Strategic News Agenda Setting in Online Journalism as a Mechanism for Business Survival
Main Article Content
Abstract
his academic article aims to explain and analyze agenda-setting strategies in online journalism as a strategic process that connects the public role of the media with the business survival and sustainability of media organizations in the digital era. The study proposes the conceptual framework of the “Observe–Extract–Frame” process as an analytical tool to examine how news issues are selected, prioritized, and framed under conditions shaped by attention competition, platform algorithms, and audience behavior. The study is based on a literature review that integrates agenda-setting theory, framing theory, concepts of news values and newsworthiness, as well as network agenda-setting, in order to explain the dynamics of news agenda formation within an online media environment characterized by speed, audience segmentation, and the potential to transform content into revenue. In addition, the article presents a comparative analysis of international media organizations, including The New York Times, which has developed in-depth agenda-setting into integrated content bundles and multi-product subscription models; The Guardian, which has extended environmental news agendas into membership-based and donation-driven fundraising initiatives; and VICE Media, which employs niche agenda-setting and targeted framing to differentiate itself in the global media market. These case studies demonstrate that strategic agenda-setting is not limited to identifying which issues deserve public attention, but also serves as a foundation for designing “news products” that concretely connect audiences-both as citizens and as customers-to the revenue models of media organizations.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
References
Anderson, C. W., Bell, E., & Shirky, C. (2014). Post-industrial journalism: Adapting to the present. Tow Center for Digital Journalism.
Bednarek, M., & Caple, H. (2012). News discourse. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Carlson, M. (2015). When news sites go native: Redefining the advertising–editorial divide in response to native advertising. Journalism, 16(7), 849–865. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849145454
de Vreese, C. H. (2005). News framing: Theory and typology. Information Design Journal + Document Design, 13(1), 51–62. https://doi.org/10.1075/idjdd.13.1.06vre
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x
Galtung, J., & Ruge, M. H. (1965). The structure of foreign news: The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers. Journal of Peace Research, 2(1), 64–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/002234336500200104
Guo, L. (2012). The application of social network analysis in agenda setting research: A methodological exploration. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 56(4), 616–631. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2012.732148
Guo, L. (2013). Toward the third level of agenda setting theory: A network agenda setting model. In T. J. Johnson (Ed.), Agenda setting in a 2.0 world: New agendas in communication (pp. 112–133). Routledge.
Guo, L., & McCombs, M. (2011, May). Network agenda setting: A third level of media effects [Paper presentation]. Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, Boston, MA, United States. https://www.leiguo.net/publications/guo_nas_2011_ica.pdf
Henriksson, T. (2024, August 13). How The Guardian’s commitment to the environment is building reader loyalty and additional revenue. WAN-IFRA. https://wan-ifra.org/2024/08/how-the-guardians-commitment-to-the-environment-is-building-reader-loyalty-and-additional-revenue/
Howard, E. (2015, May 7). Keep it in the Ground divestment campaign attracts 200,000 supporters. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/07/keep-it-in-the-ground-divestment-campaign-attracts-200000-supporters
Küng, L. (2017). Strategic management in the media: Theory to practice. Sage.
Marshall, S. (2012, August 20). From fanzine to HBO: How Vice became a video success story. Journalism.co.uk. https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-vice-became-a-video-success-story/s2/a550133/
McCombs, M. (2004). Setting the agenda: The mass media and public opinion. Polity Press.
McCombs, M., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The agenda-setting function of mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176–187. https://doi.org/10.1086/267990
Napoli, P. M. (2011). Audience evolution: New technologies and the transformation of media audiences. Columbia University Press.
Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Robertson, C. T., Eddy, K., & Nielsen, R. K. (2024). Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024. Oxford: Reuters Institute.
NPR Staff. (2014, September 24). Media group evolves from covering Vice to war zones. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2014/09/24/351074951/vice-media-group-moves-into-television
Peterson-Salahuddin, C., & Diakopoulos, N. (2020). Negotiated Autonomy: The Role of Social Media Algorithms in Editorial Decision Making. Media and Communication, 8(3), 27-38. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i3.3001
Tandoc, E. C. (2014). Journalism is twerking? How web analytics is changing the process of gatekeeping. New Media & Society, 16(4), 559–575. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814530541
van Dijck, J., Poell, T., & de Waal, M. (2018). The platform society: Public values in a connective world. Oxford University Press.
Vu, H. T., Guo, L., & McCombs, M. (2014). Exploring “the world outside and the pictures in our heads”: A network agenda-setting study. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 91(4), 669–686. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699014550090
Webster, J. G. (2014). The marketplace of attention: How audiences take shape in a digital age. The MIT Press.
Westlund, O., & Lewis, S. C. (2014). Agents of media innovations: Actors, actants, and audiences. The Journal of Media Innovations, 1(2), 10–35. https://doi.org/10.5617/jmi.v1i2.856
Wiedeman, R. (2018, June 10). Shane Smith grew Vice on “greater fool theory.” Now the market may have wised up. New York Magazine-Intelligencer. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/06/inside-vice-media-shane-smith.html
Zacks Equity Research. (2025, February 6). The New York Times Q4 earnings top, subscription revenues up 8.4% Y/Y. Nasdaq. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/new-york-times-q4-earnings-top-subscription-revenues-84-y-y
