Local and regional journalism is perceived to aid the functioning of democracy. Yet local publications are increasingly being forced to close due to the collapse of predigital news business models. An emerging area of scholarship considers potential funding solutions for local news media. One key enquiry is how local news publishers may attract more revenue from their audiences. This is a difficult task for all news organisations, yet even more so for local news publishers due to evidence news consumers are less willing to pay for local news than other types. This paper contributes by developing a deeper conceptual understanding of factors contributing to people being unwilling to pay for local news. We use data from a 2019 three month digital ethnographic regional Australian case study to identify several structural and relational factors that contributed to participants being unwilling to subscribe to their local publication. We consider how these findings may be used by local news publishers to maintain and increase their subscription base.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	media studies, journalism studies, regional news, audience studies
Research Division:	Language, Communication and Culture
Research Group:	Communication and media studies
Research Field:	Media industry studies
Objective Division:	Culture and Society
Objective Group:	Communication
Objective Field:	The media
UTAS Author:	Lester, L (Professor Libby Lester)
UTAS Author:	Konkes, C (Dr Claire Konkes)
ID Code:	143989
Year Published:	2021
Web of Science® Times Cited:	5
Deposited By:	Media
Deposited On:	2021-04-14
Last Modified:	2021-09-06
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