UC Davis

Community ownership of news — meaning ownership by people who most actively participate in an enterprise such as workers, users or community members (Schneider, 2020) — is not common the U.S. However, community ownership has the potential to protect the public good qualities of journalism from threats posed by other ownership forms. This thesis uses two analyses to explore that potential. First, I use a document review to identify what attributes, content types and outcomes are associated with the public good of news. I found three overarching themes and 15 subthemes. Second, I use a literature review to learn how those qualities are shaped by various ownership models. I found that ownership model is usually not deterministic of the subthemes I selected, but that ownership models introduce predictable vulnerabilities to news-as-public good qualities. I propose that community ownership has the potential to shelter those qualities in two ways: through separating political control from the capital needed to produce high-quality news, and through democratically managed associations that can achieve economies of scale and security, especially when it comes to digital platforms and tools. Community ownership of journalism and public goods