Regional Media Lab & Incubator

Remedia.Lab

Regional Media Lab & Incubator

Budget: 209.472,02

Project Number: 031277

Operation Code: CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-031277

Opinion of the evaluating body: The application meets the requirements set forth in the notice of opening to be selected for hierarchy, having obtained a Merit Project score of 4.71 out of 5.

Main Scientific Domain: Social Sciences

Main Research Area: Media and Communications

Subarea of the Main Scientific Area: Journalism

Secondary Research Area: Media and Communications

Subarea of the Secondary Scientific Area: Media and Socio-Cultural Communication

Leading Researcher Project: 

João Carlos Ferreira Correia 

Associate Professor with Habilitation and Researcher

Co-Leading Researcher (co-IR) of the project: 

Anabela Maria Gradim Alves 

Assistant Professor with Habilitation and Researcher

Research Team: 

Anabela Maria Gradim Alves

Arminda Maria Finisterra do Paço

Bruno Miguel Silva

Catarina Sofia Lourenço Rodrigues

Giovanni Ricardo Ramos

João Carlos Correia Leitão

João Carlos Ferreira Correia

João Santos

José Ricardo Pinto Carvalheiro

Manuela Penafria

Mateus Silva Noronha

Nuno Alexandre de Oliveira Marques Francisco

Nuno André Amaral Jerónimo

Pedro Jerónimo

Rafael Alexandre Ferreira Mangana Monteiro Silva

Ricardo José Pinheiro Morais

Brief description of the project:

The Remedia.Lab project aims to contribute to the diagnosis of the current situation of regional media, promoting experimental tools and strategies to strengthen their business model, increasing its innovation degree and improving its connection with the public. Simultaneously, it aims at the incubation of new regional media outlets with an innovative profile, using information and communication technologies. Remedia.Lab will have three dimensions:

– As an observatory, diagnosing the current situation of the regional media industry in dimensions such as the labor conditions and the socio-professional characterization of their professionals;

– As a laboratory, promoting experimental strategies in cooperation with industry and associations, in order to improve new practices and strategies;

– As an incubator, it will give support to entrepreneurship projects.

 

Summary:

The Portuguese regional press has for a long time been an important instrument for the valorization and development of low-density regions, particularly in the central area of Portugal (ERC, 2010; Correia, Carvalheiro, Morais & Sousa, 2011; Correia, Canavilhas, Carvalheiro, Ferreira, Morais & Sousa, 2014). Among the positive elements that can be invoked for their importance, one may identify the following: “It cultivates proximity, is useful for its readers, and it stimulates or at least preserves, identity, cultural and historical ties of the greatest importance” (Azeredo Lopes in ERC,2010). This relationship with proximity can be seen in different ways:

 a) As an ideal vision of the community, with some anachronic traits:

  1. Excessive dependence on the nearest sources of information available;

  2. The lack of critical distance from the surrounding economic and political environment;

  3. The lack of attention to new elements of social characterization of the regions;

  4. The excessive dependence on a historical and traditionalist portrait of the region;

  5. Ignorance about the demands of new emerging publics;

  6. Indifference to cultural, economic and technological changes;

  7. Occasionally, low professionalism of the newsrooms.

The result, in short, can be translated into a context in which the regional media often present a product oriented to audiences identified with traditional contexts. 

   b) However, these traits that persist in the regional press also have advantages derived from this same proximity that comes from the geographical scale:

  1. Databases of subscribers that can be used, in a different way, for new models of relation with the public;

  2. Strong personal and affective identification with the history of the regions and places and know-how on the development of business models based on proximity;

  3. Strong proximity to the emigrant communities.

Objetives:

The Remedia.Lab main objectives are the following:

 1. To contribute to the diagnosis of the current situation of regional media;

 2. To promote experimental tools and innovative strategies to strengthen the local and regional media business model, improving its sustainability;

 3. To increase their innovation degree and to improve their connection with new publics, considering the social and cultural changes of the Portuguese Centre Region;

 4. To increase the innovation present in local and regional media, using information and communication technologies;

 5. To incubate new projects of regional media with an innovative profile, using information and communication technologies.

Outcomes:

Among the outcomes of the project, we highlight the following:

– A regional inquiry to find the working conditions of the professionals working in local and regional media from the Centre of Portugal;

– 2.Focus groups with journalists, divided by the several administrative units;

– 3. The analysis of the information available in the regional press portal, regarding the Centre Region.

– 4. Developing new strategies and devices, including: