The goal of the project “molo.news: Validation of a news platform for urban publics” is the further development of an online app that brings together news content from different actors in the urban public and makes it available to users. The app has already been successfully tested and is rated by experts as “best practice” and “practical innovation development” for urban publics. The application is aimed primarily at regions and groups of people that are hardly reached by classic local journalism offerings. This makes “molo.news” suitable for making an important contribution to strengthening local publics. This is because existing offerings do not succeed in compiling public interest-oriented content in such a way that an exchange across different urban sub-publics is achieved. The project validates in different cities how relevant local actors can be involved and how different target groups can be reached. In addition, monetization opportunities for freelance journalists are being explored and a cooperative model is being investigated. In this way, sustainable and independent financing of the platform is to be achieved. It will also create the conditions for gradually expanding the service to other cities.
This project is a joint collaboration with the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at Bremen University and the Leibniz Institut for Media Research Hans Bredow in Hamburg. It will be funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF).