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Within weeks of the nation-wide COVID-19 shutdown, more than 200 regional and community newspapers across Australia announced they could no longer keep their presses running due to the unprecedented crisis. A drain in advertising spend, a broken business model and the refusal of digital behemoths to pay for content were blamed for their collapse, ironically as audiences' demand for credible news and information soared across the globe. There is no doubt the COVID-19 crisis has widened existing, deep cracks in the news media industry. In response this article sets out to explore possible solutions and strategies for local newspapers in the post-pandemic media landscape. We take an analogical approach to argue some of the issues that emerged during COVID-19 and strategies used to fight the global health pandemic also present valuable lessons for the preservation of public interest journalism and news at the local level. We conceptualise five coronavirus-related themes that resonate with a much-needed innovations agenda for local newspapers in Australia: (1) support for essential services, (2) warnings of complacency against an evolving biological threat, (3) appreciating the power of the social (4) coordinated government/policy responses and (5) 'we are all in this together'.

Despite the attention given to presidential candidates every statement and gaffe by the national media, elections can be won and lost by campaign's field efforts. In new research, Joshua Darr looks at how presidential campaigns can push coverage of their candidates in local newspapers. He finds that the best way for a campaign to earn positive coverage in local news is by targeting smaller newspapers. Those campaigns which did saw four times more positive stories about their candidate compared to those areas where the campaign was not active.

[Preface] Over the last decade an increasing number of voices have raised concerns about the decline of local news provision in the UK and its impact on democracy. These voices have been challenged by those, particularly within the news industry, who claim that after a difficult period of transition local news is becoming fit for the digital age. Both claims suffer from a relative lack of systematic evidence. Without such evidence it is more difficult to justify existing policy interventions or alter them. Yet, as this study shows, to maintain the status quo holds democratic, economic and social risks. This study, which builds on recent work by both authors, aims to begin to fill the evidence gap and, as a consequence, inform changes in public policy regarding the provision of local news and information. It is important to note that the references in this report to the decline of local newspapers refer to the quantitative decline in the number and circulation of local newspapers, and do not reflect the quality of the output or work of local journalists. This study does not include a quantitative or qualitative analysis of local newspaper content. This report has been reviewed by two academics with expert knowledge in local news from outside King's College London, and one academic within King's College London.

Any constitutional move towards a federal system in the United Kingdom would inevitably be unbalanced by England's obvious economic, cultural and numerical dominance. Some form of English regional devolution is therefore essential if we are to progress as a multinational state post Scottish and Welsh devolution. This article adopts a deliberately polemical approach to a consideration of the potential role of regional English newspapers in that context, suggesting that their established links with a coherent audience, rooted in place, might allow them to act as a vehicle for debate and nurture a sense of regional identity often absent from contemporary English politics. Regional newspapers are 'culturally specific' and have a key role to play in articulating the popular experience of post-devolution political change: this might also present this struggling sector with valuable commercial opportunities as they take advantage of the new political paradigm to further embed themselves within their communities.

In the wake of the withdrawal of commercial journalism from local communities at the beginning of the 21st century, Hyperlocal Journalism critically explores the development of citizen-led community news operations. The book draws together a wide range of original research by way of case studies, interviews, and industry and policy analysis, to give a complete view of what is happening to communities as their local newspapers close or go into decline to be replaced by emerging forms of digital news provision. This study takes the United Kingdom as its focus but its findings speak to common issues found in local media systems in other Western democracies. The authors investigate who is producing hyperlocal news and why, as well as production practices, models of community and participatory journalism, and the economics of hyperlocal operations. Looking holistically at hyperlocal news, Hyperlocal Journalism paints a vivid picture of citizens creating their own news services via social media and on free blogging platforms to hold power to account, redress negative reputational geographies, and to tell everyday stories of community life. The book also raises key questions about the sustainability of such endeavours in the face of optimism from commentators and policy-makers.

