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Introduction
The future of the newspaper has been under discussion since the increasing popularity of the interactive internet, Web 2.0. As with all industries, the introduction of Web 2.0 has drastically changed the business landscape for newspaper organisations, causing an upheaval of the long-established business model. From changes in the publication of the news, the authority of journalists, the generation of revenue and value, and the business to consumer relationship, newspaper organisations have had to contend with many challenges presented by society’s increasing reliance on digitalisation. Despite most newspaper organisations adapting to the new digital business climate – offering online and mobile services – current research fails to agree on how newspapers can continue to create value in the new and challenging marketplace. While most research has been concurrent in professing the longevity of the industry as a whole, there is still much speculation and uncertainty as to whether print newspapers have a future or if they will be eventually and completely replaced by their digital alternative. The precarious future of the print newspaper necessitates a concentration on digital news sites which entails a complete disruption to the well-established foundations of news value chains. Consequently, it is vital for the future success and survival of the news industry to utilise the internet to its full potential. Literature has hitherto highlighted the internet as creating as many, if not more, value-creating opportunities as it has destroyed (Alzaydi et al., 2018), a notion which this research aims to expand upon to reveal the ways in which digitalisation has opened up new symbolic value-creating opportunities for the newspaper industry with particular concentration on consumption communities and consumer roles.
Before the introduction of the internet newspaper, companies offered their news content solely in print form, generating revenue through purchase-sales and advertising. Following the last renovation of the newspaper business model in 1833, newspapers have procured the majority of their revenue through advertising – accounting for up to 80 per cent of total income – subsidising this with purchase revenues (The Economist, 2011; The Guardian, 2015). On top of print and advertising sales newspapers traditionally monopolised news content, selling it to television and radio organisations (Newman, 2011). This business model which newspapers had been grounded upon for so long...