ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that amidst the volatile conditions, there remains a surprisingly under-explored resource for local media that lies within the depleted “rivers of gold” of classified advertising – local government public notice expenditure. The collapse of the traditional business model sustaining news prompted a Senate inquiry into the future of quality journalism in Australia in 2017. The appeal of social media as an advertising platform comes despite concerns from media and politicians in Australia that Facebook is “cannibalising” local news media content and in the process attracting advertising revenue in the process without any civic responsibility. Legislation around public notice spending that has been in place since the early twentieth century has, overtime, generated a type of “silent subsidy” for newspapers and reinforced their legitimacy as the official channels of civic information in the digital age. The role of public notice expenditure and its relationship to the local press is therefore a complex one.
