This study examines how journalistic content can be affected when a local newspapers website changes its business model to what is commonly known as a premium paywall. This study is based upon data provided by the local newspaper Barometern. The data concerns the number of online articles included in fifteen subject and geographically defined categories. The data was collected from two three month long periods, one before and one after the introduction of the news paper paywall that was installed in October of 2014. The study finds that the total number of articles published after the introduction of the paywall was significantly higher than before but that the share of articles included in the different subject categories did not change considerably for paying readers. For non- paying readers however, the data show that the share of articles for the different subject and geographical categories changed significantly. Even though the data from this study cannot confirm a correlation, it does highlight a possible connection between media competition in different local markets and subject matters and the amount of articles that are placed behind the newspapers online paywall in that category. This means that non-paying readers in this case got access to a large number of articles included in some categories and only a small portion of articles included in some other categories. Non-paying readers not only got access to a smaller number of articles but also to a different content profile than paying readers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-49816 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Oscarsson, Joel |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för medier och journalistik (MJ) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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