Audience or Journalism Development?

My name is Lars K Jensen, and I work with journalism, data and editorial insights as the Audience Development Lead at Berlingske Media in Denmark. 

Feel free to connect on LinkedIn and say hi.

AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT LEAD. That's the title for my current job at Berlingske Media in Copenhagen.

A title as that much more common that it would have been a handful of years ago, especially in the Danish industry.

But as the "audience" discipline with its focus on users and their perspectives and experiences continues to grow and evolve in the media and publishing industry, job titles with the A-word in them are obviously increasing.

That makes perfect sense. Caring about your audiences and implementing a better understanding of who they are and what they are trying to achieve will benefit any publisher.

Plus, working with audiences is insanely fun.

For the past few months, though, I have been pondering - perhaps even meditating - on my job title.

The reason is this: The more I work with audience development, the more I realize that we are in fact developing content.

That we are developing stories.

That we are developing journalism.

That's not bad. Not at all. In fact it's probably quite the opposite and just the right place to build sustainable development.

But the thought process made me reflect on what it is I really do. And whether it also says something about one of the most important trends and currents in our industry right now:

As the publishing and media industry begins working with audiences and audience development, are we in fact developing our own journalism at the end of the day?

And if we are (as I would argue) does it matter how we organized our audience development work? (Spoiler alert: yes, it does.)

Let's dig in.