Crowdfunding Journalism: The Change Of News Production Pattern And Power Structure

With the development of the Internet and digital technology, media ecological environment and the information production pattern changed dramatically:the awakening of civic consciousness and the development of network public sphere promote the public discussion and participate in public affairs; the formation of social networks and the rise of Internet participatory culture expand people's social communication demand, release the productivity and creativity of the masses; the long tail of news consumption highlight niche information needs. In this context, the crowdfunding journalism came into being.Crowdfunding journalism is a kind of typical participatory journalism, refers to raising money for a story project pitched by a journalist on the internet, after the completion of plan the donors will receive some returns from sponsor. Spot.us is the first crowdfunding journalism web in the world and there are some representative influential websites in the world, for example, Kickstarter in the US?the journalism platform on zhongchou.com in mainland China and Chinese Taiwan's weReport.Crowdfunding journalism has changed the traditional journalism production pattern in this way: Firstly, the sponsors and donors both become the producer of news, and in the process of news production, it not only realized the interactive participation and gatekeeping in the same time, but also realized sharing information consumption and social contacts synchronously. Secondly, the optimal combination of producers make the combination of participation and specialized content. Thirdly, on account of news topics differentiation and demassification, crowdfunding journalism follows the market logic of customized production. In the meanwhile, crowdfunding journalism has changed the power structure of news production. The media play a dominant role in communication before, but now the relationship between disseminators and audience is becoming more equal in the crowdfunding journalism. Besides, social control of news production transforms from centralized and organized to decentralized and individual.However, due to the realistic context of media, crowdfunding journalism also facing many obstacles: the professional news production is lacking system guarantee; the development of policies and regulations are not perfect; and the business model is immature. So, for the future development of news, we should avoid policy risk on the subject as far as possible; promote the crowdfunding journalism concept and develop a rich source of income; strengthen producers' self-discipline in news production process and ensure professional news production.