Ending the Subsidies Ice Age: Conceptualizing an Integrative Framework for the Analysis of Innovation Policies Supporting Journalism

Abstract

This article explores the potential of leveraging insights from innovation policy studies to enhance the analysis of journalism support, particularly innovation policies for journalism. It adopts a conceptual approach, applying the policy mix concept to media systems literature, yielding three benefits. First, it offers a holistic framework for researchers to consider different building blocks of policymaking supporting journalism innovation. Second, it broadens the conceptualization of journalism support beyond financial assistance. Finally, it develops recommendations for a future research agenda, encouraging both scholarly work and practical solutions for a robust journalism support infrastructure in the digital age.

Today, journalism operates in a permanent state of change. New technologies increasingly integrate into its core, new players challenge its legacy media and traditional business models that once provided financial stability to journalism, which now face unsustainability, posing a threat to its democratic significance and legitimacy.¹ At the intersection of these changes lies the concept of “innovation” as a process of taking new approaches to media practices, forms, and organization and coping with these evolving industry dynamics.² It is seen as a means to adapt to change.³

Against this backdrop, policymakers recognize the need to adjust public support mechanisms to catalyze the transformation of the news media industry rather than merely sustain it through conventional subsidies.⁴ In recent years, several Western democracies have gradually implemented policies to encourage innovation within the news media industry.⁵

However, in research, the dynamics between journalism and policy in the digital era remain largely uncharted,⁶ with a particular lack of (comparative) research elucidating the state of public support for journalism innovation. Instead, current research focuses on direct and indirect financial support provided to journalism, typically as subsidization of costs involved in production and distribution or as tax reductions.⁷ This article suggests that future research must focus not only on past systems of anachronistic press funding but also on journalism’s future and how policy might promote innovation rather than perpetuate legacy systems.

To address this research gap, this conceptual article suggests harnessing innovation policy research as a future-oriented, comprehensive discipline, with a particular emphasis on the concept of policy mixes.⁸ The concept has become the most holistic approach to innovation policy in recent years, especially in domains experiencing significant transformations, such as sustainability, energy transition,⁹ and health policy research.¹⁰ Frameworks introduced to analyze the concept reveal the systemic complexity of policymaking by highlighting the interaction among its building blocks and acknowledging that a variety of instruments are essential to drive change in any given field.¹¹ Therefore, building on the groundwork already laid in these other policy domains, it might also drive the analysis of public innovation support for journalism. This leads to the formulation of the following research question (RQ): How can insights from the policy mix literature be leveraged to better analyze innovation policies for journalism?

The aim of this article is theoretical, with a primary objective to advance the existing academic discourse and theory building on journalism funding. In this context, using the policy mix concept serves as a valuable academic tool kit to investigate more than just financial assistance for news media and explore a comprehensive range of dimensions, processes, and elements that bear on the media system. It challenges the prevailing analytical frameworks in media systems literature so far and allows for a more comprehensive examination of today’s public journalism support. Drawing on this framework, this article develops concrete recommendations for a future research agenda on innovation policies for journalism—a step necessary to advance existing literature and move beyond what I metaphorically refer to as the “subsidies ice age,” a term inspired by existing research¹² to refer to increasingly outdated support systems and their corresponding literature.

Current Conceptualization of Public Support for Journalism in Research

Press Subsidies as Object of Media Systems Research

Traditional media systems literature usually assigns the state’s role for commercial media to funding and regulations.¹³ Press subsidies, in particular, are widely regarded as exerting the most immediate influence on the industry and serve as the focal point of research. Ever since the advent of the modern commercial press, Western democracies have established programs to provide subsidies to improve the financial conditions of news organizations.¹⁴ These subsidies follow two rationales. On the one hand, concern for economic development includes press subsidies being granted for preventing market failure and financial burden, overcoming crises, and keeping jobs.¹⁵ On the other hand, value-related rationales for press subsidies include maintaining diversity and political pluralism and promoting language or culture.¹⁶ Democracy and the media are often seen as mutually promoting each other, with news ensuring that the general information needs of the citizenry are met.¹⁷ In many European countries, media policies were thus developed to safeguard democracy.¹⁸

On the basis of these rationales, academia identifies different targets and types of financial instruments available to support journalism. Table 1 develops a typology of subsidies, showcasing direct and indirect aid measures through general or selective allocation, which can influence both supply and demand conditions for the press.

