Projects - Completed projects
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Licentiate in
Philosophy, MA, M.Sc Tanja Aitamurto Ten
signs of the end of journalism and why not to worry about them. Trends in the
American journalism 2009
The crisis in
the business models for journalism is a sign of a bigger societal change The
traditional advertising and subscription based business model for journalism is
in crisis in the United States. Newspapers are folding, media companies go
bankrupt, and journalists are laid off. The crisis is a
sign of a bigger transformation in journalism, a change which is happening in
the society as a whole. In this process, individuals become more empowered
while traditional organizations and institutions lose power. New technologies
and the ways of social organization accelerate the change. The change in
journalism is irreversible. Organizations are thawing, and the amount of
professional journalists will continue diminishing. The role of a journalist
turns more into a content curator than being only a content producer. The value, and
thus, the business models in journalism are not based anymore only on the
control over the distribution and the content, but on engaging the readers and
harnessing their knowledge, branding the content, and the writers. Journalism
has moved from the era of content economy to the era of link economy, Aitamurto
says. Instead of a
one stable business model, journalism will be financed by continuously changing models which are based
on multiple revenue sources. To find new ways to fund journalism, news organizations
are experimenting with revenue streams for example from real time and
integrated advertising, multiple kinds of freemium models, events, donations, syndication,
and social signals. A significant
sign of the new era in journalism is the rise of the non-profit news
organizations which are blooming all over the US. These non-profits typically
focus on investigative journalism and on local news coverage. Non-profit news
organizations experiment with revenue sources similarly to the traditional
for-profit news operations.
The European Cultural Foundation / Demos
Tommi Laitio /Celia Hannon
Researchers Juha Koivisto, Peter Thomas
University of Helsinki, Communication Reseach Center, Department of Communication
Mapping Media and Communication Research: Paradigms, Institutions, Challenges
http://www.valt.helsinki.fi/blogs/crc/tutkimus.htm
Researcher Pasi Kivioja
University of Tampere, Journalism Research and
Development Centre
The tabloid press in a changing mediascape and society
The development
of the Finnish tabloid press, which consists of two serious-popular papers Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti,
was studied in the contexts
of a changing mediascape and society.
A content
analysis shows that the proportion of political and economic news in the
tabloids was reduced, in comparison with crime news the proportion of which was
increased from the year 1985 to 2006. Simultaneously, the visual development of
the tabloids was remarkable. It seems that the economic news of the papers is
recovering in a different form than before – as growing consumer journalism.
It is
obvious that the market leader Ilta-Sanomat has had to adjust its course to a
changing mediascape and society more drastically than its younger rival
Iltalehti.
The Finnish
newspapers Helsingin Sanomat and Keskisuomalainen as well as the periodicals
Apu and Suomen Kuvalehti were used as comparison material in the study. Current Finnish entertainment journalism
was also compared to its Swedish and Norwegian counterparts in Aftonbladet,
Expressen, Verdens Gang and Dagbladet.
Contact information
Pasi
Kivioja, tel. +358 40 718 7242, pasi.kivioja (at)uta.fi
Mapping Media and Communication Research in Belgium and the Netherlands
The Communication Research Centre (CRC) at University of Helsinki has completed a project "Mapping Media and Communication Research" in Belgium and in the Netherlands. The reports are available at the CRC website in pdf-format:
http://www.valt.helsinki.fi/blogs/crc/en/mapping.htm
Project leader Pentti Raittila and researches Katja Johansson, Laura Juntunen, Laura Kangasluoma, Kari Koljonen, Ville Kumpu, Ilkka Pernu and Jari Väliverronen
University of Tampere, Journalism Research and Development Centre
The Jokela School killings in the media
Project leader Jaana Hujanen, researches Ninni Lehtniemi and Riikka Virranta with research assistants Marja Honkonen and Johannes Munter
Mapping Communication and Media Research in the UK
Jorma Mäntylä and Juha Karilainen
University of Tampere, Journalism Research and Development Centre
Development of Journalism Ethics in Finland and Europe 1995 - 2007
Project Director Nando Malmelin
Turku School of Economics
Finland Futures Research Centre
The Future of Responsible Communication -
A summary report on the project results to
the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation
Elina Noppari, Niina Uusitalo, Reijo Kupiainen and Heikki Luostarinen University of Tampere, Journalism Research and Development Centre
Online Life. Children´s Media Environment in Change.