This paper is based on a research of communication aspect of the relationship between local newspapers and culture in the period from 1990 to 2000. Political changes during 1990s marked political changes having an impact on all life segments in the Republic of Croatia, thus in the town of Zadar too. The process of democratization in the Republic of Croatia was marked with a series of difficulties. The Homeland war brought about tough days of poverty, deaths, destroyed towns and local heritage, as well as other difficulties usually brought about by war. Culture is an important segment of human life, and studying culture and cultural life in war period requires special attention. Cultural life in such extraordinary conditions influences raising morale and has a significant role in the spiritual life of citizens. Political changes had an effect also on the media going through a process of creating a democratic pluralistic information system. The paper is based on a hypothesis that the Zadar newspapers − in terms of culture and cultural work in the first decade of democratic changes, in pre-war period, war period and post-war period − had the role of an active participant in cultural life as well as the role of a mediator among journalists, cultural workers and citizens of Zadar. The research is based on researches of reaction papers in the area of culture in Zadar's local newspapers in the period from 1990 to 2000. The newspapers include: Narodni list, Zadarski list, Fokus, Zadarski tjednik and Zadarski regional. This paper defines culture in terms of the document Cultural politics of the Republic of Croatia, harmonized with the European standards in terms of cultural politics.

How does competition from online platforms affect the organization, performance, and editorial choices of newspapers? And what are the implications of these changes for the information vot-ers are exposed to and for political accountability? We study these questions using the staggered introduction of Craigslist - the world's largest online platform for classified advertising - across US counties between 1995 and 2009. This setting allows us to separate the effect of competition for classified advertising from other changes brought about by the Internet, and to compare newspapers that relied more or less heavily on classified ads ex ante. We find that, following the entry of Craigslist, local papers experienced a significant decline in the number of newsroom and management staff. Cuts in editorial staff disproportionately affected reporters covering politics. These organizational changes led to a reduction in news coverage of politics and political corrup-tion, and resulted in a decline in newspaper readership which was not compensated by increased news consumption on other media. Finally, we find some evidence that reduced news coverage of politics was associated with lower voter turnout, and more party-line voting for both citizens and politicians.

This research is aimed to 1) explore people's expectation of local newspapers in the context of Chiang Mai 2) investigate local newspapers' roles in relation to local community and hurdles they are facing and 3) analyze the papers' content vis-à-vis how they represent the local leading to ways to promote these communication outlets to be civic media. Employing content analysis, interview and survey research, the study found that research respondents have high expectations of local newspapers and particularly, their roles to represent local interests (= 4.43). However, they see the existing roles of these media is only on average level (= 2.67). Both internal and external unfavorable factors obstruct these media. In order to turn themselves to be civic media, local newspapers have to massively concentrate on content related to crises of Chiang Mai, i.e. environment issues and provide more spaces to sources other than government agencies, especially those associating with local community and civil society. Giving opportunities to people to report stories is another way to make media closely link to their target readers. Finally, they must immensely utilize online media in order to reach larger receivers. ; การวิจัยครั้งนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อ 1) ศึกษาถึงความคาดหวังของประชาชนผู้รับสารต่อบทบาทหน้าที่ของหนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นในจังหวัดเชียงใหม่ 2) ศึกษาถึงบทบาท และปัจจัยที่เป็นอุปสรรคถ่วงรั้งการพัฒนาสื่อดังกล่าว และ 3) เพื่อศึกษาวิเคราะห์เกี่ยวกับการนำเสนอเนื้อหาเกี่ยวกับชุมชนท้องถิ่น และแนวทางในการส่งเสริมให้หนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นในจังหวัดเชียงใหม่เป็นสื่อพลเมือง (Civic Journalism) ใช้วิธีการศึกษาด้วยการวิเคราะห์เนื้อหา การออกแบบสอบถาม และการสัมภาษณ์ ผลการศึกษาพบว่าผู้ตอบแบบสอบถามมีความคาดหวังต่อบทบาทของหนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นเชียงใหม่ในระดับมาก (= 4.10) โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งความคาดหวังต่อบทบาทในด้านการทำหน้าที่เป็นปากเสียงให้กับชุมชนท้องถิ่น (= 4.43) ส่วนบทบาทต่อชุมชนท้องถิ่นที่เป็นอยู่ในปัจจุบันของหนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นนั้น ผู้ตอบแบบสอบถามให้ค่าเฉลี่ยในระดับปานกลาง (= 2.67) ซึ่งถือเป็นระดับที่ต่ำกว่าความคาดหวัง มีปัจจัยถ่วงรั้งที่ถ่วงรั้งการพัฒนาทั้งภายในและภายนอก การพัฒนาหนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นเชียงใหม่ไปสู่ความเป็นสื่อพลเมืองที่ผูกพันกับชุมชนท้องถิ่นนั้น จะต้องเสนอประเด็นข่าวปัญหาที่เป็นวิกฤตของชาวเมืองเชียงใหม่อย่างเข้มข้นและต่อเนื่องโดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งปัญหาสิ่งแวดล้อม และเปิดพื้นที่ให้กับแหล่งข่าวที่ไม่ใช่ภาคราชการให้มากขึ้น รวมถึงการเปิดให้ชุมชนท้องถิ่นเข้ามามีส่วนร่วมในลักษณะของนักข่าวพลเมือง นอกจากนี้จะต้องมีการนำสื่อใหม่และสื่อสังคมออนไลน์เข้ามาใช้เพื่อการเข้าถึงผู้รับสารได้มากขึ้น

