The Digital Transformation of News Media
This project studies how digital technologies are changing journalism and public discourse. It examines how news is produced, edited, presented, and consumed in an increasingly digital media environment.
The project combines large-scale newspaper data, AI-based text analysis, quasi-experimental research designs, and field experiments in real-world news environments. It studies how digital tools, AI-based methods, editorial analytics, and feedback systems shape journalistic work, news content, reader attention, and engagement.
A central goal is to understand how changes in the production and presentation of news affect both journalists and readers. The project, therefore, connects evidence on newsroom decision-making with evidence on how readers respond to different forms of journalistic content.
The findings will contribute to a better understanding of digital journalism and provide evidence for media organizations and policymakers interested in supporting high-quality, independent, and socially responsible news media.
Project Team
Ulrich Glogowsky
Ulrich Glogowsky is Professor of Economics at Johannes Kepler University Linz. His research focuses on public economics, behavioral economics, policy evaluation, and the economics of digitalization, online media, and polarization.
Matthias Fahn
Matthias Fahn is Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong Business School. His research focuses on organizational economics, incentives, relational contracts, and behavioral economics.
Irina Fux
Irina Fux is part of the project team at the Department of Economics at Johannes Kepler University Linz. Her research interests are Digital Information Environments, the Economics of AI, and Applied Econometrics.
Outputs
Working papers, conference presentations, policy-oriented summaries, and related materials will be added here as they become available.
Funding
This project is gratefully supported by the Jubiläumsfonds of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB).