ANDRII DEGELER Market Development Through Digitization: Newsroom Structures and Editorial Practices In Converged Online Media — Cases of The Next Web, The Verge, and Engadget M ARKET DEVELOPMENT TH ROUGH DIGITIZATION · 2 Abstract Years of technological and professional development of media have created new kinds of online-only outlets that do not call themselves newspapers, magazines, or any other conventional names, but still provide news content to a large-scale audience. Despite having newsrooms, editors and other formal signs of a traditional media outlet, the websites in question refer to themselves as “blogs.” In this thesis, the newsrooms of three high-profile technology-related blogs — The Next Web, The Verge, and Engadget — are analyzed through a series of interviews with their editors. The newsrooms of these online-only media outlets are compared to those in traditional newspapers from Germany and the US, which leads to a conclusion that the practices seen in virtual newsrooms, which are largely induced by convergence processes, are rooted in newsrooms practices from both continental Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world, blurring borders and disregarding distances. In order to broaden the perspective of the thesis, the business models of online media are assessed in terms of aspects which influence editorial practices and newsroom structures, and the probability of the emergence of alternative revenue sources is analyzed. Technology-related blogs, despite having a significant audience and often employing complex newsroom structures, have rarely been researched by journalism scholars, therefore this thesis may serve as a basis for the future research and will show important points of difference between “new” and “old” media. Keywords: newsroom structure, convergence, digitization, business models, online newsroom, roles in the newsroom, newsroom history, blogs M ARKET DEVELOPMENT TH ROUGH DIGITIZATION · 3 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................... 2 Table of Illustrations ......................................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2. Main concepts and definitions ...................................................................................................... 8 Faces of convergence .................................................................................................................................... 8 Convergence: From a paradigm shift to a buzzword .......................................................................... 8 Reflections on media convergence ......................................................................................................... 9 Convergence meets journalism ............................................................................................................. 10 Convergence types .................................................................................................................................. 11 Traditional newsroom structures and editorial practices ....................................................................... 14 The two histories of the print newsroom ........................................................................................... 15 When the paths diverge ......................................................................................................................... 17 Jacks-of-all-trades vs. niche specialists ................................................................................................. 17 Between the extremes ............................................................................................................................ 18 Editorial practices and newsroom structures: definitions and data for comparison ......................... 18 Physical structure .................................................................................................................................... 18 Roles in the newsroom........................................................................................................................... 20 Copy-flow ................................................................................................................................................ 21 Desk structure ......................................................................................................................................... 22 The search for new business models ........................................................................................................ 23 Chapter 3. Convergence, newsrooms, and business models: Finding interrelations ............................. 25 Chapter 4. Research methodology................................................................................................................. 27 Content analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 28 Limitations .................................................................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 5. The Next Web, The Verge, Engadget: A closer look ............................................................ 30 Engadget ....................................................................................................................................................... 30 The Next Web ............................................................................................................................................. 33 The Verge ..................................................................................................................................................... 36 Similarities and differences ......................................................................................................................... 37 The outlets as seen through Google Glass .............................................................................................. 38 M ARKET DEVELOPMENT TH ROUGH DIGITIZATION · 4 News coverage ........................................................................................................................................ 38 Numbers and multimedia ...................................................................................................................... 40 Chapter 6. Discussion and insights ............................................................................................................... 42 Physical structure ......................................................................................................................................... 43 Roles in the newsroom ............................................................................................................................... 45 Copy-flow ..................................................................................................................................................... 48 Desk structure .............................................................................................................................................. 51 Convergence in the newsrooms ................................................................................................................ 52 Business models ........................................................................................................................................... 57 Chapter 7. Reflections on converging online journalistic practices......................................................... 61 Distinctive features of the online newsroom .......................................................................................... 61 Comparison to traditional newspapers ..................................................................................................... 63 Convergence, newsroom practices and business models ...................................................................... 64 Chapter 8. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 66 References ......................................................................................................................................................... 68 Appendices ........................................................................................................................................................ 74 Appendix I — Questionnaire .................................................................................................................... 74 Appendix II — Audio ................................................................................................................................ 75 Appendix III — Transcripts ...................................................................................................................... 75 Appendix IV — Coding book ................................................................................................................... 75 Table of Illustrations Illustration 1: List of the interviews conducted ..........................................................................................