The Digital Life of Small Market Newspapers: Results from a Multi-Method Study

• In Event: Digital Technologies in the Newsroom: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

The established narrative around newspapers and their relationship with “digital” is
predominantly gloomy. We’ve learned how newspapers missed the mark regarding
digital distribution and how traditional working practices often led to slow adoption of
digital tools. There’s much merit in this yet it is not the entire story. In both of these
conversations – doom and gloom, and resurgence and resilience – we are missing
insights into the smallest newspapers. This paper contributes to this conversation through
an investigation into the digital life of small market newspapers. We conducted a multimethod
study drawing on in-depth interviews with experts and practitioners, and a
nationwide survey of journalists and editors at small market newspapers. Our findings
point to considerable variety of experience. It is crucial not to discount these
experiments, or fall victim to the assumption of digital backwardness and analog
quaintness we often equate with small towns and smaller publications.

Authors

• Christopher Ali, U of Virginia

• Damian Radcliffe, U of Oregon

• Thomas R. Schmidt, U of Oregon

• Rosalind M Donald, Columbia U