MEDIA SOURCES GO SOLO - The emerging practice of embedded publishing

Digital media have lowered the barriers for producing and distributing content. The active user, reader, viewer is born and receives proper attention. One other category however, with potentially a much higher impact, is mostly overlooked. These are the embedded publishers: the commercial entities, societal organisations and governmental bodies that do not have publishing as their main goal but nevertheless start controlling their communications with in-house produced, embedded information outlets. This publication explores the new phenomenon on the basis of a number of case studies in Belgium and the Netherlands, analyses the consequences for the information landscape and offers a range of response scenarios for the traditional media.