Direct subsidies involve an actual and direct payment of funds by the state or a state-related agency to newspapers and news organizations, such as loans, grants, start-up incubators, or production and distribution support. Indirect subsidies, on the other hand, do not involve actual cash handouts but imply the promotion of more favorable economic conditions for news organizations, e.g., through reduced taxes, fees, and regulations.¹⁹ Indirect subsidies are generally less controversial than direct subsidies and are thus more frequently implemented by governments.²⁰ Allocations of direct and indirect subsidies can be either general or selective, with the latter targeting a specific group of media firms, for example, based on their performance, size, language, minority status, or other aspects. General allocations affect all news organizations without any redistribution effect, leading to general changes for the wider newspaper market.²¹

Shift in the Perspective toward Innovation and Its Challenges

The difficulty with the above typology is that it is increasingly perceived as “frozen” or insufficient to fully understand the wider support system of journalism these days.²² Instead, there is a growing importance to realign our focus to encompass the ongoing changes in journalism and the surrounding media systems.²³ With digital transformation, financial difficulties, and media convergence, there is now broad scholarly consensus on the importance of innovations for facing these challenges and ensuring a viable future for journalism.²⁴ Innovation is seen as

In this regard, innovation encompasses anything novel or combined in a novel way that is introduced to the market in response to problems, challenges, or opportunities arising in the digital era development of journalism. Innovations range from minor changes to radical alteration.²⁶ New products, novel organizational forms, and workflows as well as forms of management, new target groups, and new business models—scholars identify at least four relevant innovation categories for the practical implementation of new solutions for the media industry, their exploitation, and distribution (Table 2).²⁷

For example, innovation was necessary to take print online,²⁸ develop global networks for investigative journalism,²⁹ embrace generative artificial intelligence (AI) in newsrooms,³⁰ or encourage remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic.³¹ Such developments are unattainable in a culture that promotes stagnation. However, the concept of innovation also faces criticism because the term is often confused with both technology’s “bright, shiny things”³² or as a panacea for all of journalism’s challenges, whereas its primary role is only that of a catalyst for transformative change.

Considering the aforementioned context, we observe that, in practice, the establishment of public support structures aimed at fostering innovation in journalism is gradually gaining traction within Western democracies. As depicted in Table 3, several support schemes have been introduced in recent years,³³ highlighting their goals, modalities of assistance (funding, coaching, events), stakeholders involved, grant amount, and year of inception. However, it is also noteworthy that despite the existence of such initiatives, the provision of adequate backing for journalism innovation remains limited, with much more funding allocated for production and distribution support.³⁴

Academia has yet to fully acknowledge the growing significance of this discernible, although subtle, shift or broadening of focus—transitioning from conventional support aimed at sustaining news media companies and their day-to-day functions (e.g., production and distribution) toward the promotion of innovation in journalism through strategic policies. In addition to specific acts of innovation support (Table 3), there are various other avenues, including, but not limited to, imposing taxes on large tech companies and redirecting these funds toward journalism, encouraging greater levels of philanthropic support for journalism, or leveraging the tax code.³⁵ Innovation support enables news organizations to evolve during technological change, ensuring they remain relevant and effective. Yet, in research, insufficient attention has been given to the question of how policy should effectively address innovation and technological developments in journalism.³⁶ It is imperative for scholars to rise to the occasion and present a more comprehensive solution for analyzing these innovation policies for journalism.

