The Adaptation of Media Outlets Toward Business Survival and Social Role: Case Studies of Mainstream News Organizations

Abstract

The objectives of this research were 1) to study the adaptation of the media outlets that distribute their content on both traditional and online media platforms and 2) to study the factors affecting those media outlets’operation. The sociology of journalism, the political economy of media, and studies on media business were applied as the study’s conceptual framework to examine the five selected news organizations. The qualitative methodology was used in this study, including content analysis of daily news publicized from 16 March to 14 April 2021, news framing analysis of the coverage of key events in Thailand in 2020, and in-depth interviews with news organizations’ executives and editorial staffers. The study revealed that, firstly, large and medium-size organizations underwent administrative structure adjustments to facilitate cross-platform reporting. Different media outlets under the same company shared the news database and occasionally planned their coverage on both traditional and online platforms together. News pegs and presentation formats were designed to fit with the organization’s original identity. News organizations tended to specify their target audience based on the organizations’ primary content and editorial expertise. Meanwhile, revenue generations were enhanced through diversification, and large media outlets focused on frequently posting a great number of short-form contents to increase revenue via programmatic advertising. Secondly, the factors affecting the operation consisted of the internal factors, namely the organizational policy on resource management, the identification of news pegs which often aimed to generate profit, and the newsroom management’s understanding of online content presentation. The external factors include economic recession, highly competitive media market caused by the rising number of entrepreneurs, the platform providers’ advertising revenue allocation systems, and the illiberal political regime, all of which rendered the media outlets unable to completely fulfill the obligation of journalism in democracy.