Lessons from Overseas
“What role can (and should) media policy play in supporting a strong, sustainable, vibrant local media sector in the United States?”
Part two in a five part series.
COVID-19 has had a profound impact on the U.S. news industry, especially at the local level, accelerating trend lines evident since the early 2000s. Yet our information needs, and the future of journalism, remain reliant on a sustainable local media ecosystem. As a result, our need for new thinking to ensure local journalism’s future is more important than ever.
This series will explore the role that media policy has historically played in supporting – and shaping – local news, how it can be leveraged to ensure access to information (including tackling digital divides), it’s contribution to facilitating community media, and what role it can play in encouraging new ownership and revenue models.
Discussing whether existing regulatory frameworks are fit for purpose, given changing media habits, new platforms and the ease of creating digital content, our expert panels will examine the instruments that policymakers at a state and federal level have in their arsenal, and which ones they should deploy.
Moderator: Damian Radcliffe
Panelists:
Kristy Hess
Kristy Hess is an Associate professor of communication and Associate Editor, Digital Journalism at Deakin University, Australia. Kristy's research focuses on the relationship between journalism, place-making and social order, especially in local and digital settings. She is interested in issues of media power and how everyday media-related practices inform understandings of news sustainability in the digital era. She also examines centre/periphery tensions, especially in regards to perceptions of the rural, local and agricultural issues.
Matthew Powers
Matthew Powers is an Associate Professor, Dept. of Communication, University of Washington. Co-Director of Center for Journalism, Media and Democracy at University of Washington. Matthew 's research explores transformations in contemporary journalism through a cross-national comparative lens, and his writings have been published in Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, and the International Journal of Press/Politics, among others.
Sameer Padania
Sameer Padania is the Founder and Advisor, Lead Author Journalism Funders Forum at Macroscope. Macroscope, works with clients, partners and peers in the UK, Europe and beyond to help transform and grow the public interest in journalism and information ecosystems. He works with journalists, funders, investors, researchers and others on a range of innovation, funding and policy initiatives, including serving as the Journalism Advisor for the Nesta Future News Pilot Fund, and helping to found the Public Benefit Journalism Research Centre.
