News Media Infrastructure and the Journalism Divide: A DMA-Level Analysis

• In Event: Sustainable Business Models for News Organizations: Economic Challenges in Journalism

Abstract

This paper presents an analytical approach for assessing the robustness of local journalism infrastructure and the extent of journalism divides – differences in the availability of journalistic resources across communities. This research grows from calls into the state of local journalism. The goal is to develop an analytical approach that can be largely scaled and feasibly implemented. The approach presented in this paper thus develops indicators that tap into the robustness of local journalism infrastructure at the market level, specifically utilizing the 210 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) in the United States, which enables the exploration of individual communities and their relationship to the robustness of local news media. The results point to the relationship between fundamental economic and demographic characteristics of local media markets and the robustness of the local news media infrastructure within those markets.

Authors

• Allie Kosterich, Pace University

• Philip M. Napoli, Duke U

• Ian Dunham, Rutgers U

• Jessica Mahone, Democracy Fund