The lack of academic adaptation may be due to two main reasons. First, journalism research has mainly focused on how micro-level (individual media professionals) and meso-level (organizational) factors influence innovation, while research on macro-level factors such as media policies and, more specifically, media innovation subsidization is scarce.³⁷ Second, limited political attention to the topic in practice has long been an obstacle for theorists. On the one hand, media policy is often discreet, away from public scrutiny, primarily because it rarely gains electoral votes but can cost some.³⁸ On the other hand, in many countries, there has been a dearth of substantial media policy initiatives until more recently (see Table 3).³⁹ This makes it challenging for scholars seeking a comprehensive understanding of the actual implementation plans for journalism support.

Against this background, unsurprisingly, existing scholarly work has identified three main deficits in current research on innovation support for journalism:

1. Static conceptualization: As outlined before, most frameworks analyzing journalism support only focus on instruments or instrument mixes (see Table 1),⁴⁰ which do not allow the dynamics of actual innovation policymaking to be captured. Instead, such typologies remain normative and static.⁴¹ An up-to-date, clear view of journalism support considering the context of policymaking is necessary to facilitate academic progress and policy consensus in the future.⁴²

2. Narrow scope: Much of the current scholarly work is still overly focused on direct financial support measures for the conventional press, such as production or distribution support.⁴³ However, in reality, multiple financial and nonfinancial policy instruments often work together to produce the desired effect on the media industry. Several authors thus request a shift in perspective, advocating for a broader, non-genre-specific definition for subsidies to be adopted, encompassing a wider range of tools supporting a wider range of media technologies, platforms, organizational forms, and business models.⁴⁴

3. Ineffective operationalization: A significant deficit in current media systems research lies in the challenge of effectively operationalizing analysis frameworks across nations. Many existing frameworks exhibit a degree of rigidity that can impede their applicability in diverse contexts.⁴⁵ This rigidity can inadvertently lead researchers to overlook crucial categories for analysis, limiting the depth and breadth of their investigations, particularly when applied to evaluations of new policies for journalism.

Expanding Theoretical Frameworks to Studying Innovation Policies for Journalism

Innovation policy is universally acknowledged as a pivotal driver of transformation.⁴⁶ As such, it is inextricably linked to the evolution of media systems and their respective support for journalism innovation. To move past the aforementioned limitations in current research, it is necessary to develop an academic tool kit that helps researchers analyze innovation policies for journalism. To do so, this article suggests referencing innovation policy research, particularly the concept of policy mixes.⁴⁷ The concept stands out as a comprehensive approach to analyzing the intricate web of factors influencing public innovation support and adapt to the unpredictable nature of innovation systems.

The idea of policy mixes was first articulated by the OECD about twenty years ago, acknowledging that governments often need to adopt a diverse range of complementary innovation-supporting instruments to address complex public issues.⁴⁸ However, a policy mix entails more than a simple combination of policies or instruments; it also includes the processes by which they emerge, the actors and institutions involved, and spatial and time dimensions and impact evaluation.⁴⁹ Literature suggests there is a need to study the relationships among these different aspects to gain a greater understanding of why public problems are addressed in particular ways.⁵⁰ In recent years, Rogge and Reichardt presented the most sophisticated framework to analyze policy mixes, comprising four building blocks: dimensions, processes, elements, and their overarching characteristics.⁵¹ Mavrot et al. developed the model even further by incorporating additional categories such as settings and target groups.⁵²

In this extended model, dimensions specify the space in which the respective policies are set, thus helping to understand the context of any policy: where was it created and at what time? Moving further, the next layer of the policy mix building blocks refers to its form. Processes describe how “policies emerge, interact and have effects”⁵³ and illustrate the dynamics of actual policymaking by capturing nonlinear, path-dependent processes in media policy, such as electoral, budget, and planning cycles.⁵⁴ Understanding these processes is essential for comprehending how elements of the policy mix, including both strategy and corresponding policy instruments, may change over time. These elements form the backbone of the policy mix, representing concrete tools to address policy problems. Different stakeholders connect these elements with their surrounding policy processes, encompassing recipients of support instruments and their organizers.⁵⁵ Finally, to gauge the effectiveness and perception of innovation policies, it is imperative to consider their overarching characteristics (Figure 1).⁵⁶

