Brittany Taylor
Australia’s mainstream media industry operates as a political economy, where the most important aspect of a media business is that production is geared towards making a profit. New media theorists like Howard Rheingold (1994), Alvin Toffler (1981) and Nicholas Negroponte (1995) predicted that the internet would bring about the rise of a decentralised and empowering source of knowledge and information that was incompatible with free-market economics. Yet in Australia the rise of digital publishing and consumption of online news has yet to undermine, and has in fact extended print media oligopoly into the online realm. The demise of independent news analysis website newmatilda.com in June 2010 was both a consequence and an expression of Australia’s particular mediascape in which print media companies with almost 90 per cent combined market control have extended their range of operations and competitive advantage into the online publishing industry. But it is also reflective of a larger issue at stake, one that is currently plaguing not only independent news outlets but also mainstream online and multi-media news outlets – the general incompatibility of traditional print media business models with online publishing. In addition to discussing why print media paradigms are proving to be incompatible with online publishing, this article will also examine crowdfunding as an emerging business model that compliments the medium, as well as consumer interactions with and expectations of it. The successful development and adoption of crowfunding business models by independent outlets could be one avenue through which they can destabilise the current extension of media oligopoly across Australia’s online news media. If independent news websites like newmatilda.com are able to access, establish themselves and operate using this model, the potential result would be a more pluralistic online media market place in Australia.
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