Abstract

This thesis examines financial sustainability in journalism through closely analyzing whether niche journalism is a type of journalism that can be supported by crowdfunding as a sustainable mean of financing. The focus of the research is the case of ZigZag, a US-based niche journalism podcast. Through this exemplar, I highlighted the themes of content, approach, diversified revenue streams, connections, and transparency as the factors that led to the podcast’s success. I analyzed these themes by placing them under the categories of niche journalism and financing to depict how both elements contributed to its success. This project provides a different perspective to the academic study of crowdfunding in journalism. There have been many studies that have analyzed different aspects of crowdfunding such as its categories, benefits, and drawbacks such as Aitamurto (2011, 2015), Carvajal, García-Avilés, and González (2012), Hunter (2016), Hunter & Bartolomeo (2018), Jian & Shin (2015), and Zaripova (2017), however, none have yet to examine whether there is a correlation between niche journalism and the financial sustainability of crowdfunding. This thesis adds to research in this area, by examining the potential correlation between niche journalism and the financial sustainability of crowdfunding.