Using a survey of a sample of hyperlocal actors in Sweden (N = 178), this article examines preconditions, motivations and sustainability for hyperlocal media operations, outside the traditional media chains, in order to provide a picture of their function in the current media landscape, and to further build on the understanding of the hyperlocal business model. This study extends the hyperlocal definition by including media platforms other than websites. The results show that the operations indeed aim to support and foster citizenship, strengthen democracy and mirror the local community. At the same time, as shown by other studies, the fact that they are not large-scale, highly profitable operations may challenge their sustainability. Nonetheless, most of them claim to be profitable, largely because of the print platform, and have a positive outlook on the future. Revenues from advertising and readership are currently less substantial for Web-based operations, which reinforces the need to broaden the definition of hyperlocal publishing platforms when talking about financial sustainability. Currently, hyperlocal media in Sweden, with small resources and a lower publishing frequency, cannot be viewed as a replacement of established media, but play important roles as complementary alternative voices and contribute to media plurality in the local community.

Locally based, community-oriented hyperlocal news have been suggested to incline a higher level of citizen participation than established legacy news media, both in terms of starting and running, as well as participation in the news production, ranging from smaller tips to civic and participatory journalism. Previous studies have, however, found low levels of uptake of user-generated content, both among journalists/producers and consumers. Through two surveys – a probability sample of the Swedish population and a total sample of hyperlocal actors in Sweden – and interviews with 13 selected hyperlocal actors in Sweden, the present study examines the level of user participation in the content production of hyperlocal news in Sweden. The results show that looking at the population as whole, the citizens state that their contribution to content creation in news media is low. Most content in hyperlocal media is produced by the hyperlocal publishers themselves; often a sole individual with a background as a professional journalist, but also by the audience, although their contribution consist of Although “amateur reporting” does not account for a significant part of the hyperlocal media, and the thesis “everybody is a journalist” is a truth with modification – both regarding content breadth and engagement – submissions from the audience are both wanted and encouraged by the hyperlocal operations.

Local newspaper has been the spine of Swedish media industry for more than a century. But the last 10 years, local newspapers and local journalism has suffered hard setbacks – newsrooms have been reduced and more than one third of the local offices have been closed (Nygren and Althén 2014). Coverage of local issues is diminishing, and at the same time circulation is dropping causing continuing economical problems (Ohlson 2015). Local media plays an important role on different levels, both for local identity and for local public sphere and local democracy (Kleis-Nielsen 2015). In US reduced local media has created local “news deserts”, and also in Sweden social life in large areas around big cities has been heavily underreported in media for a long time (Nygren 2005). The last ten years also sparsely populated areas in the country has lost a quite good local journalism, and became news deserts. But at the same time new types of local media are growing in areas where traditional newspapers are weak or have been withdrawing, a development similar to for example UK (Williams et al 2015). In the first complete mapping of all kind of local media in Sweden, there are many kind of these new local media often created on a hyperlocal level – free sheets in parts of metropolitan areas, local online newssites and also local subscribed weeklies. A new local media landscape is emerging. This paper will give an overview on new hyperlocal media in Sweden. It is based on a survey by telephone to community authorities and on a survey to a sample of hyperlocal media producers. The paper discuss questions regarding sustainability of new kind of local media – what kind of content do they offer citizens, economical models they are based on and the relation to local community. The basic question is to what extent these new types of local media can replace traditional news media, what are the advantages and problems connected with this development in relation to local democracy. One key question is the degree of professionalism in these new kind of hyperlocal media – how content produced by semi-professionals and citizens relate to traditional normative standards of journalism.