Utan papperstidningen saknas existentiella förutsättningar för journalistik på webben : En undersökning av lokala tidningars förutsättningar när de möter utmaningarna från internet

Abstract In the past decades the newspaper industry went through many changes but it has never had a problem of this kind. With the freedom the Internet brings us today and the wide range of information channels, the newspaper is for the first time seriously challenged. When the newspapers began to establish themselves on the internet they thought it was only to copy the content of the newspaper on to their webpage and the advertisers would come along. This move was not planed and had no vision. When the advertisers discovered Internets wide range of advertisement platforms they started to look for other places they could put their ads. This thesis is about the local newspapers ability to address the problem that the internet has created. I based my study on the following issues: Why has internet caused this problem for the newspapers? What are the prerequisites for local newspapers when they face challenges from the internet? How have the advertisers acted after the emergence of this challenge? To answer these questions I did qualitative interviews with different personalities within the newspaper industry, two local newspaper executives and two professors in media economics. In conclusion the result shows that there are different opinions regarding these questions and different views of how to solve them. The Newspaper industry is heading towards a new era where the electronic newspaper is going to play a much bigger role. The executives need to come up with new business models where the consumer’s needs are in the center.