YouTube-driven news production in Bangladeshi legacy media: How an “innovative” business model reconfigures journalism

Abstract

This study examines how legacy news organizations in Bangladesh are navigating digital transformation within a repressive political system and a moderately developed media market. Drawing on the frameworks of disruptive innovation and post-industrial journalism, it employs a mixed-methods approach to analyze how digital adaptation is reconfiguring journalistic labor, editorial practices, and professional norms. Findings suggest that news organizations are increasingly adopting platform-oriented content strategies to reach large domestic and diasporic audiences, with particular emphasis on algorithm-driven and sensationalized news distributed through official YouTube channels. This shift is accompanied by the expansion of multimedia desks staffed primarily by digitally skilled younger journalists. While these “innovative” strategies are perceived as generating new revenue streams, they also intensify job insecurity among senior journalists and raise concerns about the erosion of journalistic quality. The study also contributes to scholarship on the digital transformation of legacy media in politically constrained Global South contexts.

Keywords

Bangladeshi news organizations digital transformation YouTube-based journalism newsroom labor monetization strategies journalistic quality

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ahmed

S. F.

Saha

Haque

S. T.

(2020, June). Technology adoption dynamics of the press workers in Bangladesh [Conference session]. 3rd ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies, pp. 148–159.

Amponsah

P. N.

Atianashie

A. M.

(2024). Navigating the new frontier: A comprehensive review of AI in journalism. Advances in Journalism and Communication, 12, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.4236/ajc.2024.121001

Anderson

C. W.

Bell

Shirky

(2015). Post-industrial journalism: Adapting to the present. Geopolitics, History and International Relations, 7(2), 32–123. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26805941

Bourdieu

(2005). The political field, the social science field, and the journalistic field. In Benson

Neveu

(Eds.), Bourdieu and the journalistic field (pp. 29–47). Polity.

Carlson

(2015). The many boundaries of journalism. In Carlson

Lewis

S. C.

(Eds.), Boundaries of journalism: Professionalism, practices and participation (pp. 1–18). Routledge.

Christensen

C. M.

(1997). The innovator’s dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail. Harvard Business School Press.

Christensen

C. M.

(2006). The ongoing process of building a theory of disruption. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 23, 39–55.

Conboy

(2023). Journalism, technology and cultural practice: A history. Routledge.

Creswell

J. W.

Creswell

J. D.

(2023). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches. Sage.

10.

de-Lima-Santos

M. F.

Ceron

(2022). Artificial intelligence in news media: Current perceptions and future outlook. Journalism and Media, 3(1), 13–26. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia3010002

11.

Denisova

(2023). Viral journalism. Strategy, tactics and limitations of the fast spread of content on social media: Case study of the United Kingdom quality publications. Journalism, 24(9), 1919–1937.

12.

Deuze

Fortunati

(2009). Journalism without journalists. In Meikle

Redden

(Eds.), News online: Transformation and continuity (pp. 164–177). Palgrave Macmillan.

13.

Deuze

Witschge

(2018). Beyond journalism: Theorizing the transformation of journalism. Journalism, 19(2), 165–181. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884916688550

14.

Ferrucci

Perreault

(2021). The liability of newness: Journalism, innovation and the issue of core competencies. Journalism Studies, 22(11), 1436–1449. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2021.1916777

15.

Gollmitzer

(2023). Journalism ethics with Foucault: Casually employed journalists’ constructions of professional integrity. Journalism, 24(5), 1015–1033. https://doi-org.colorado.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/14648849211036301

16.

Green

S. B.

(1991). How many subjects does it take to do a regression analysis. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 26(3), 499–510.

17.

Guo

Volz

(2019). (Re) defining journalistic expertise in the digital transformation: A content analysis of job announcements. Journalism Practice, 13(10), 1294–1315. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2019.1588147

18.

Hallin

D. C.

Mancini

(Eds.). (2012). Comparing media systems beyond the Western world. Cambridge University Press.

19.

International Federation of Journalists. (2020). States of control: Covid, cuts and impunity—South Asia press freedom report 2019-2020. https://ifj.org/fileadmin/user_upload/States_of_Control_IFJ_SAPFR_2019-20.pdf

20.

Kemp

(2023, February 13). Digital 2023: Bangladesh. Datareportal. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-bangladesh

21.

Khan

E. K.

Urbanski

(2025). Navigating press challenges amid government and advertiser pressure: The Bangladeshi media landscape during the covid-19 pandemic. Journalism Studies, 27(1), 105–122.

22.

Khawar

Boukes

(2024). Analyzing sensationalism in news on Twitter (X): Clickbait journalism by legacy vs. online-native outlets and the consequences for user engagement. Digital Journalism, 13, 1482–1502.

23.

Kim

E. M.

Ihm

(2020). More than virality: Online sharing of controversial news with activated audience. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 97(1), 118–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699019857674

24.

Moon

Boukouvidis

Ramirez

(2024). Assessing physical and digital news spaces: Placemaking in Global South journalism. Journalism Practice, 20(1), 165–187.

25.

Nielsen

R. K.

Cherubini

(2022). Born in the fire: What we can learn from how digital publishers in the global south approach platforms. University of Oxford.

26.

Nielsen

R. K.

Ganter

S. A.

(2022). The power of platforms: Shaping media and society. Oxford University Press.

27.

Onwuegbuzie

A. J.

Collins

K. M.

(2007). A typology of mixed methods sampling designs in social science research. Qualitative Report, 12(2), 281–316. https://doi.org/10.5172/mra.455.1.1.4

28.

Papadopoulou

Kalogeropoulos

(2024). Relationship status: It’s complicated. News organizations and social media platforms in heavily disrupted media environments. Journalism Practice, 20(2), 554–568.

29.

Partha

S. B.

Tabassum

Goni

M. A.

Kundu

(2024). Artificial intelligence (AI) and future newsrooms: A study on journalists of Bangladesh. Pacific Journalism Review, 30(1–2), 96–110.

30.

Rahman

(2022). Broadcast policy-making in an electoral authoritarian regime: From hope to despair. Journal of Digital Media & Policy, 13(1), 121–139.

31.

Rahman

(2022). (Re) visiting private television research in Bangladesh: Call for new research agenda in news media study. Social Science Review, 39(2), 79–98.

32.

Ross Arguedas

A. A.

Badrinathan

Mont’Alverne

Toff

Fletcher

Nielsen

R. K

. (2022). “It’s a battle you are never going to win”: Perspectives from journalists in four countries on how digital media platforms undermine trust in news. Journalism Studies, 23(14), 1821–1840.

33.

Salaverría

de-Lima-Santos

M. F.

(2021).Transformation of the news media industry in the Global South. In Salaverría

de-Lima-Santos

M. F.

(Eds.), Journalism, data and technology in Latin America (pp. 1–21). Springer.

34.

Saldana

(2016). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (2nd ed.). Sage.

35.

Schudson

(2011). The sociology of news (2nd ed.). W. W. Norton.

36.

Simon

F. M.

(2024). Artificial intelligence in the news: How AI retools, rationalizes, and reshapes journalism and the public arena. Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. https://towcenter.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/Tow%20Report_Felix-Simon-AI-in-the-News.pdf

37.

Suherman

(2025). The algorithmic trap: How social media monetization undermines investigative journalism in local media. Frontiers in Communication, 10, 1619367.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.04 MB