The sustainability of the Spanish Third Sector of Communication. Design and application of an analytic model to the case study of El Salto and OMC Radio

Abstract

The Third Media Sector comprises alternative media and communication projects managed by associations, cooperatives and non-profit organizations and characterized by the promotion of independent journalism open to the participation of citizenship and social movements. Despite its important role in the media ecosystem, sustainability has been scarcely addressed by an academic literature dominated by celebratory approaches at the expense of empirical and compared studies. This article reviews the debates and analyzes the sustainability strategies of the Spanish Third Media Sector through the construction and application of a multidimensional indicator model that combines funding with other key dimensions to ensure the autonomy and social function of these projects: Organizational, ecosocial, legal-institutional and info-technological. Methodology is based on a review of referential academic literature and two case studies, a cooperative (El Salto) and an NGO (OMC radio), that help test the indicators and which are representative of certain media trends within a context of economic crisis and digital transition.