Synergies or Diversification? Corporate Strategies as the Missing Link in News Content Diversity Research

A growing body of academic literature shares the assumption that media ownership concentration is increasing in media markets around the world, with potentially detrimental effects on the diversity of news content and the sustainable future of democratic, pluralistic societies. In this lively scholarly debate, the perspective from media conglomerates and their strategies is mostly absent. To fill this gap in scholarship, we present a qualitative study of expert interviews with CEOs and other senior staff members of one European media corporation active across several media markets. Our findings emphasize the importance of editorial independence for individual news outlets as they walk a tightrope between maintaining their individual diversity and company-wide cost-cutting synergy operations intended to foster more collaborations between various newsrooms. We also highlight the dominance of local (news) cultures in discerning various practices, rules and systems.