Jenni Mäenpää, University of Tampere, Journalism Research and Development Centre
Editing and manipulating
Digital photo-editing in Finnish newspapers and magazines
Hannu Pulkkinen, University of Jyväskylä, Department of Communication
The Architecture of News
Dissertation
(read PDF)
Kimmo Mäkilä, University of Jyväskylä, Department of Communication Journalism
Discourses of Nuclear Weapons in Helsingin Sanomat and The New York Times
Dissertation
(read PDF)
University of Helsinki, Department of Communication Communication Research Centre CRC
Dr Juho Rahkonen
Mapping Media and Communication Research: Australia
Media and communication research in Australia is internationally well recognised. The field also has
a solid position within the country’s academy: media and/or communication studies are represented in 37 of Australia’s 39 universities. Media and communication research in Australia is quite pragmatic in nature, and it is not theoretically very innovative. Despite its pragmatism, Australia is not
like the United States, but rather the country’s media research is something between American empirical tradition and European critical tradition.
Ilkka Luukkonen, Staff writer
Maaseudun Tulevaisuus
Innovation Journalism, Innovation Journalism Fellowship
Stanford, spring 2007
The aim of the fellowship program is to increase journalists’ awareness of innovations as a key part of economic growth and to educate journalists to write about innovations in a more future-oriented way. The fellowship consisted of studies at Stanford and work at a local news media. I was hosted by a technology magazine Red Herring.
University of Helsinki, Department of Political Science
PhD Juri Mykkänen
The Role of Media-Driven Candidate Selectors in Finnish Elections:
A New Phase in Digital Democracy
Finland is the leading country in the development of the Internet-based candidate selectors. They have been part of political campaign scenes since 1996. The aim of this study was to find out how Finnish voters use candidate selectors and what they think about them.
Director Teppo Turkki
Institute for Art,
Development and Education IADE
Mediaconcept Laboratory
Mediaconcept Laboratory was a research and development project. The main point was to develop simultaneously media leadership strategy and journalistic work processes. Mediaconcept Laboatory arranged developmental interventions in media organizations. The main research interests were how media concepts were developed in the converging media sphere and the changing work practices in media organizations.
University of Tampere, Journalism Research and Development Centre
Professor Heikki Luostarinen
Immigration and the Media - European Research and Finnish Forecasts
Immigration and the Media is a pilot study carried out by the Journalism Research
and Development Centre at the University of Tampere on which a more extensive
research project is being planned. In the subsequent study it is planned to study what use immigrants
to Finland make of the media and what interpretations they and mainstream Finn arrive at.
Dr. Sara Sintonen
University of London, Institute of Education
Media Education as Media Production.
Improving Student’s Critical and Creative Thinking Skills
The goal of this research project was to study how elementary and secondary school students’
critical and creative thinking can be developed through media education.
(read PDF)
Sakari Huovinen, LLD, MSc (Pol. Sc.) Institute of International Economic Law (KATTI)
Technological progress in the audiovisual media field and the limits of freedom of speech
New regulations and guidelines are being planned for various aspects of the media
in the European Union’s directives and media-related documents. This research is
studying the new model of co-regulation adopted in EU legislation but new in Finland,
as well as general regulations and how they affect Finnish jurisdiction.
Technological progress in the audiovisual media field and the limist of freedom of speech (read PDF)
Trust as the foundation of new regulatory meachanism (read PDF)
Juha Herkman, Director of Communication Research Center,University of Helsinki
A research project for the purpose of charting the current situation in communications research and the practical applications in the United States (read PDF), Japan (read PDF), South Korea (read PDF), Germany (read PDF), Estonia (read PDF), France (read PDF), and Finland (read abstract, PDF)
Researcher Hanna Syrjälä
Journalism Research and Development Centre University of Tampere
Common subjects in the covers of 7 päivää and in the billboards of the evening papers
The study ascertained how many of the subjects in the years 2005 and 2006 of the evening papers’
weekend billboards were the same as those on the covers of the magazine 7 päivää. The subjects
featured on the covers of 7 päivää were also examined, likewise what subjects this publication and
the evening papers had in common. The data comprised 98 covers of 7 päivää (561 headlines),
283 billboards of Ilta-Sanomat (964 headlines) and 282 billboards of Iltalehti (905 headlines).
