the author. Like
truth from God in holy books.
It only remains to be revealed.
Priests, spin-doctors or government media exist
to help audiences work out what was meant.
To make this meaning stick, you need monopoly.
With artificial media scarcity, authoritarian and
fundamentalist societies operate this way.
Power is held by state (or church) or old media!
 2. Modern mode
Ultimate meanings come through pluralism
and diversity of content i.e. the truth comes
through the multiplicity of texts.
The breadth of the mix is sovereign arbiter of
what is true meaning.
The public reads and chooses rationally.
Power lies in the best texts and their
consumers ability to select rationally.
Many texts now hail from non-media sources.
 3. Post-modern mode
Meanings are decided by audiences.
Find out through pollings, ratings, surveys.
Expect the unexpected: contrary readings.
People do their own thing: eg. uptake of SMS;
prevalence of piracy; what becomes a hit.
Power lies with the active audience
Sovereignty is with the self.
Truth is fragmented across publics.
Publics create. Not only read, but write.
 Where power lies
Pre-modern Modern Post-modern

Origination/ Product and Consumer/

Production distribution use
Media house Outputs Audience
(Text)
disseminated
 Where power lies
Pre-modern Modern Post-modern

Origination/ Product and Consumer/

Production distribution use
Media house Outputs Audience
(Text)
disseminated
 Where power lies
Pre-modern Modern Post-modern

Origination/ Product and Consumer/

Production distribution use
Media house Outputs Audience
(Text)
disseminated
 Where power lies
Pre-modern Modern Post-modern

Origination/ Product and Consumer/

Production distribution use
Media house Outputs Audience
(Text)
disseminated
 Major mode of address
Pre-modern Modern Post-modern

Origination/ Product and Consumer/

Production distribution use
Media house Outputs Audience
(Text)
disseminated
Authority Convincing Conversation
 Making sense
Our worlds combine all three modes:
Some media & relationships make for authority
modes of making meaning. (Established organs)
Some play in the social space of discourses
competing for priority and credibility (Providing a
forum, versus providing attitude)
Others facilitate interactive conversational
process. (community radio, SMS comments)
Many media merge all three aspects
 So what?
Energy is in the places where the 3 intersect.
The contradictions between:
the pre-modern and the modern;
the modern and the post-modern;
the pre- and post modern.
I tell you vs we tell you vs lets talk
Do you focus in on one, or a mix? What mix?
 In summary
Journalism is that your point of reference?
Sustainable art of the possible amidst change
Media keep an open mind on its range
Business Models which are you in?
in the Digital Age new players/fields/games
Pre-modern mode: one truth, monopoly power
Modern mode: convince people, pluralism
Post-modern mode: converse, media uncorked
 Signing off
Custodians of journalism need eyes open
in order to grow sustainability for journalism,
even if that journalism is re-invented.
In fact it probably has to be reinvented:
Must be more than pre-modern mode;
Must really show stakeholders the value it adds;
Must operate with multiple revenue streams.
Must still keep eye on the ball: making meanings!
Thank you