Beyond clickbait and commerce

Clare Cook
generate revenues. An Iranian site said: ‘If it is culture and softer
news in separate sections you can make money from that. It is
very humanistic and we cannot be ashamed of it.’ Others were
more open to advertising revenues. In the Russian Caucasus,
one of the biggest advertisers is a phone provider. ‘The region is
important for them because the site can offer large audiences.’
One site covering central Asia has shifted in mentality to become
a ‘normal business-orientated media’. The editor said: ‘When we
started, commercial revenue was an optional extra but now [grant]
funding has been removed there are other ways. We just tried and
it has opened my mind to how I want to develop my website. I am
interested in commercial not just to write a good story. I want a
bigger audience; then I will have more clicks and I will earn more.
It is good motivation and good journalism. We had it in our minds
we are in exile everyone hates us but no one will complain about
Google Ads. It is normal now.’
There was widespread knowledge among the cases that private
donations, microdonations (such as a ‘donate here’ button on a
website) or crowdfunding were a step towards income generation.
Two sites had run successful crowdfunding campaigns around
specific projects. One mobilised a large social media campaign to
secure donations around major European cities. This generated
$40,800 mainly targeting middle-class audiences for the
broadcasting of information to Azerbaijan. In the Caucasus, an
initiative generated around $50,000 over ten months; however, it
was ‘very complicated and it took a lot of time’.
Media were reconciling the advantages associated with limiting
grant reliance. One Uzbekistan media outlet said: ‘With donor
funding you can’t use their money for marketing or for commercial
purposes to generate more money.’ For a Belarusian outlet it was
the same: ‘Grant-givers don’t want you to have people supported
that are not content providers and be paid from the donor’s
budget.’ FOJO Media Institute’s project coordinator noted at the
end of a three-year programme to support exile media:
There has been a marked difference in attitudes in the last year.
At the beginning of the project, there was a feeling that asking
partners to generate revenues made them feel as if they might
have to prostitute themselves. Perhaps it was part of the reliance
on donor funding without any real thinking of what that would
do for them. There are now more ideas and more thinking about
the future on their own terms. There was a thinking that to
make any money they might have to compromise their values
but now they are more ready to reconcile that somehow if they
want to continue.
76 Copyright 2016-2/3. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. All rights reserved. Vol 13, No 2/3 2016