Engagement on the basis of data : tracing users’ behaviors to optimize journalistic offers

Kurzfassung/Abstract

The relationship between journalists and their audiences has changed fundamentally over the past decade. Digital technologies enable journalists to access huge amounts of data about their users, which can be analyzed to detect their preferences and consumption patterns and thus optimize the editorial and commercial offerings. The personalization of news content and advertising, as well as the orientation toward a data-driven news selection, has proven to be a key factor for audiences when choosing between sources of information since they make these choices based on individualized content and advertising. The JoIn-DemoS project compares in this chapter the application of engagement based on data as a field of innovation in case studies with news organizations from Austria, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. This area of innovation is called “engagement on the basis of data.” The results show that this innovation is still taking its first steps in most of the territories. Media companies have made nervous efforts to optimize their offers using usage traces, but the capability to gather and analyze data is starting to be considered an important competitive advantage.