Policy mix analysis provides a holistic framework that accommodates diverse building blocks that collectively contribute to the effectiveness of innovation policies. It is a well-established analytical framework that is widely adopted across various policy domains. Its adaptation to the field of journalism aligns with best practices in current policy analysis, exposing media scholars to a structured approach to understanding the dynamics of journalism innovation funding. The concept provides a solution to address current challenges in research, such as its static conceptualization, narrow scope on financial tools, and ineffective operationalization (see Section “The Shift in Perspective toward Innovation and Its Challenges”). It allows us to reorient scholarship to better understand the evolving landscape of journalism funding and identify emerging areas of study.

An Integrative Framework for Media Innovation Policy Research

In this section, the application of the policy mix framework to journalism innovation support is explored. This approach proves advantageous, first, by enabling a comprehensive examination of the contextual dimensions of policymaking related to innovation support for journalism. Second, the policy mix analysis encourages a broader conceptualization of innovation support for journalism. Finally, it facilitates a thorough evaluation of the outcomes of these initiatives. The simplicity of the model renders it an excellent framework adaptable to diverse nations and cases. It allows scholars to formulate research questions rooted in the analysis categories while providing room for customization based on different contexts.

Dimensions

Media systems and accordingly media policy schemes are constantly evolving in relation to surrounding temporal,⁵⁷ economic,⁵⁸ and cultural⁵⁹ contexts. Therefore, considering the dimensions of innovation policies for journalism provides scholars with insight into the changing policy fields, governance levels, geography, and time in which policy mixes play out.⁶⁰

First, it allows us to understand how media and communications policy interacts and intersects with several other policy regimes, particularly those closely related to taxation, competition, ownership, finance, employment, and labor.⁶¹

Second, by looking at the geography dimension, researchers can further understand media policy in different areas. This also strongly correlates with governance levels, which could be located on either the vertical (e.g., international, federal, regional, and local) or horizontal level (e.g., different political entities at the same governance level, such as separate ministries). On the basis of these distinctions, scholars can prepare a systemic comparison of national support infrastructures or analyze the interactions of federal, national, and supranational support. For instance, when supranational bodies, such as the EU, influence media policy design in addition to national, regional, and local authorities, policy mixes may transform.⁶²

Finally, time is a crucial dimension as it captures dynamic policy mix changes.⁶³ For example, research on the shifting role of a reduced value-added tax as a media policy tool has shown how a new political paradigm or changes in public finances directly shape public intervention over time.⁶⁴

It is important to consider all dimensions related to innovation policies for journalism to fully understand the processes (see Section “Processes”), strategies, and instruments (see Section “Elements”) involved.

Processes

In the suggested framework, policy processes surrounding innovation policies targeted at journalism entail a triad of policymaking, implementation, and adaptation actions.⁶⁵ These can be complex, given the different structural contexts in which policy is developed, the actors involved (e.g., governments, interest groups, platforms, newspapers, and start-ups), their resources and capacity to act, and the ideas and beliefs they hold. It is thus important to understand the ways in which policy processes determine how policy strategies and elements of a particular policy mix (see Section “Elements”) proceed and interact.⁶⁶

To provide ideas for the healthy design and implementation of media policies, scholars must analyze their underlying policy processes. This requires a thorough examination of the different actors involved (stakeholders), along with their agendas and power dynamics. For example, legacy media companies actively seek legal regulations to protect their own interests and thus attempt to interfere with policymaking.⁶⁷ Additionally, scholars must investigate how media (innovation) support schemes have historically emerged, implemented, and enforced. It is highly relevant to consider path dependencies, such as political, economic, or administrative cycles, and to investigate why a policy was created, by whom, where, and when.

