Assessing conditions for inter-firm collaboration as a revenue strategy for politically pressured news media

Abstract

The struggle to find resilient journalism revenue models is nowhere starker than for exiled or politically pressured news media operating in fragile markets. One route forward is to explore inter-firm collaborations as a modus operandi to achieve more financial resilience through a collaborative approach amongst themselves. This article presents findings from a multi-stakeholder atelier that assessed operational revenue conditions for such media. It presents a co-created definition of collaborative revenue capture, then addresses the conditions and forms for collaborative structures. It conceptualises opportunities in four areas: technology, revenue-based systems, coordinating actions and journalism production. The article adds new knowledge by assessing collaborations as a revenue strategy within the under-researched media development area through a participatory mode of inquiry.