Management Decisions of Russian-language Newspapers in Germany in the Time of Structural Media Crisis

Abstract

Media industry went through two crises in XXI century and the last one is labeled as “structural”. Firstly it concerns the print media which have to develop a new business model in the Internet age. The owners, editors and researchers suggested several concepts how the print media industry could override the crises. While the print media in Western countries mostly declines the ethno-cultural media feel more stable but still face the challenges of the Internet age. Despite increased scholarly attention to ethnic media, the management of ethnic media has not been explored in a comparative way. In this article we discuss the complex of problems the owners and editors of Russian-language newspapers published in modern Germany handle with and compare their view of media crises with the discussion within editors of national print media. The study based on semi-structured interviews with publishers of Russian-language print media points at similarities and differences between national and ethno-cultural press. The ethno-cultural print media particularly face similar problems, hence, the specific nature of this segment of the media market influences decisions made by media managers.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s2p68