In order to categorise publications, I defined nineteen indicators to bring forth the most important elements in all publications. Indicators as follow:
1. Founded: The year when publishing began.
2. Access: Whether content is available for free or needs a registration or a paid subscription.
3. Type of publication: news media, feature media (magazine), analysis and opinion media, press review media, news aggregator, information portal.
4. Frequency of publication: daily (min. 2-3 articles per day), weekly (min. 5 articles per week) and monthly (min 2-3 articles per month).
5. Average number of articles per day.
6. Central office’s location: city and country.
7. Languages.
8. Funding: advertising, sponsors, donations, subscriptions, public support, international, national, etc.
9. If there are sponsors (or partners who provide financial support), what are they? Companies, public organisations, think tanks, universities, research institutions, non-governmental organisations, media, foundations, etc?
10. Cooperation: Are there any partners, content partners, links or references to other webzines or organisations?
11. Contributors: Are contributors voluntary or paid, are they professional journalists, amateur journalists, experts (e.g. researchers, politicians, consultants, etc), young, old, of one nationality or from many different countries, situated in many different countries or in one place?
12. Structure: News, feature articles, analyses, reports, press reviews, interviews, comments, blogs, job advertss, aggregated content, translated content, etc.
13. Other activities: Seminars, debates, training, book publishing, etc.
14. Sections (thematic): Foreign affairs, Culture, Energy, Justice and Home Affairs, Climate Change, Society, etc.
15. Examples of headlines (first ten): All retrieved on Thu 21.7.2011.
16. Number of readers (=unique visitors).
17. Type of readers: young / old, national / international, highly educated / less educated, expert, media, EU professionals, politicians, corporate, etc.
18. Interaction: Is commenting on articles possible, are there blogs or discussion forums?
Publications are defined as informative (no comments), comments (comments allowed but are few), debative (comments allowed and there are many) or inclusive (comments, readers’
articles, invitation to contribute, etc).
19. Goals and identification: How does the media describe itself, what is the mission, values, goals, etc? What is said on the “About” page?
The information I obtained from the online media is partly incomplete, especially in type and readership. I contacted publications’ editors in order to fill out the missing gaps, but responses were few. However, the gaps are occasional and in my opinion do not affect the whole analysis.
In addition, as there are similarities between the media, one can make assumptions on the missing information. Another difficulty to highlight is defining frequency of publishing and labelling a publication as a daily, weekly or monthly since irregularity seems to be the word in web journalism, on some days there is nothing published, on some days a lot. Thus there is a possibility for interpretative difference if the media would be researched again in the same way.
As to the type, in print we have newspapers, magazines, dailies, weeklies and monthlies.
Accordingly, the correct equivalents would be online newspaper, webnewspaper or webdaily, and online magazine, webzine or webweekly or webmonthly for publications appearing less often. In addition, many contain videos and some even claim to be multimedia publications, which again makes clear-cut definitions somewhat problematic.
In addition, the sources of funding were not always clear. In most cases it was stated if funding came from readers, public or private support or from advertising, but for the most part there was no straightforward information on the share of a particular kind of funding. The same uncertainty applies to cooperation with other media or other partners. Yet, I managed to separate publications into eight categories. In the following table all online media are listed with some indicators.
Name Founded Published Languages Access Funding6 Readers
Eubusiness 1997 daily English free private 160 000 news media, paid contributors
(mostly news agency content),
private 150 000 news media, paid contributors, professional journalists, for
daily English free private 78 000 news media, paid contributors (?), journalists, for international audience, mostly Europe focus (with a special input on the EU), political focus, comments
TheParliament.com ? daily English free private 14 200 news media, paid contributors, professional journalists, for
EurActiv.fr 2007 daily French free mixed 45 000 news media, paid contributors,
professional journalists, for national audience, EU focus (with a national add-on), political focus, comments
EurActiv.de 2009 daily German free mixed ? news media, paid contributors,
professional journalists, for national
6 As types of funding are very varied between publications, I will simplify by separating public funding (public organizations receiving direct funding or through sponsorship), private (e.g. advertising both public and private organisations, donations from readers), mixed (both public and private), no external funding or little funding and self-funding.
