LoCoMedia

Today, local newspapers are facing declining circulation and advertising revenues of their print editions, forcing them to seek other revenue sources in digital media. Furthermore, the media habits of youg adults have changed towards social digital media, resulting in an aging group of newspaper readers. One ongoing trend that is of special interest to the local newspapers is User Generated Content (UGC). Inorporating UGC could e.g. serve as a democratizing "tool", and deliver added-value to active, as well as passive users, which in turn could attract the readers that have abandoned the printed newspaper.

This two year projecttargets the challenge of how an open media environment supporting the values of User Generated Content (UGC) can be designed and how different stakeholders can be engaged in UGC service design. Targeting this challenge, the proposed project will be conducted as an action research effort with a Living Lab approach to innovation processes involving all relevant stakeholders.

Influenced by the literature of open innovation and Living Labs the research challenge is to derive empirical evidence to improve both the theory and practice of open innovation. The two overall research questions, relevant for both industrial and scientific research are:

• How can an open media environment be designed to leverage the values of UGC in media and news production?
• How can different stakeholders be involved in the process of designing innovative UGC services?

The collaboration between researchers from both Halmstad University and Jönköping International Business School, the eight newspaper partners and other relevant stakeholders take place in joint innovation processes and experience sharing throughout the project.

Expected results:

• Detailed descriptions of values and drivers for, and challenges of, creating UGC services from different stakeholders prespectives.
• A conceptual model of an open media enivronment leverage the values of UGC in media and news production.
• A framework for organizing open innovation processes for designing UGC services.