Why Drop a Paywall? Mapping Industry Accounts of Online News Decommodification

Authors

  • Mike Ananny University of Southern California
  • Leila Bighash University of Southern California

Keywords:

digital journalism economics, networked press, online news, paywalls

Abstract

Why is news sometimes free? Although the commercial press’s history is, in part, the search for new forms of commodification, journalism sometimes distances itself from commerce and economically decommodifies its work. We investigate one such moment in the form of “paywall exceptions”: instances when online news organizations drop or temporarily reconfigure their paywalls to let news circulate unmetered among subscribers and nonsubscribers alike. We document 69 exceptions from 1999 to 2015, categorize publishers’ publicly stated rationales, and reflect on what they reveal about the networked press’s negotiations between democratic and commercial logics.

Author Biographies

Mike Ananny, University of Southern California

Assistant Professor of Communication and Journalism, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism; Faculty Affiliate, Science, Technology and Society.  University of Southern California

Leila Bighash, University of Southern California

Doctoral Student, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California

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Published

2016-07-15

Issue

Vol. 10 (2016)

Section

Articles

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