This paper investigates the impact of increased media competition on the quantity and quality of news provided and, ultimately, on political participation. I build a new county-level panel dataset of local newspaper presence, newspapers' number of journalists, costs and revenues and political turnout in France, from 1944 to 2014. I estimate the effect of newspaper entry by comparing counties that experience entry to similar counties in the same years that do not. Both sets of counties exhibit similar trends prior to entry, but those with entry experience substantial declines in the average number of journalists. An increased number of newspapers is also associated with fewer articles and less hard news provision. Newspaper entry, and the associated decline in information provision, is ultimately found to decrease voter turnout at local elections. Exploiting the long time span covered by my data, I discuss a number of mechanisms that may drive these empirical findings. First, I examine the relationship between increased competition and media capture in the aftermath of WW2, when newspapers were biased and the advertising market was underdeveloped. I then show that in the recent period the effects are stronger in counties with more homogeneous populations, as predicted by a vertical product differentiation framework, whereas there is little impact in counties with more heterogeneous populations.

This paper investigates the impact of increased media competition on the quantity and quality of news provided and, ultimately, on political participation. I build a new county-level panel dataset of local newspaper presence, newspapers' number of journalists, costs and revenues and political turnout in France, from 1944 to 2014. I estimate the effect of newspaper entry by comparing counties that experience entry to similar counties in the same years that do not. Both sets of counties exhibit similar trends prior to entry, but those with entry experience substantial declines in the average number of journalists. An increased number of newspapers is also associated with fewer articles and less hard news provision. Newspaper entry, and the associated decline in information provision, is ultimately found to decrease voter turnout at local elections. Exploiting the long time span covered by my data, I discuss a number of mechanisms that may drive these empirical findings. First, I examine the relationship between increased competition and media capture in the aftermath of WW2, when newspapers were biased and the advertising market was underdeveloped. I then show that in the recent period the effects are stronger in counties with more homogeneous populations, as predicted by a vertical product differentiation framework, whereas there is little impact in counties with more heterogeneous populations.

This paper investigates the impact of increased media competition on the quantity and quality of news provided and, ultimately, on political participation. Drawing upon existing literature on vertical product differentiation, I explore the conditions under which an increase in the number of newspapers can decrease both the quantity and quality of news provided. I build a new county-level panel dataset of local newspaper presence, newspapers' newsrooms, costs and revenues and political turnout in France, from 1944 to 2014. I estimate the effect of newspaper entry by comparing counties that experience entry to similar counties in the same years that do not. Both sets of counties exhibit similar trends prior to newspaper entry, but those with entry experience substantial declines in the average number of journalists (business-stealing effect). An increased number of newspapers is also associated with fewer articles and less hard news provision. These effects are stronger in counties with more homogeneous populations, as predicted by my simple theoretical framework, whereas there is little impact in counties with more heterogeneous populations. Newspaper entry, and the associated decline in information provision, is ultimately found to decrease voter turnout at local elections.

This paper investigates the impact of increased media competition on the quantity and quality of news provided and, ultimately, on political participation. Drawing upon existing literature on vertical product differentiation, I explore the conditions under which an increase in the number of newspapers can decrease both the quantity and quality of news provided. I build a new county-level panel dataset of local newspaper presence, newspapers' newsrooms, costs and revenues and political turnout in France, from 1944 to 2014. I estimate the effect of newspaper entry by comparing counties that experience entry to similar counties in the same years that do not. Both sets of counties exhibit similar trends prior to newspaper entry, but those with entry experience substantial declines in the average number of journalists (business-stealing effect). An increased number of newspapers is also associated with fewer articles and less hard news provision. These effects are stronger in counties with more homogeneous populations, as predicted by my simple theoretical framework, whereas there is little impact in counties with more heterogeneous populations. Newspaper entry, and the associated decline in information provision, is ultimately found to decrease voter turnout at local elections.