Approximately one tenth of the headlines of these publications covered the same subjects.
The share of the exact same news in the magazine and the Thursday, Friday and Saturday Iltalehti
billboards was three percent. The corresponding figure for Ilta-Sanomat was two percent.
When the magazine and the evening papers’ weekend billboards featured the same subjects,
the headlines were most probably about the human relationships of celebrities. It is human
relationships in particular which appear to be the subject with which the magazine and the weekend
evening papers compete for the same audience. However, the magazine 7 päivää and the evening papers do indeed differ from one another. On the covers of the magazine most of the headlines were about celebrities, and the magazine featured celebrities’ human relationships, deviances from norms and money matters more than did the papers. The subjects specific to the evening papers included sport, general entertainment and culture news, accidents and society and politics.
Researcher Aira Saloniemi, Researcher Risto Suikkanen
Journalism Research and Development Centre
University of Tampere
The state of the Finnish news media
This is a pilot study aiming at an observation system
that would annually survey news media output and indicate ongoing trends.
More than ten indicators were developed for measuring the content
and character of news media.
Professor Risto Kunelius
Department of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Tampere
Freedom of Speech as a News Item
The first report from the Freedom of Speech as a News Item -project
illuminated the different ways in which the press in 14 countries commented
on the publication of the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in spring 2006.
The chapters in the report outline the varying legal, political and cultural contexts
into which journalist domesticated the international news event.
The report underlines themes that draw together the international press reactions.
One such common structure seems to emerge from the ways in which journalism defines freedom of speech (or press) in this issue. This debate is structured by an attempt to balance the universalizing tradition of free speech theory and the demands of a multicultural public dialogue.
In a transnational frame the cartoon controversy can also be seen as part of a lager debate on the “clash of civilizations”. The report shows that journalism’s relationship to this idea is a very contradictory one.
On the one hand editorials and commentaries mostly assume a critically deatched position and argue that the “clash” is an exaggeration. On the other hand news sections often seem to emphasize frames which confirm the antagonistic relationship between the Western and the Islamic “worlds”.
In the first draft of result offered by the project, then, the role of journalism
as a mediator of a global or international public sphere seems a highly contradictory one.
The way in which journalism and journalists make sense of the conflict is dominated by
local concerns and conditions. But the report also points to some weak findings and
situations in which we can see the potentials of journalism for the global public discussion.
These potentials can be glimpsed in the tensions of the free speech discourses,
in the critical reflections about the “clash”, in the shared criteria by which the “other side” is judged and in the reality of mass media audiences being situated irrespective of cultural and
national boundaries.
The introduction to this report Reading the Modammed Cartoons Controversy
(by Risto Kunelius and Elisabeth Eide) is downloadable as a pdf-file.
Researcher Hanna Syrjälä
Journalism Research and Development Centre
University of Tampere
Violence in content bills
The topics of the contents bills of the Finnish tabloids, Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat,
were studied from the eighties to the present day, with special reference to headlines expressing violence.
Jyrki Alkio, Staff Writer
Business and Economics Department
Helsingin Sanomat
Innovation Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University
The aim of the program is to increase awareness among journalists to understand the importance of innovations. The fellowship consists of studies at the university and work at local news media. Jyrki Alkio was hosted by the Red Herring magazine where he was able to study the ecosystem of Silicon Valley and to learn how American media and newsrooms operate.
Villa Lante, Rome
Docent Tuomas Heikkilä PhD:
Organiser Europe 2050
An international seminar on the theme of European history and its effects on present-day decisions. The seminar audience consists of prominent journalists from member countries of the European Union, applicant countries and other European countries. The speakers include distinguished historians from Finland and several other countries, philosophers and social scientists.