DeWereldMorgen is a free Belgian Dutch-language alternative media website, started in March 2010 as a joint initiative of the Belgian Dutch-language globalization website Pala.be and the Belgian section of the Independent Media Center. It is operated by a core of professional journalists and receives contributions from about 300 volunteers annually.[3] DeWereldMorgen‘s total revenue in 2010 was €366,707.28, but nevertheless made a loss of €9,000 (most expenses go to personnel costs, and rent of buildings and rooms). The core editorial team is paid a monthly salary.[4]
 Logo of DeWereldMorgen | |
| Format | Online |
|---|---|
| Founded | March, 2010 |
| Language | Dutch[1] |
| Headquarters | Van Arteveldestraat 17, 2060 Antwerp, Belgium[2] |
| Website | DeWereldMorgen.be |
All of the content of De Wereld Morgen is published under Creative Commons license[1] type CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 BE.[5]
Alternative
editKaat Van Damme's master thesis claims that DeWereldMorgen can be defined as an alternative media website with regard to content, editing, and the business model.[4] Among Belgian media, DeWereldMorgen, Apache.be[4] and Mondiaal Nieuws are often considered to be the main alternative news media.[6] It is characterized by politicization.[clarification needed][6]
Content
editThe website states that it seeks to be independent of large media organizations and feature the voices of non-governmental organizations and social movements. It also works together with similar partners such as StampMedia[7] and rekto:verso. It can be characterized as preferring to be correct, rather than neutral.[4]
In relation to climate change, Yves Pepermans characterized DeWereldMorgen as coming "closest to a democratic arena" (compared with other Belgian newspapers De Standaard and De Morgen); and has claimed it criticizes the role of markets and stakeholders in relation to climate change, and that it advocates for larger public control over the economy for a socially just outcome for climate change. However, its addition to the debate is one-sided, and the media outlet has few readers.[8]
Editing
editOther than traditional media, there is less contrast between the professional journalist and the reader. Reactions can be posted even anonymously, and can only rarely be removed. Furthermore, DeWereldMorgen encourages readers to contribute content via the site's "Community" section.[4] Even though everybody can create new articles in the "Community",[9] DeWereldMorgen is critical of the model of gatewatching: instead, a professional team of editors selects articles for promotion to the front page.[9] DeWereldMorgen also tries to inform its readers about changes within the website.[4]
Business model
editBecause DeWereldMorgen presents oneself as a "movement for media and democracy", they receive subsidies; without which they would have serious financial troubles. Other than these subsidies, it is mostly dependent on financial partners, which can create a bias against publishing any articles criticizing those partners. Micropayments, book sales, donations and lectures generate a smaller part of its revenue. In 2010, €32,110.97 was donated to DeWereldMorgen, possibly by people who cancel their paid subscription to another newspaper.[4] DeWereldMorgen is sponsored by trade unions.[10]
60% of the total revenue for 2010 was received via subsidies, some of which stem from the European Union and from different departments of the Flemish Community, such as the Department of Popular Education (Dutch: Afdeling volksontwikkeling). While DeWereldMorgen thinks it receives far too few subsidies in comparison to other media,[4] an extreme-right nationalist website called "REACT" (where Vlaams Belang, Voorpost and nl:Vlaamse Solidaire Vakbond advertise)[11] criticizes the website and its subsidies in denigrating language.[12]
Scholarly interest
editA master thesis has analysed the platform in relation to Apache.be (another Belgian Dutch-language alternative media website) in 2010,[4] and a post-doctoral linguist analyses it with regards to the Belgian newspaper De Morgen.[10][13] It has been contrasted with newspapers De Standaard and De Morgen in a 2015 PhD thesis; in relation to politicization of climate change,[14] and it has been subjected to a case-study of "positionality" and "the environmental justice frame".[15]
References
edit- ^ a b "About CC". Creative Commons Belgium. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
DeWereldMorgen.be is a Dutch-speaking Belgian news website. All content is submitted under a CC license.
- ^ "Over DeWereldMorgen.be (FAQ)". DeWereldMorgen. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
DeWereldMorgen.be bestaat niet alleen op het net. Iedereen is welkom een bezoekje aan de redactie te brengen. Momenteel resideren we in de Van Arteveldestraat 17 in 2060 Antwerpen, kom gerust eens langs.
- ^ "Over DeWereldMorgen.be (FAQ)". DeWereldMorgen. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
De site wordt gerund door een kleine kern van professionele journalisten. Daarnaast werken honderden vrijwilligers meer of minder intensief mee aan het project: als auteurs, als eindredacteurs, als vertaler, als administratieve kracht, door mee te denken of logistiek te ondersteunen. Jaarlijks leveren zo'n 300 vrijwilligers een geschreven, gefilmde of gefotografeerde bijdrage aan de site.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Van Damme, Kaat (2011). tes (PDF) (M.Sc. thesis). Ghent University. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
- ^ "[Homepage]". DeWereldMorgen. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
2010-2016 DeWereldMorgen.be. CC. BY. NC. ND.
