The Role of Policy Mixes in Enabling Journalism Innovation: A Transnational Study Across Five Countries

Abstract

Research has largely overlooked the macro-level conditions under which journalism innovation occurs. This study addresses the prevailing gap through a cross-country case study approach, critically examining the form, context, and nature of innovation policies for private media. Applying the policy mix framework, we analyze data from 30 semistructured interviews and 32 documents from Canada, Denmark, France, Norway, and the Netherlands. Our findings reveal that several countries have adopted a mix of different policy instruments to foster journalism innovation. They further show that innovation-policymaking for journalism often follows several uncoordinated, small events. However, despite societal trust in this type of public funding for journalism, inconsistency, incomprehensiveness, and incoherence persist in existing policy mixes. Our study yields significance for both academia and policymaking by underscoring the relevance of integrating innovation policy theory into journalism innovation research and providing practitioners with guidance for improving existing policy mixes in the future.