From Weekly Newspapers to Online Dailies: The Transformation of Canada's Community Press

The speed, scope and scale by which information is transmitted have contributed to a shift in the way community newsrooms operate. The Internet has given Canada’s community newspapers the ability to publish online as quickly as their daily counterparts, providing both opportunities and challenges. This study investigates how community newsrooms are adapting to a digital environment, examines media response to technological change, and assesses the long-term viability of community newspapers via an analysis of structural trends at a time when newspapers are forced to once again renegotiate their place within the evolving networked news ecology. This is, after all, not the first time newspapers have faced a so-called disruptive technology. Radio did not kill newspapers, nor will the Internet. Canada’s community newspapers have a viable future, but only if there is a return to the core mandate of the weekly press, which requires meaningful investment in a multimedia newsroom.