Olga Dovbysh

University of Helsinki | HY · Aleksanteri institute

The notion of intervention is gaining traction among Western environmental journalists. While existing research has predominantly focused on countries outside the Nordic region, in our study we investigate the self-perceptions of professional journalists in the Nordic countries of Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Through semi-structured interv...

In this chapter, we present an overview of hyperlocal media business models in a global media environment. Our aim is to analyze operational rationales, with a specific focus on long-term survival and resilience. Hyperlocal media is a new addition to local media ecosystems and has been discussed as an important element for building a feeling of bel...

Technological corporations and the digital services they provide play an increasingly important role in the production and dissemination of news, e.g., through media’s growing reliance on algorithmic recommender systems that perform gatekeeping functions. Bringing together three areas of interest – the relationships between large technological corp...

Media control comprises multifaceted and amorphous phenomena, combining a variety of forms, tools, and practices. Today media control takes place in a sphere where national politics meet global technology, resulting in practices that bear features of both the (global) platforms and the affordances of national politics. At the intersection of these...

The role of hyperlocal media is of increasing relevance as traditional local journalism experiences a decline due to centralisation and consolidation. The affordances of Internet and digital technologies also enable hyperlocal initiatives to enhance civic engagement in localities and serve as a place and resource for local deliberative processes. T...

Hyperlokaalista mediasta on tullut tärkeä osa paikallisen median kenttää eri puolilla Venäjää. Sitä edustavat kaupunkikohtaiset julkiset keskusteluryhmät sosiaalisen median alustoilla. Tämän kaltaiset ryhmät tarjoavat alustan yhteiskunnallisille keskusteluille, tukevat paikallisia yhteisöjä ja erilaisia kansalaisaloitteita sekä informoivat asukkait...

The study focuses upon “city public groups” (“gorodskie pabliki,” local newsgroups on social networking sites)—the new entrants in the local media space of the Russian province that have recently become important actors of regional public communication. Such groups combine news posting and citizen discussions, report on local affairs and gossip, an...

The increase of internet penetration across Russia has reduced entry barriers for individuals and companies who want to report locally. New digital technologies have given rise to many semi-professional local media projects, so-called ‘hyperlocal media’ (Metzgar et al., 2011; Tenor, 2018), created on various online platforms and social networking s...

The aims, functions and work practices of hyperlocal start-ups and citizen- or community-initiated information sharing vary. We know little about how hyperlocal practitioners’ perceptions of their roles are constructed as a part of wider media ecosystems. This article examines how Nordic and Russian hyperlocal practitioners define their roles, focu...

Today, the internet has become a very fragmented research object that can be understood differently depending on contexts, research goals and methods. However, the internet [in this text, we write “internet” with a lower case “i”, following the process of decapitalisation of this term. The logic behind this process is that we understand internet as...

Traditionally, regional mass media has been the least-studied component of the Russian media system; however, beginning from the 2000s, transformations in the nation's political and economic spheres have influenced the position of local media. This paper provides a deeper investigation of the processes and patterns underlying the development of reg...

Mass media are not only sector of the economy but also important social institute. However, commercial logic of media companies leads to «under representation» of socially significant topics. Contractual relationship between state and regional media are investigated in this article. Research sample includes informational contracts ( N = 5209), sign...

The article examines how social models of mass media are implemented in modern Russia, with a special focus on regional media markets, which have specific institutional conditions. This includes the absence of public service media as an institutional force and the powerful paternalistic role played by the Russian state. These conditions have result...

The study investigates the phenomenon of state information contracts as part of Russian regional media market. Economic and political prerequisites for the appearance of state information contracts are shown. The theoretical part of the study includes the contracting specifics as a form of interaction between the state and regional mass media in Ru...

In the contemporary economy, work is increasingly becoming freelance-based while moving online. Open source software communities are rapidly becoming arenas in which individuals identify, cocreate, and realize opportunities through shared resources and expertise. Operating in a communal setting, these individuals, who we label open entrepreneurs, w...