News companies are making a mistake by continuing distribute their content on Facebook. My new report: Google, Facebook and New Zealand news media: The problem of platform dependency found that a quarter of New Zealand news companies website traffic came from Facebook, and 53% from Google and social media platforms. The report finds that news companies have trapped themselves in the attention economy, and are making the same mistake as they did with chasing clicks:
“Chasing clicks did not provide them with a sustainable revenue model, and chasing users attention is not working for them either. Facebook user numbers are declining in some major markets, and if the user numbers decline, so will the potential audience for news companies. Why do they stay on the platform?”
The report was launched on September 6, in Auckland, New Zealand, in collaboration with AUT’s research center for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD) and The Policy Observatory.
The report is available here.
It was also covered in my article for The Conversation, and was featured in news media including RNZ and the NBR.
Dr Merja Myllylahti 