How digital media monetize their social capital

From GDJ's Clipart, Openclipart.org

Lately I have been reading a lot about a new way of valuing media that would benefit entrepreneurial journalism ventures, which nearly always lack capital to launch and sustain themselves.

Sociologists and economists have been writing about it for years -- social capital -- and I am embarrassed to say that I have just started learning about it. 

Social capital is a value that media entrepreneurs possess through their ethnic, social, professional, and business networks. It is also a value that they create through their work's impact on society. Below I will show how three entrepreneurs are making it work, in France, Holland, and Spain.

Versión en español

Hard to value

Investors, the public, and the media entrepreneurs themselves have tended to undervalue their work because it is hard to place a value on their social capital. By contrast, it is easy to value a publication through the advertising and subscription revenue it generates and the capital assets it owns. 

France: Paywall works for investigative journalism site

 

The online investigative publication that recently reported French President Nicolas Sarkozy received 50 million euros in campaign support from Libya in 2007 is an anomaly: a profitable subscription-only service that accepts no advertising.

Mediapart is showing that in the right circumstances, an investigative news organization can be a viable business.