Two important research articles:

1. Open innovation in digital journalism: Examining the impact of Open APIs at four news organizations. By Tanja Aitamurto and Seth C Lewis.

The article discusses the constant negotiation between openness and control, and open and closed paradigms in journalism.

“This article examines the relative value of open innovation principles for digital media, exemplified by the emergence of Open Application Programming Interfaces (Open APIs) at four news organizations: The New York Times, The Guardian, USA Today and NPR. The use of Open APIs represents a shift toward an open innovation paradigm that may help address twin challenges facing the news industry: the need for improved R&D and the need for new revenue streams. This paper extends the interdisciplinary study of open innovation to digital communication. Findings indicate that the use of Open APIs has accelerated R&D through knowledge-sharing with web developers; generated new means of commercializing content by extending a firm’s product portfolio; and forged innovation networks that function as external R&D departments. The article discusses the constant negotiation between openness and control, and open and closed paradigms in journalism.”

2. THE IMPACT OF CROWDFUNDING ON JOURNALISM: Case study of Spot.Us, a platform for Community-Funded Reporting. Tanja Aitamurto. Journalism Practice, Vol. 5, No 4, 2011, 429-445

“This article analyzes the impact of crowdfunding on journalism. Crowdfunding is defined as a way to harness collective intelligence for journalism, as readers’ donations accumulate into judgments about the issues that need to be covered. The article is based on a case study about Spot.Us,a platform pioneering community-funded reporting. The study concludes that a crowdfunded journalistic process requires journalists to renegotiate their role and professional identity tosucceed in the changing realm of creative work. The study concludes that reader donations build a strong connection from the reporters to the donors, which creates a new sense of responsibility to the journalists. The journalists perceive donors as investors, that cannot be let down. From the donor’s perspective, donating does not create a strong relationship from donor to the journalist, or to the story to which they contributed. The primary motivation for donating is to contribute tothe common good and social change. Consequently, donors’ motives are essentially morealtruistic than instrumental. Thus, when the public donates for a cause, the marketing of a certaintype of journalism should be aligned with the features of cause marketing. The traditional role of journalism as a storyteller around the campfire has remained, but the shared story is changing: people no longer share merely the actual story, but also the story of participating in a story process.”