Elements

Elements represent the core of any policy mix, comprising policy rationales as well as the instrument mix.⁶⁸ Both are key to understanding and analyzing the actual content of media policies. Therefore, researchers must clearly define policy objectives, plans, tools, and recipients of the latter to effectively evaluate the success of innovation policies for journalism. To support news media in the digital media economy, governments may use financial, regulatory, and soft instruments.⁶⁹ In that sense, research should investigate not only financial support for media, such as grants or loans, but also voluntary, noncoercive instruments,⁷⁰ such as codes of conduct for society. These can include media literacy campaigns, recommendations, public/private partnerships, or support for journalism education via schools and trainings. Further, academic studies on measures taken to support those who consume news, for example via tax relaxations, are needed.⁷¹

Characteristics

Finally, effective and balanced policy mixes are often suggested as a solution to challenges in the ecosystem.⁷² However, to assess their effectiveness and balance, scholars must investigate their coherence, consistency, credibility, and comprehensiveness.⁷³ The goal of including characteristics in the policy mix model is to ensure that we also consider how innovation policies for journalism are perceived, not only why they were set up and what they contain. For example, it would allow researchers to investigate how citizens view government-based funding for journalism or to research media coverage of policy instruments to obtain an overall assessment of a policy’s impact.

Conclusion

Summary of Main Contributions

Drawing on innovation policy research, specifically the concept of policy mixes, this article proposes an integrative tool kit that helps researchers examine journalism support and, more particularly, innovation policies for journalism. It contributes to the existing literature in three ways.

First, it offers a holistic framework for researchers to consider the different building blocks of policymaking supporting journalism innovation. The framework is dynamic, considering nonlinear, path-dependent processes integral to media policy. As the media industry progresses, so may the building blocks that comprise the policy mix.⁷⁴ The model can capture these changes and enable researchers to examine when, where, why, and by whom policies were formed and their potential to develop in the future,⁷⁵ in addition to analyzing their content.

Second, the suggested framework is an advancement from research that previously only concentrated on financial assistance provided to media companies by the government and now considers a whole plethora of economic, regulatory, and soft measures,⁷⁶ on both the supply and demand sides. This ensures that all applicable forms of innovation support for news media are considered.

Third, the article recognizes that addressing the deficits and challenges in current research is only the first step toward enhancing our understanding of journalism funding and innovation policies in the digital era. To ensure continued progress and a more profound understanding of the subject, it suggests the need for a deliberate and forward-looking research agenda, which features as the final contribution of this article (see Section “Agenda for Future Research”).

Agenda for Future Research

The main intention of this article was to develop an integrative policy mix framework that allows for a more comprehensive examination of innovation policies that were specifically introduced to support journalism. Operationalizing this framework requires an application of the introduced building blocks to empirical research. To guide future research, Table 5 introduces relevant research themes and questions that could provide valuable insights into the development of effective innovation policies for journalism.

As a conceptual paper, this article is a first step toward systematically exploring innovation policies for journalism. To build on the current research, it is necessary to recognize that public innovation support alone is not enough to alter the course of structural change in the media industry. Instead, the effects of broader, non-sector-specific forms of regulations should be considered. Furthermore, an effective approach must include both government and nongovernment stakeholders.⁷⁷ NGOs and foundations such as Luminate, Open Society Foundation, Fritt Ord, Tinius Trust, among others, as well as private stakeholders, such as the Google News Initiative, have an important role to play in supporting and funding journalism initiatives. In addition, as mentioned earlier, it is important to consider that innovation is not a panacea for all of journalism’s challenges but only a catalyst for transformative change. Thus, it is important to recognize that support for innovation in journalism is a multifaceted process that requires a variety of dimensions, forms, and input from various stakeholders, including journalists, media organizations, foundations, tech companies, governments, academia, and the public. Considering the different stakeholders, governance levels, and time and geographies involved, analyzing policy mixes supporting journalism innovation remains a challenging endeavor.

Acknowledgment

The current research was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant number 0150872A.

Notes

Bibliography