- ^ a b Maeseele, Pieter. "Hybridity and the News Hybrid Forms of Journalism in the 21st Century. Book of Abstracts" (PDF). VUB. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
Furthermore, we also find that especially traditional news journalism is characterized by depoliticization, while alternative journalistic examples – where existing journalistic news conventions are exceeded – are rather characterized by politicization. In this paper we will first focus on how this takes place in the case of alternative news media such as DeWereldMorgen.be and Mo*.
- ^ C.H.I.P.S. StampMedia | jongerenmedia-agentschap
- ^ Yves John Pepermans (24 April 2015). "Doctoraatsverdediging Yves Pepermans: Manufacturing Climate Consent. From a depoliticized consenus to politicized debate". Facebook (in Flemish). Retrieved 17 July 2016.
Artikels in DeWereldMorgen bekritiseren de rol van marktwerking en belangengroepen in het veroorzaken en vermijden van klimaatverandering en benadrukken het belang van grotere publieke controle over de economie om tot een sociaal rechtvaardig klimaatakkoord te komen. [...] DeWereldMorgen komt het dichtst bij het ideaal van een democratische arena waarin de maatschappelijke grondoorzaken, en tegengestelde beleidskeuzes, belangen en oplossingsstrategieën, bediscussieerd worden, maar bereikt dan weer weinig lezers en laat ook vooral maar één specifieke kant van het debat aan bod komen.
- ^ a b "Over DeWereldMorgen.be (FAQ)". DeWereldMorgen (in Flemish). Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
Alle blogs verschijnen in de sectie 'community'. Iedereen heeft dus de kans om bij ons zijn ei te leggen. Alleen verschijnt niet elke blog ook zomaar op de voorpagina. De website wordt beheerd door de vijf vaste journalisten en de eindredacteur van DeWereldMorgen.be. Zij bekijken de artikels die binnenkomen, redigeren ze en geven ze een plaatsje op de website.
- ^ a b Coesemans, Roel. "Hybridity and the News Hybrid Forms of Journalism in the 21st Century. Book of Abstracts" (PDF). VUB. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
Approaching news as a discursive, multimodal genre (Machin & Mayr 2012), representational strategies and multimodal meanings are studied in a rich dataset of news reports and news videos, taken from the commercial left-leaning centre newspaper De Morgen as compared to the union sponsored alternative news website DeWereldMorgen.be.
- ^ "Contact". REACT. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
Stop de asiel-invasie [advertisement of Voorpost.org] [...] Vlaams, nationaal & onafhankelijk [advertisement of Vlaamse Solidaire Vakbond] [...] Rechts Vlaams Rebels. Sluit aan! [advertisement of Vlaams Belang Jongeren].
- ^ "Linkse webstek DeWereldMorgen slurpt 220.000 euro subsidie per jaar". REACT (in Flemish). 22 August 2011. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
En dat betekent dus dat de extreem-linkse zeursite in 2010 liefst 220.000 euro subsidiegeld slurpte… In 2010 kwam 166.630,57 euro daarvan van de Vlaamse regering. Voor ons mag links zoveel websteks beginnen als ze willen – maar dan wel op hun eigen kosten. Waarom moet belastinggeld (altijd) gebruikt worden om de linkse hobby's recht te houden?
- ^ "Roel Coesemans". KU Leuven. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
In the context of Belgian media, I am currently concentrating on the alternative news website DeWereldMorgen.be in contrast to the newspaper De Morgen.
- ^ Yves John Pepermans (24 April 2015). "Doctoraatsverdediging Yves Pepermans: Manufacturing Climate Consent. From a depoliticized consenus to politicized debate". Facebook (in Flemish). Retrieved 17 July 2016.
Yves Pepermans (Universiteit Antwerpen) analyseerde de berichtgeving over klimaatverandering in De Morgen en De Standaard en op de alternatieve nieuwswebsite DeWereldMorgen tussen 2000 en 2012.
- ^ Moermout, Renée. "Hybridity and the News Hybrid Forms of Journalism in the 21st Century. Book of Abstracts" (PDF). VUB. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
This alternative sphere indeed is a fruitful context for alternative frames, which might counterbalance mainstream views. We demonstrate this based on a case study of the 'alternative' environmental justice frame (Hopke, 2012) - as opposed to the 'mainstream' environmental justice frame - in the coverage of the alternative Flemish website 'DeWereldMorgen'. In a qualitative framing analysis (Entman, 1991; 1993; 2004; Van Gorp, 2006) drawing on tools of discourse analysis (Richardson, 2007; van Dijk, 1988; 1998), we show that the alternative 'positionality' in alternative media feeds into the alternative 'positionality' of agents and patients in their version of the environmental justice frame (the key characteristic of 'environmental justice', according to Pulido and Pena (1998)). We summarize this illustratively introducing an 'alternative ideological square'. (van Dijk, 1998, p. 33).