SESSION ON NEWS MEDIA IN THE AGE OF PLATFORMS

Day1, 19-July-2018

Welcome, introduction of the trainer.

Presentation: Program and goals of the workshop.

Exercise: Introduction of the participants and their expectations.

Discussion: House rules.

News as Conversation

• Presentation: Transformation of media: from monologue to dialogue. Shifts in the

way people consume news today. Shifts in the way people engage with news

brands. The rise of digital platforms and their impact on news consumption,

creation and distribution.

• Exercise: Choosing the right distributed content strategy for the participants’ news

media outlets.

Platforms and Monetisation

• Presentation: How do digital platforms really work? What makes Facebook so

successful and different from legacy media?

• Analysis of case studies: Buzzfeed’s Viral Content (U.S.A.), Guardian’s Open

Journalism (U.K.), Forbes’ Blogging Platform (U.S.A.), Gazeta Wyborcza’s Civic

Campaigns (Poland).

• Exercise: Brainstorming platform opportunities for the participants’ news media

outlets. Discussion on platform design and monetisation issues.

Audience Engagement Strategy

• Exercise: SWOT analysis of news engagement at the participants’ media outlets.

• Exercise: Planning a ladder of engagement for the users of the participants’ media

outlets.

• Exercise: drafting Objectives and Key Results for engagement projects at the

participants’ media outlets.

Day2, 20-July-2018

 Social Networks and Communities

• Exercise: Building a social network on the spot.

• Presentation: Solution-oriented and participatory journalism at De Correspondent

(the Netherlands), Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland), the Guardian (UK)

People: Mapping Communities and Empathising

• Exercise: Drawing portraits of audiences of the participants’ media outlets.

• Exercise: Mapping social networks and communities within audiences of the

participants’ media outlets.

 Topics: Need Finding and Defining

• Discussion: The biggest worries of audiences of the participants’ media outlets.

• Exercise: Rating problems and hierarchy of needs.

• Exercise: Building hierarchies of needs of different communities

Daily News Engagement

• Quiz: Who Wants to Be a Social Media Millionaire? Major social networks and the best ways to use them for news engagement.

• Discussion: Similarities and differences between the work of journalists and

marketeers in the past and today.

• Exercise: Prototyping editorial workflows that optimises engagement.

 Personal Brands and Engagement by Journalists and Editors

• Analysis of case studies: Building personal brands within communities at Gazeta

Wyborcza (Poland) and The Seattle Times/ The Evergrey (U.S.A.).

• Exercise: Writing “The Ten Commandments” of socially engaged journalists at the

participants’ media outlets.

 Social Media Tips and Tricks

• Review of best practices: 10 engagement ideas to be introduced immediately after

the workshop.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES:

After this workshop the participants will: 

• Understand the key trends in the advanced media markets — such as the rise of digital platforms, the increasing role of data and technology intermediaries — and their impact on news consumer behaviour and business models of news media companies. 

• Understand the way the Internet giants like Google, Facebook and others make money and how different is their operating and revenue model from the one of legacy news media such as the New York Times and digital pure players such as Buzzfeed.

• Be able to define different business models for news media and understand their consequences to product and marketing. 

• Understand waves of digital disruption of the news media industry and be able to define a strategic response for the participants’ own business unit or their company.

• Be able to define relevant platform strategies that news media publishers may wish to pursue.

• Understand network dynamics of viral content and the design of algorithms at Facebook and Youtube, and its impact on product design, development, and marketing.

CASE STUDIES AND BEST PRACTICES
During this workshop the participants will analyse case studies and learn about best practices of the leading U.S. and Western European companies such as:

• The shift of the digital business model of The New York Times from advertising-focused to subscription-first.

• U.S. BuzzFeed’s bet to become a TV network on the Facebook platform and beyond.

• The real value of super users at the Boston Globe.

• Development of the platform strategy at Axel Springer in Germany on a corporate level and on a business unit level of Bild newspaper.

• The user experience design at Netflix, Spotify and Facebook, and what news publishers can learn from the tech giants.

• The technology stack of the Washington Post: what have they built after they got taken over by Jeff Bezos, a founder of Amazon.

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