Correspondence: tom.brokel@uis.no

Summary of the Session’s Theme and Objectives

This session examines the evolving role of regional news media in shaping the spatial dynamics of innovation and socio-economic transitions. While research on the geography of innovation has traditionally emphasized networks, institutions, and knowledge flows, regional media systems have received comparatively little attention. Yet media actively construct public narratives, shape perceptions of opportunity and legitimacy, and influence how innovation and structural change are understood and acted upon across regions.

The session seeks to open new interdisciplinary conversations about how regional media are embedded in, and help produce, territorial patterns of innovation and development. We welcome contributions that deepen understanding of how media reflect and reshape socio-technical change, regional identities, and institutional trajectories. Bringing together perspectives from economic geography, communication studies, innovation research, and related fields, the session aims to advance a richer conceptual and empirical grasp of media as dynamic forces in regional transformation.

List of Topics to Be Presented in the Special Session

• Media as Institutional Actors: How do regional news outlets influence public support, policy direction, or innovation legitimacy?
• Narrative Landscapes and Transition: How do media shape the discourse surrounding socio-technical change (e.g., energy, mobility)?
• Media Bias and Innovation Visibility: Which regions and actors receive innovation attention in the media and with what consequences?
• Feedback Dynamics in Regional Development: How do media contribute to path dependency or enable path creation?
• Sentiment, Expectation, and Economic Behavior: How can media-derived indicators inform regional innovation analysis?
• Audience Engagement and Legitimacy Building: What is the role of local audiences in co-constructing or contesting media narratives of innovation?
• Geographies of Information Diffusion: How does news travel between regions, and how does this shape innovation diffusion?
• Computational Approaches to Media Content: How can text mining , discourse analysis, or spatial modeling uncover patterns in regional media coverage?

Key References

Berle, E. C., & Broekel, T. (2025). Spinning stories: Wind turbines and local narrative landscapes in Germany. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 211, 123892.

Binsbergen, J. H. van, Bryzgalova, S., Mukhopadhyay, M., & Sharma, V. (2024). Almost 200 years of news-based economic sentiment (NBER Working Paper No. 32026). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w32026

Fredriksson, M., Tiainen, A., & Hanning, M. (2014). Regional media coverage influences the public’s negative attitudes to policy implementation success in Sweden. Health Expectations, 18(6), 2731–2741.

Garz, M. (2018). Effects of unemployment news on economic perceptions—Evidence from German Federal States. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 68, 172–190.

Özgun, B., & Broekel, T. (2021). The geography of innovation and technology news – An empirical study of the German news media. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 167, 120692.

Peris, A., Meijers, E., & van Ham, M. (2021). Information diffusion between Dutch cities: Revisiting Zipf and Pred using a computational social science approach. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 85, 101565.

van Gorp, B., & Terlouw, K. (2017). Making news: Newspapers and the institutionalization of new regions. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 108(6), 718–736.

von Bloh, J., Broekel, T., Özgun, B., & Sternberg, R. (2019). New(s) data for entrepreneurship research? An innovative approach to use big data on media coverage. Small Business Economics, 55(3), 673–694.