2030: Reimagining local news
Rehearsing the possible transformations of local news and local media to ensure their role as the Fourth Estate
Our studio has been a long-standing partner of Ouest Médialab, the open and collaborative lab for local media in France. In both 2021 and 2023, they gave us free rein to create two Design Fiction experiences at the Festival de l’info locale (Local news Festival / FIL), which they host annually in Nantes (France).
On these occasions, we developed and presented two keynote-fictions – a fictional talk happening in the future – with the common goal of mapping resilient futures for local media in the service of the public good.
Innovating in local news media in 2030
Between pitch and feedback, this keynote-fiction revisits three projects developed by Infovatio, a cooperative that supports local media in their strategies and disruptive innovations.
Three fictional case studies are explored, ranging from monetising information via online betting, to media resilience against extreme climate events, and using alternate history (or uchronia) to engage an audience with an unexpected editorial stance.
↑ Le Pari (The Bet), a (fictional) platform proposed by Le Parisien newspaper, allows users to bet on current events and engage young adults with the news in order to maximise their winnings.
↑ Outre-France, the overseas periodical that leverages alternate history and counterfactual storytelling to unpack the significance of key events or figures around a given societal issue.
2033: The local news Reserve
This (fictional) recruitment session invites FIL participants to join the Local News Reserve, a pool of volunteers offering their talents to local media. By 2033, challenges and crises are aplenty. News organisations are now subject to an eco-score based on the ecological footprint of their operations. Informational fatigue is rising due to the explosion of AI. Also, the emergence of the Splinternet – a new, regionalised Internet – poses fresh challenges.
To determine which division of the Reserve would suit them best – Active Ecology, Restored Trust, or Low-Impact Digital – volunteers took an orientation test before selecting their ideal role. Will they opt for the crucial role of The eco-virtuous manipulator, the ethical task of The media frenzy conservator, or the ambiguous mission of The cyber-smuggler?
↑ The media outlet France Sud is innovating to tackle the repeated impacts of climate degradation with the principle of intermittent online news: the availability and format of the news are dependent on local and national energy resources.
↑ An excerpt from one of the scenarios in the Local News Reserve orientation test, carried out live by participants during the keynote-fiction.
↑ A key tool of the Media Frenzy Conservator: a portable museum highlights emblematic cases of short-lived media buzz and their consequences, serving as a reminder and an awareness-raising tool at every level of the media.
Each of these two experiences provided an opportunity to hear the reactions and reflections of the festival audience, who, being from various regional daily newspapers and institutional media, are directly concerned by these potential futures.
To extend this experience into newsrooms and explore other equally transformative speculations, we have developed the Avance Rapide (Fast Forward) game kit, which allows users to apply the exercise of projecting their own media into the future.
↑ A glimpse of the Avance Rapide (Fast Forward) game kit, co-designed with Ouest Médialab, offering local newsrooms and journalism students the chance to confront a range of future scenarios, both probable and disconcerting.
