ZeMKI Policy Paper No. 1: "Resilient Journalism After Platformization"

This policy paper examines how precarious working conditions, platform dependency, the AI transformation and funding gaps are putting pressure on journalism in Germany, and sets out recommendations for strengthening the resilience of journalism by improving working conditions, developing editorial AI skills, promoting public-interest funding and fostering local communication ecosystems.

Abstract

This policy paper on “Resilient Journalism After Platformization: AI, Precarity, and Policy Pathways for Germany in Comparative Context” locates a capacity gap at the heart of contemporary journalism. Practitioners still articulate a strong mission for democratic reporting, yet the structural conditions of their work increasingly constrain what they can actually do. From this diagnosis the paper develops a framework of resilient journalism that ties common-good orientation to capabilities at the individual, organizational and societal level, set within an actor ecology that reaches from audiences and communities to platforms and funders. The analysis follows four coupled pressure vectors: labor precarity, platform intermediation, AI transformation and the funding gap for public-interest reporting. Empirically, the paper draws on an original 2025 survey of more than one thousand German journalists conducted in cooperation with the Deutscher Journalisten-Verband (DJV), supplemented by selected international research, comparative cases and legal context. Its evidence approach is deliberately bounded: the survey grounds a descriptive, subgroup-based capacity diagnosis, while comparative cases and legal context serve as design references. The recommendations prioritize survey-grounded action on working conditions and newsroom AI resilience and treat public-value funding, philanthropy coordination and local communication ecologies as evaluable designs. Germany serves as the principal case in a comparative frame shaped by European, North American and DACH reference points.

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About the author

Dr Leif Kramp is a media and communication scholar and research coordinator at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen. Kramp is a founding board member of the Association for Media and Journalism Criticism (Verein für Medien- und Journalismuskritik e.V.), which runs the VOCER education programs. In his work, he combines academic analysis with practical collaboration on projects with educational institutions, media organizations, foundations and public institutions. He supports transformation processes in editorial teams and organizations, analyzes structural changes in the media system and advises on strategic decisions regarding digital transformation. Kramp is the author and editor of numerous specialist books and studies on the transformation of media, journalism and society.