
Clare Cook
Senior lecturer and researcher, Co-founder Media Innovation Studio
School of Arts and Media
Clare Cook is a research practitioner, co-founder of the Media Innovation Studio at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. Her specialist interest is moving independent media through viable, sustainable and resilient models with a focus on revenue models and innovation. For seven years she has analysed and worked on independent journalism business models in Europe and politically pressured environments. Together she is passionate about new methodological approaches capable of stimulating innovation in journalism business models more broadly. She inputs evidence to policy makers and media development programmes, and speaks internationally. Currently she is heading up research for a new platform called Value My News, which hopes to unlock new revenue streams for hyperlocal journalism sites in the UK, funded by Google DNI and Future News Fund. This platform prototype aims to develop new supply chain economies for hyperlocal and independent media in the UK, creating a suite of tools for white labelling to unlock new revenue streams through the sharing economy and by upselling content through the UK media system
Clare is published widely in Journal of Media Business Studies, International Communication Gazette and Nordicom Review. She is co-author of two books: Social Media for Journalists Principles and Practice (Sage) and Chasing Sustainability on the Net (COMET). She is co-author of several key reports such as Sustainable Business Models on the Net (COMET), Hyperlocal Revenues in the UK and Europe (Nesta) and Unlocking Journalism Resilience: Adapting a Digital Business Model to Promote Press Freedom (Wan-Ifra).
Her thesis explores revenue models in the path sustainability of web-indigenous journalism using a pragmatist approach. She is Principle Investigator on several research projects, awarded funding from Nesta, Nemode, RCUK, and Google Digital News Initiative. She often assesses applications for journalism grant programmes and is involved in business mentoring on project interventions as part of her commitment to engaged scholarship. As business mentor for the Engaged Journalism Accelerator, she has developed a new toolkit using hexagonal heat mapping to correlate reader relationships with reader revenue models.
Clare is an award-winning journalist who forged her career in journalism for ten years across regional and periodicals. She is passionate about decentralised local media and speaks internationally relating to hyperlocal and independent community media resilience. She advises many media on their revenue diversification strategies. Her policy impact is felt in UK government and international development. Her recent research into hyperlocal and politically pressured media revenue models has been used as evidence by the Department of Culture Media & Sport and the Department for International Development.
Her work on viability, sustainability and resilience co-authored within Sustainable Business Models on the Net and Nesta's Mapping the Road to Sustainability and Resilience are noted for their high level of instrumental impact with media practitioners. Her focus is primarily on putting knowledge into practice.
In 2014, she designed and delivered an action research workshop on Collaborative Revenue Capture bringing exiled media practitioners from Iran. Colombia, Belarus, Syria and more together to co-create new knowledge with funders to understand alternative revenue models for media in politically pressured environments.
In 2016, she developed CAST, a proximity prototype for distribution networks in remote Armenian villages. Using WiFi mesh capable of sustaining hyperlocal content discovery and interactions from electronic devices it allows decentralized access to news and resources. The pilot fused new knowledge on digital divide, digital literacy, community engagement and decentralized information architecture.
- PhD Understanding revenues in the path sustainability of web-indigenous journalism: a pragmatist approach, UCLan, 2020/2021
- PG Certificate in Higher Education, University of Central Lancashire, 2010
- National Certificate Examination Journalism, University of Liverpool, 2003
- Postgraduate diploma in print journalism NCTJ with distinction, University of Liverpool, 2002
- BA (Special Hons) European Studies, University of Hull, 1999
- Revenue models
- Business models
- Journalism innovation
- Web-indigenous journalism
- Visiting professor UCLouvain, Belgium
- Visiting professor Neuchatel, Switzerland
- Visiting professor Audencia Sciencescom, Nantes
- Board member for the Independent Community News Network
- External assessor Public Interest News Foundation
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- Full list of publications and articles on CLoK
- Google Scholar
- Media Innovation Studio
- 2019-present. Re-modelling revenues. Action research to stimulate new thinking around revenue models for web-indigenous journalism. Partners: Engaged Journalism Accelerator, IREX.
