Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Similar to The evolution of digital long-form journalism distribution practices through the analysis of an aggregator
Similar to The evolution of digital long-form journalism distribution practices through the analysis of an aggregator (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
The evolution of digital long-form journalism distribution practices through the analysis of an aggregator
- 1. Dr. Marco Braghieri (King’s College London) The evolution of digital long-form journalism distribution practices through the analysis of an aggregator Histories of Digital Journalism 2022
- 2. The Digital Publishing Landscape
- 3. The Digital Publishing Landscape A Quick Scenario • The digital publishing landscape is “characterised by falling audiences, readerships and advertising revenues” (Franklin 2014).
- 4. The Digital Publishing Landscape A Quick Scenario • The media industry has once again found itself at a crossroads between re- imagining its approach or choose a more passive stance. The latter would lead to “independent developers […] leaping at the opportunity to create apps that harvest the rich content newspapers make available freely on the Web” (Nel & Westlund 2012).
- 5. The Digital Publishing Landscape A Quick Scenario • This forecast finds an echo in the long-tail model of the web economy by Anderson (2009), as distribution in the digital contemporary is performed more efficiently by aggregators rather than producers. Anderson defines the long-tail as a model defined by “infinite choice. Abundant, cheap distribution means abundant, cheap, and unlimited variety” (Anderson 2009). • However, the sales cost has to be as low as possible otherwise market entities become “entrenched industries” (Anderson 2009). Anderson indicates the news media as an example of entrenched industry and underlines the value-generation capacity of intermediaries, or “aggregators” (Anderson 2009).
- 6. The Digital Publishing Landscape A Quick Scenario Newspaper* Magazine* TV-Radio Prod* Webpage Digital Eds Newsletter Podcast Stream Digital Outlets News Items News Items Pre-Web Publishing Web Publishing *both as Outlets and Formats
- 7. The Digital Publishing Landscape A Quick Scenario News Items Audience
- 8. The Digital Publishing Landscape A Quick Scenario Webpage Digital Eds Newsletter Podcast Stream Digital Outlets News Items Audience
- 9. The Digital Publishing Landscape A Quick Scenario Webpage Digital Eds Newsletter Podcast Stream Digital Outlets News Items Platforms Audience
- 10. The Digital Publishing Landscape A Quick Scenario Webpage Digital Eds Newsletter Podcast Stream Digital Outlets News Items Platforms Produsers
- 11. The Digital Publishing Landscape A Quick Scenario Audiences Intermediaries Products
- 12. The Digital Publishing Landscape A Quick Scenario FRUITION INTERMEDIATION PRODUCTION
- 14. Introducing long-form aggregators An overview Before beginning our analysis of a single long-form journalism aggregator, it is useful to recall a paper by Smith, Connor and Stanton (2015) regarding long- form journalism production. • The authors underline how overall long-form journalism production in the digital contemporary is increasing, yet it is doing so following a specific trajectory. As the study’s authors emphasise, there is an increasing number of news media outlets producing long-form journalism and, among these, there is an increasingly strong presence of digitally native news media outlets (Smith et al. 2015).
- 15. Introducing long-form aggregators An overview The increase in long-form journalism production in the digital contemporary is the result of a large number of news media outlets producing small quantities of long- form journalism stories, while increasing at a slower pace if compared to standard news production, this specific type of journalistic production is capable of remaining relevant for more extended periods of time (Smith et al. 2015). • Within the scenario described by Smith, Connor and Stanton (2015), focusing long-form journalism through the analysis of an aggregator such as Longform.org, is an effective way of investigating the production and distribution of this specific form of journalism.
- 16. Introducing long-form aggregators An overview • For long-form journalism stories, relevance over time is a defining factor as “longform articles tend to maintain external links, a proxy for interest, longer than typical news articles” (Smith et al. 2015). • However, the retrieval process poses distinct challenges to content management systems which within newsrooms are used for a number of activities ranging from content creation to editing, publishing and distribution (Barker 2016). • Moreover, long-form journalism and digital news media outlet archives are yet to be fully datafied (Mayer-Schönberger/Cukier, 2013). Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier define “datafication” as the process of organizing a phenomenon “in a quantified format so it can be tabulated and analysed” (Mayer-Schönberger/Cukier 2013).
- 17. Longform.org
- 19. Longform.org Introducing the aggregator • Longform.org was founded in 2010. • In 2012, it developed its first iPad application. • In 2014, Longform.org launched its first iPhone application. • In 2017, Apple rejected the new Longform.org application. • In Jan 2022, Longform.org closed its recommendation service.
- 20. Longform.org Introducing the aggregator • In 2 years Longform.org sold circa 60.000 copies of its app (Bercovici, 2014), while the podcast service had reached 50.000 listeners (Kachka, 2014). • Longform.org did not “hog the traffic; it simply pushes readers on over to the host site” (Shapiro et al. 2015). • As of 2017, through Longform.org – the founders wrote on their website that they “have sent over 100 million outbound links to publishers since 2012”.
- 21. Longform.org Introducing the aggregator According to Robert S. Boynton’s data: • “Longform’s demographic is the envy of any advertiser: young (fifty percent of the readers are under 34), mobile (thirty percent read primarily on phones or tablets), and well educated (forty-two percent have attended graduate school)” (Boynton, 2013). • “[…] Longform’s readers are ten percent more likely to read an older story than a new one. The publication date carries almost no weight. Readers care more about an article’s subject than whether it is new” (Boynton 2013).
- 22. Robert S. Boynton (2013) “the best narrative non-fiction—unlike basically every other content type on the web—doesn’t lose appeal as it ages”
- 23. A single-story post usually comprises:
- 24. A single-story post usually comprises: • A topic-related tag
- 25. A single-story post usually comprises: • A topic-related tag • The title which is a hyperlink to the publication
- 26. A single-story post usually comprises: • A topic-related tag • The title which is a hyperlink to the publication • A brief description of the article
- 27. A single-story post usually comprises: • A topic-related tag • The title which is a hyperlink to the article • A brief description of the article • Author • News Outlet • Year of Publication • Reading Time
- 28. Longform.org in 2016 and 2020
- 29. Longform.org in 2016 and 2020 The dataset • Dataset was scraped with Data Miner with an ad-hoc “recipe” • Use of OpenRefine to perform data profiling and data cleaning processes. Data profiling was implemented to “discover the true structure, content and quality” (Olson 2003) of the scraped data. The data cleaning process was implemented in order to correct possible errors in our data “in a semi- automated way” (Verborgh/De Wilde 2013). • Among the algorithms used, there are key collision and nearest neighbour • The datasets are publicly available on the Open Science Framework
- 30. Longform.org in 2016 and 2020 The dataset • Both 2016 and 2020 were US Presidential election years (relevant as Longform.org is based in the US). • Longform.org is relevant because it focused on long-form journalism from a number of publications whose archives were open at the time. • While there is a degree of link rot, the ‘recipe’ mix between newer and older content was consistent and unique. • Longform.org aggregation activity can be used as a template for single publications how to source their archives and cater content for a new audience.
- 31. Longform.org in 2016 and 2020 The dataset Type of Entries 2016 2020 Total entries 1,225 996 Single Story* 1,074 893 Longform Guide 30 0 Fiction Pick of the Week 51 51 Podcast Entries 55 52 Other types of Entries 15 *of which Best Article 90
- 32. Longform.org in 2016 and 2020 The dataset Type of Entries 2016 2020 Total entries 1,225 996 Single Story 1,074 893 - 11.4% - 16.8%
- 33. 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000 1,100 1,200 1,300 Total entries Single Story Entries* Longform Guide Entries Fiction Pick of the Week Entries Podcast Entries Other types of Entries *of which Best Article 2016 2020
- 34. 251 823 163 730 0 225 450 675 900 Pre-year of reference Year of Reference 2016 2020
- 35. 23% 77% 2016 Pre-year of reference Year of Reference
- 36. 18% 82% 2020 Pre-year of reference Year of Reference
- 37. 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Pre 1960 1961-1969 1970-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-2010 2011-2020 2016 2020 Single Stories Original Publishing Date (per decade)
- 38. 9% 5% 5% 3% 3% 3% 3% 3% 3% 2% 2% 2% 2% 1% 2% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 41% New Yorker New York Times Magazine GQ The Guardian New York Buzzfeed Vanity Fair The Atlantic New York Times Washington Post Harper's Rolling Stone Texas Monthly Outside Wired (1+ The Marshall Project) Wired UK (1) Businessweek California Sunday Sports Illustrated Mother Jones New York Review of Books ESPN Slate The Fader The New Republic ProPublica Less than 10 articles per outlet 2016 Outlets with 10 or more stories
- 39. 2020 Outlets with 10 or more stories 10% 7% 5% 3% 3% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 43% New Yorker New York Times Magazine The Atlantic GQ ProPublica New York Bloomberg Businessweek Outside The Guardian New York Times Wired The Ringer Vanity Fair Washington Post The Atavist Magazine Rolling Stone Harper's New York Review of Books ESPN Esquire Texas Monthly Buzzfeed Less than 10
- 40. 69% 18% 11%2% 2016 posts per type of outlet Magazines Digital only outlets Newspapers Other types of outlets
- 41. 60% 25% 11% 3% 2020 posts per type of outlet Magazines Digital only outlets Newspapers Other types of outlets
- 42. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 Over 90 Between 41 and 60 Between 31 and 40 Between 21 and 30 Between 10 and 20 Between 9 and 2 1 entry 2016 2020 Outlets Grouped per number of entries
- 44. Longform.org in 2016 and 2020 Takeaways • Between 2016 and 2020 there is a decrease in activity • In 2020 posts feature more content published in the same year • 2016 if compared to 2020 features a larger number of publications • 2020 sees a significant increase of digital-only publications • The homogeneity of data from 2016 and 2020 suggest that Longform.org managed to find a recipe built on variety of outlets, mix between newer and older content and extensive resourcing of smaller, yet equally attractive outlets while basing its core on major legacy publications.
- 45. Longform.org in 2016 and 2020 Takeaways • The decision by platforms [i.e., iOs (Apple) and Android (Google)] to effectively demand changes to the new Longform application, meant that between 2017 and 2020, the aggregator could work only as a webpage. • When Longform.org started there was a smaller use of paywalls (either metered or hard). Out of the outlets which were chosen at least 10 or more times either in 2016 or 2020, 75% have a paywall. • The most notable exceptions are The Guardian and BuzzFeed (long-form operations ceased as of 2022), and non-profit publishers such as ProPublica and Mother Jones.
- 46. Longform.org in 2016 and 2020 Paywall Timeline The New York Times The New York Times Magazine The Washington Post Esquire New Yorker California Sunday Harper’s The Atavist Magazine New York Wired Bloomberg Businessweek GQ Vanity Fair The Atlantic Texas Monthly Rolling Stone New York Review of Books ESPN Slate Outside Sports Illustrated
- 47. Finally, about 2020 topics
- 48. Finally, about 2020 topics A tag breakdown Single Topic Tags Crime 89 Health 75 Politics 56 Sports 45 Business 37 World 37 Science 32 Arts 29 Movies & TV 26 History 27 Music 23 Tech 19 Food 18 Travel 15 Media 14 Religion 4 Sex 2
- 51. For info marco.braghieri@kcl.ac.uk Thank you, for your time and attention.