TRANSLATING, Domesticating, Repurposing User Needs: A TWO-Year Action Research on Editorial-Tool Appropriation in Local Newsrooms

The user needs model, developed by the BBC to align editorial production with audience needs, has received little empirical attention in local newsrooms. This article analyzes its deployment across three Swiss French-speaking regional daily titles (ESH Médias) over two years (2024–2026), drawing on action research combining participant observation, production and performance data, and seventeen semi-structured interviews. The model was translated and domesticated on the newsrooms’ own terms. It supported more deliberate story development and diversified coverage. Yet this audience-centered tool primarily helped journalists interpret content performance, without a reported gain in understanding readers. Changes in the balance of production remained constrained by structural pressures (territorial coverage, print edition, scarce resources) and by identity-based resistance tied to editorial autonomy. Beyond guiding content, the model anchored newsrooms within the wider organization, made differentiated journalistic dispositions visible, and prompted reflection on editorial abandonment. Extending research on audience metrics to a prescriptive editorial tool, the study shows how appropriation involves negotiating what stories should offer readers and which purposes belong within the local newsroom’s mission. Turning these purposes into practice requires sustained support and an allocation of time and responsibilities that the tool alone cannot provide.