Crowdfunding for Journalism

Abstract

In crowdfunded journalism, individual journalists or news organizations gather funding from online crowds on digital platforms. Journalists pitch their stories to online crowds, who are asked to donate to the story process. The power of crowdfunding is created by a large amount of small donations. In recent years, crowdfunding has become an important revenue source for journalism that may otherwise remain unfunded. Apart from funding, crowdfunding creates value by helping journalists to connect with audiences and access information that otherwise would remain beyond their reach. With its increased transparency and collaborative aspects, crowdfunding both enhances and challenges journalistic norms.

Crowdfunding for Independent Print Media: E-Commerce, Marketing, and Business Development

“…The increase in the usage of crowdfunding in journalism is mostly based on the digital developments in which labor and the production processes are more distributed across different parties on digital platforms. Rather than being the main way to finance a project, crowdfunding mainly represents an additional revenue source to the traditional funding models of journalists and publishers, such as direct sales, subscription, and/or ad placement [37,121,122,154]. Popular platforms, such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo, that do also accept projects from other branches, are much more used to launching campaigns for journalism-related projects.…”

“…Popular platforms, such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo, that do also accept projects from other branches, are much more used to launching campaigns for journalism-related projects. Aitamurto [37] claims that "the power of crowdfunding as a revenue model comes from the quantity of relatively small donations, ranging from $5 to $20". Here, money is raised for different types of journalistic productions, e.g., single stories, continuous coverage, or new publications.…”

“…The crowdfunding platforms allow online communities to come together around a shared project and can create "new social interactions that motivate the crowd to participate in the funding of a projects, offering feeling of connectedness to a community with similar interests and ideals' for crowdfunders" [2,69]. Next to collecting the money, crowdfunding creates additional value in several ways, namely, by sensing the potential interest among the audience, branding in the form of brand attention, finding knowledge for the story in the form of contributions, and building an audience [37].…”

“…Therefore, crowdfunding is becoming a popular alternative to traditional financing options, such as bank loans or investors [33][34][35]. Running a crowdfunding campaign better preserves the independence of the company or the project than applying other alternatives [16,36,37]. The campaign runner is accountable to many supporters, who each make a small contribution, in contrast to the single bank or investor that provides a larger sum of money [38].…”

First-movers and industry shakeups: How public newspapers define value

“…Impact can also be measured through the story’s reach, or the number of digital views that the news product garners within the community (Benson, 2018). Beyond philanthropic circles, newsrooms have also turned to donor support generated from the audience itself (Aitamurto, 2019). In deciding whether to financially back a local publication, crowdfunded financing often hinges upon whether audience members conceive that the newsroom project carries positive impact within their community (Jian & Shin, 2015).…”