7 A short description of each publication according to the type of articles published most often (e.g.
news media, feature media, opinion media), its contributors, whether the media is mostly focused on the EU or Europe as a whole or whether on politics or culture or society at large and whether the
audience, EU focus (with a national add-on), political focus, informative
Euractiv.es 2010 daily Spanish free mixed ? news media, paid contributors,
professional journalists, for national audience, EU focus (with a national add-on), political focus, informative
EurActiv.cz 2004 daily Czech free mixed 25 000 news media, paid contributors,
professional journalists, for national
EurActiv.sk 2003 daily Slovakian free mixed 89 000 news media, paid contributors,
professional journalists, for national audience, EU focus (with a national all-on), political focus, informative
Euractiv.com.tr 2007 daily Turkish free mixed ? news media, paid contributors,
professional journalists, for national audience, Europe focus & other regional focus (with a national add-on), political focus, informative
EurActiv.ro 2004 daily Romanian free mixed 70 050 news media, paid contributors,
professional journalists, for national audience, Europe focus (with a national add-on), political focus, comments
EurActiv.gr 2011? daily Greek free private ? news media, paid contributors,
professional journalists, for national audience, Europe focus, political focus, informative
Dnevnik Evropa 2004 daily Bulgarian free mixed 34 800 news media, paid contributors, professional journalists, for national audience, EU focus (+ with additional focus on national European issues), political focus, comments
EurActiv.lt 2011 daily Lithuanian free mixed 300 / day public communications media, paid contributors, professional editors, for national audience, EU focus, political focus, informative
EurActiv.rs 2010 daily Serbian free mixed 10 000 news media, paid contributors,
professional journalists, for national audience, Europe focus with a national add-on, political focus, informative
Europaportalen 2000 daily Swedish free mixed ? feature media, partly volunteer
contributors, for national audience, Europe focus, political focus, young (?), very inclusive
Toute l'Europe 2006 weekly Fr, (En,De)8 free mixed ? feature media, paid contributors, professional journalists, for national audience, Europe focus, general societal focus, young (?), debative
8 Brackets mean that these language versions have not been updated for some while.
euroXpress 2009 daily Spanish free ? ? feature media, volunteer Social Europe Journal 2005 daily English free mixed ? opinion media, paid contributors,
experts, for international audience,
free mixed 300 000 feature media, mostly volunteer contributors, young professional &
amateur journalists, for international audience, Europe focus, general societal focus, young, very inclusive
EMAJ Magazine 2010 weekly English free little,
mixed
free private 120 000 news media, volunteer contributors, young journalists, for international audience (or rather multiple national audience), Europe focus, political focus, young, very inclusive
9 Euros du Village is the name of the French version of the publication. The version in English is called The Euros, in Spanish Los Euros, etc. In this thesis, I will only use the French name and will then mean all
El Europeo 2010 weekly Spanish free self 950 feature media, volunteer
Balkan Insight 2007 daily English some behind
a paid
free public ? feature media,, paid contributors, professional journalists, for international audience, other regional focus, debative Transitions Online 1999 daily English some behind
a paid
Eurozine 1998 weekly En, original
languages
free mixed ? press review media, paid
contributors (?), editors (&
translated content), for international
signandsight.com monthly English free mixed? ? press review media, paid
contributors (?), editors (translated
European Daily 2008 daily English free private ? news media, daily, volunteer
contributors, aggregated content, for international audience, Europe &
global focus, political focus, young, informative
EuropeNews ? daily En, De free private ? news media, volunteer contributors,
aggregated content, Europe focus, political focus, informative
Fenêtre sur l’Europe 1998 daily French free mixed ? news media, mostly volunteer
contributors (?), aggregated news media for international audiences, 2. EU news media for national audiences, 3. European opinion webzines, 4. European volunteer webzines, 5. News media with other regional focus, 6.
European press review media, 7. News aggregators, 8. Niche news media. Further I describe their general characteristics.
1. EU news media for international audiences
The EU news media typically focus on EU affairs and target international audience. In my list these are Euractiv, Eubusiness, Euobserver, Eureporter, European Voice, New Europe and The Parliament. The latter four have a print edition that existed prior to the online publication,