This dissertation examines the ability of the media to monitor politicians and the ability of voters to acquire politically relevant information. The dissertation is primarily made up of three separate papers. The first paper (Chapter 2) asks why citizens routinely fail to vote out of step representatives out of office and what institutions can help voters hold politicians accountable. To the extent that politicians exploit voters' lack of information to win at the ballot box despite shirking in Congress, the press could foster democratic accountability by sounding the alarm on out of step representatives and alerting otherwise inattentive voters that it is time for change. In the first paper in my dissertation I collect an original dataset of local newspaper coverage of candidates in the 2010 House election in order to find out whether newspapers play this role for voters and act as a watchdog of incumbent representatives. After working with research assistants to provide human classification of a random subset of these articles, I use a text as data machine learning approach to measure the content of the much larger volume of articles that we cannot read. After validating an ensemble ``SuperLearner'' by demonstrating out-of-sample classification accuracy that for many features approaches human inter-coder agreement, I show that challengers receive less coverage than incumbents in competitive districts, horse race coverage displaces policy coverage, and newspapers do not sound the alarm on out of step incumbents. Newspapers do provide a whiff of scandal when representatives are referred to the House Ethics Committee for potential ethics violations, but they do not criticize representatives accused of some form of corruption at significantly higher rates. Even in congressional districts that closely correspond to newspaper markets, journalists act as neither watchdog nor lapdog, but instead provide overwhelmingly neutral coverage, failing to criticize incumbents who vote against a majority of their constituents on landmark legislation.The second paper (Chapter 3) provides experimental evidence that candidate appearance influences vote choice. According to numerous studies, candidates' looks predict voters' choices---a finding that raises concerns about voter competence and about the quality of elected officials. This potentially worrisome finding, however, is observational and therefore vulnerable to alternative explanations. To better test the appearance effect, we conducted two experiments. Just before primary and general elections for various offices, we randomly assigned voters to receive ballots with and without candidate photos. Simply showing voters these pictures increased the vote for appearance-advantaged candidates. Experimental evidence therefore supports the view that candidates' looks could influence some voters. In general elections, we find that high-knowledge voters appear immune to this influence, while low-knowledge voters use appearance as a low-information heuristic. In primaries, however, candidate appearance influences even high-knowledge and strongly partisan voters.The third paper (Chapter 4) examines which major events in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign saw only a brief spike in coverage and which became a more permanent feature of campaign coverage. In particular, I analyze coverage of six major events in the presidential campaign to test the hypothesis that news outlets of all persuasions will cover major events as news, but only partisan outlets will continue to discuss negative stories about their opponents long after the event that made the topic news. Broadly, I find that all outlets do indeed pick up major stories temporarily, but that the more tradition news news organization in my study does not stick with a higher level of coverage of any topic after a seven day window following the related event. Partisan outlets, in contrast, either continue to cover negative stories about the opposing candidate at a higher rate or were already on the story before a related event caused everyone else to temporarily pick up the story. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the implications of my findings for democratic accountability and the health of American democracy. I conclude that for the most part democracy is conducted in a dim light.

If there is one realm of public life in which the provincial press has long justified the mantle 'fourth estate', it is in fulfilling its time-honoured role as principal scrutinizer (and critic) of local government. For generations, regional newspapers in the UK, mainland Europe and the United States have been our primary sources of information on the deliberations and decisions of local authorities - and our channels for dissent over wayward procedures, policies and politicking. Yet, as we enter the second decade of a new century - a brave new digital world, in which it should be easier than ever for journalists to keep us abreast of the activities of councillors and officials - local papers appear increasingly neutered, at least in England and Wales. Surveys point to a dramatic decline in the amount of space and time they are devoting to council coverage, and the steady demise of dedicated local government correspondents. This chapter argues that these developments can be partly blamed on recent reforms to the way in which councils in England and Wales conduct their business. Tony Blair's Local Government Act (HM Stationery Office 2000a) ushered in cabinet-style council executives based on the model used by the UK's national administration. The act simultaneously exempted them from meeting in public, unless discussing major decisions that they intended to make collectively.

การวิจัยนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อศึกษาข้อจำกัดด้านเงินทุนของหนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นจังหวัดอุบลราชธานีที่ส่งผลต่อการทำหน้าที่ตรวจสอบหน่วยงานภาครัฐในระดับพื้นที่จังหวัดอุบลราชธานี ซึ่งศึกษาหนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นจังหวัดอุบลราชธานี 2 ฉบับ คือ (1) หนังสือพิมพ์โอเคอีสาน (2) หนังสือพิมพ์ปทุมมาลัย โดยใช้วิธีการสำรวจและวิเคราะห์เอกสารหนังสือพิมพ์ฉบับเดือนสิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2556 ถึงเดือนกรกฎาคม พ.ศ.2559 และการวิเคราะห์บทสัมภาษณ์เชิงลึกผู้ที่เกี่ยวข้อง 11 คน ผลการวิจัยพบว่าหนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นจังหวัดอุบลราชธานีมีบทบาทในการตรวจสอบรัฐค่อนข้างน้อยมากไปจนถึงไม่มีเลย ด้วยข้อจำกัดด้านเงินทุนในการดำเนินงานเป็นปัญหาสำคัญที่ทำให้การบริหารงานสื่อไม่มีระบบที่ชัดเจน ขณะที่การทำอาชีพสื่อมวลชนไม่สามารถทำเพื่อเป็นรายได้เลี้ยงตนเองได้ จึงส่งผลถึงการได้มาซึ่งบุคลากรที่เป็นมืออาชีพในการเป็นสื่อมวลชน บทบาทการตรวจสอบรัฐจึงทำได้ยากเนื่องจากเจ้าของสื่อหรือบุคลากรสื่อต้องใช้เวลาไปกับการหาแหล่งทุนเพื่อมาอุดหนุนสื่อหนังสือพิมพ์ของตนเอง ทั้งนี้จากการศึกษาหนังสือพิมพ์ที่พบว่ามีการตรวจสอบหน่วยงานรัฐบ้างแต่เป็นส่วนที่น้อยมาก เนื่องจากเกรงกลัวข้อกฎหมายและอิทธิพลทางการเมือง นอกเหนือจากนั้นคือการที่บุคลากรในกองบรรณาธิการมีอาชีพหลักอย่างอื่นที่ไม่ใช่การเป็นสื่อหนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นอย่างเดียว โดยที่การทำสื่อหนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นเป็นเพียงอาชีพเสริมเท่านั้น ซึ่งบุคลากรเหล่านั้นต้องให้เวลากับอาชีพหลักของตนเอง จึงส่งผลให้ไม่ได้ทำหน้าที่สื่อมวลชนได้อย่างเต็มที่ โดยเฉพาะบทบาทในการตรวจสอบรัฐ อย่างไรก็ตามจากการศึกษาแหล่งทุนที่ได้มาจากหน่วยงานรัฐเป็นส่วนน้อย แต่ก็ไม่ได้ทำให้หนังสือพิมพ์ท้องถิ่นทำหน้าที่ตรวจสอบรัฐมากขึ้น This study aimed to investigate financial limitations of Ubon Ratchathani local newspapers influencing the inspection of government agencies in the province. Two local newspapers including OK E-san and Patum Malai, publishing on August 2013 – July 2016, and In-depth Interview among a total of 11 stakeholders were applied for data collection. The results of the study demonstrated that the local newspapers did not play a significant role, or had no role, for checking the government agencies because of their financial constraints, considered as a critical problem resulting in an unclear media management system. Incomes of officers who are working in the mass media industry were not enough for their livings contributing to insufficient officers/professionals in the mass media industry. Additionally, it was quite hard to check the government agencies as mass media entrepreneurs including officers spent their most working times to find a source of investment funds to sustain their newspapers. The findings also indicated that only few government agencies were inspected as the newspapers companies were afraid of laws and political authorities. Officers in the editorial department also had other significant occupations, the newspaper work considered as a supplement work, so that they could not give an importance on the mass media work especially the duty of checking on government performances. Lastly, few investment funds of the two newspapers companies were granted by the government; however, it was not influential for them in performing the inspection of government agencies.