Australian Community Media and University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre have teamed up to examine local news in regional Australia.

About the project

The project is examining the health of local news ecosystems to understand and address the challenges facing many newsrooms.

We will be gathering evidence using longitudinal audience surveys, stakeholder in-depth interviews and case studies of marginalised audiences.

This data will enable us to assess the value of local news to audiences and wider society and provide strategies to produce and deliver quality local news that is financially stable.

The Heartbeat study aims to deepen our understanding of how regional Australians prefer to stay connected, what they care about, what they are concerned about and how news affects their sense of belonging and the wellbeing of their community.

Professor Sora Park

Background to the project

ACM and N&MRC formed a partnership to get an in-depth picture of Australians and how they are feeling about their connection to the community, their concerns, and their relationship with local news and advertising. The team surveys more than 6,000 Australians each year. The results provide the research team with a deep understanding of Australian communities and their concerns.

In 2022, the survey showed that regional news consumers are happier.

Results from 2023 can be found here: Heartbeat of Australia 2023.

Funding

The project is funded by the Australian Research Council (LP220100121).

Research outputs

Park, S., Lee, J. Y., Curll, S., Fisher, C., McCallum, K., Tyrrell, P., Levesque, L., & Mihalovich, A. (2024). Local news and audiences’ wellbeing: the roles of motivation, satisfaction, and trust. Communication Research and Practice, 10(1), 7-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2023.2281174