Abstract (eng)
The dissertation project explores the changing landscape of mass media, focussing
specifically on the future of the quality newspaper in Austria. Newspapers as a mass
medium have been important to the society for many decades. The present digital age
poses new challenges for newspaper publishers.
The theoretical section of the discussion covers the basis of mass media. Furthermore,
an overview of factors like digitisation, media convergence, the global financial crisis,
the pay wall debate, the new economy bubble, the free mediality and the role of haptics
are described. A definition of mass media and the key factors of quality newspapers
will be will be given. This is followed by a draft of the daily newspaper market from the
Austrian media landscape.
The methodological section sets out how thirteen experts in the media sector were
asked about their assessments and forecasts in a two-stage Delphi procedure. The
research design includes qualitative interviews and a quantitative online survey.