Sustainable Journalism through the concepts of engagement and relevance: a scoping review

The concepts of relevance and engagement provide an approach to understanding new media companies’ search for a new sustainability model. This new model must complement the advertising revenue with subscriptions. The media need to ensure various sources of funding. They must regain relevance and maintain engagement with their audience; this paper presents the results of a scoping review. The objective is to identify and synthesise the academy’s vision concerning the relevance and engagement applied to the sustainability of journalism. The academy analyses the innovation processes in news media outlets in-depth and attempts to leverage its business model through paying users. The results show a growing interest in the media’s economic feasibility due to the demise of the advertising based business model. The in-depth analysis of engagement shows the academy’s lack of a defined consensus, although new research has made valuable contributions. Moreover, there are significant differences between professionals’ and academics’ visions. Although to a lesser extent, Relevance is present in the sustainability debate through the visibility and trust that media brands bring