Decoding news media relevance and engagement through reputation, visibility and audience loyalty: a scoping review

Abstract

The sustainability of the news media is a priority for democratic societies; yet, in the hypercompetitive digital world, they are losing relevance and face the forbidding challenge of public disengagement as trust in the news wanes. Boosting media relevance and engagement are critical in this quest for sustainability. Still, there are clear opportunities to enhance their specification. We seek to illustrate how they can be operationalised by fostering three of the industry’s key dimensions: reputation, visibility and audience loyalty. The first two dimensions are explicitly related to relevance, while the third enables us to be unequivocal when addressing the multifaceted concept of engagement. To operationalise these dimensions, we first perform a scoping review of reports published by the industry’s think tanks and, then, categorise the best practices they recommend. Three critical issues emerge from this exercise: (1) the careful management of staff and resources to meet the demands of digitalisation, (2) the strength of the ties between reputation and loyalty, and (3) the powerful relationship between visibility and organisational size. Ultimately, news media face the challenge of ensuring their staff and resources effectively address the task of maximising reach while guaranteeing a user-centred focus that can generate social impact.