- 2018-present. Value My News platform prototype to develop new supply chain economies for hyperlocal media in the UK. Creating a suite of tools for white labelling to unlock new revenue streams for hyperlocals through the sharing economy and by upselling content through the UK media system. Partners: C4CJ, Cardiff and Omni Digital, Bristol.
- 2016-2017. CAST proximity prototype for distribution networks in remote Armenian villages. Using WiFi mesh capable of sustaining hyperlocal content discovery and interactions from electronic devices it allows decentralized access to news and resources. The pilot fuses new knowledge on digital divide, digital literacy, community engagement and decentralized information architecture. Partners: Wicastr, UK and Impact Hub, Yerevan.
- 2014-2017. Civic Drone Centre A collaboration with the Engineering Innovation Centre, working with companies, individuals, and organisations that are using, or planning to use, remotely operated vehicles across a wide range of civilian scenarios. Its remit is to: promote drones for civic and civil uses; examine ethical and moral issues behind drone use, and prompt debate around these uses, and seek to influence policy; promote interdisciplinary digital development and work across academic institutions; Encourage and support small businesses whose core activities benefit the wider UAV and remotely piloted vehicle community. The Centre’s focus spreads across three separate strands and examines the potential uses and drone engineering and software development in search and rescue scenarios, journalism and media, and humanitarian work. These strands allow us to explore both the societal issues (e.g. laws, regulations, ethics) and the technical problems (e.g. autonomous flight, sensors) and transfer new knowledge generated into other civilian uses, such as infrastructure inspection and postal delivery. My role is to provide communications support and to pursue research into drone journalism and wider media uses. Partners: Media Innovation Studio and School of Physical Sciences and Computing, University of Central Lancashire.
- 2014. Collaborative Revenue Capture bringing exiled media practitioners from Iran. Colombia, Belarus, Syria and more with funders to understand alternative revenue models for media in politically pressured environments. Partners: Open Society Foundation, Internews Europe, Rory Peck Trust.
- Nesta Future News Fund, 2020
- Internews Europe, 2019
- Google Digital News Initiative, 2018
- Nesta, Destination Local, 2015
- Research Council UK, 2014
- New money new freedoms: business model innovations from politically pressured states, International Journalism Festival, Perugia, 2020
- Adapting the business model to support press plurality. International Media Support, charrette, Copenhagen, 2019
- Une platforme pour monetiser les contenus des hyperlocaux. Festival Di’info Locale. Nantes, 2019
- Newslabs and Innovation: Artificial Intelligence and Voice. Congress, Wan-Ifra 2019, Glasgow
- Unlocking Meaningful Innovation, Keynote. Institute of Media Innovation, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2018, https://www.media-initiative.ch/imi-lauch-event/
- Sustaining Media On The Edge, special panel ECREA, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2018
- Hyperlocal revenues as an evolving ecosystem. World Media and Management Conference WMEMC New York, 2018
- From backers to investors. 4M International Meeting CFI Paris, 2016
- MADE: Digital Entrepreneurs Summit. Google London, 2015
- Médias et algorithmes : 15 choses à savoir sur la recommandation personnalisée et automatisée d’information Web2day, Nantes, 2015
- Drones for Good: Journalism and Crowdsourced UAVs SxSw Austin, Texas, 2015
- l'innovation au sein et au-delà de la salle de presse. New Frontiers of Media and Journalism. Conference National des Metiers de Journalisme, Paris, 2015
- Drones for Good, web2day, Nantes, 2014
- Aerosee: UAVs in crowd sourced journalism Mindtrek, Finland, 2013
- Aerosee: UAV and crowdsourced search and rescue, Digital Economy, Salford, 2013
- Embrace or replace: understanding the UK startup scene Obsweb, Metz, 2012
- Beyond Technological Determinism: A Model for Understanding the New Participatory Networked News Environment. Academic MindTrek Conference, Tampere, Finland, 2011
- Tag me Tweet me: Journalists as brands? Medias 2011. Cezanne University, France, 2011
Telephone:+44 (0) 7720 722201
Email: Email:Clare Cook
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