"This report focuses on how digital-born news media navigate audience engagement in the context of both rapid developments in a digital, mobile, and platform-dominated media environment and significant political pressure, including the ‘weaponisation’ of social media to target and harass independent news organisations and individual journalists, along with their audiences. It is based on analysis of data from Participatory Action Research, including fieldwork and interviews at three news organisations in the process of actively redefining audience engagement. They are Rappler (the Philippines), Daily Maverick (South Africa), and The Quint (India) – all commercial news organisations of the Global South, whose public interest journalism has been recognised with top international industry awards. We show how these outlets, two of which – Rappler and The Quint – relied heavily on social media for distribution and audience engagement at the outset, are now faced with the risks accompanying open and social journalism at-scale, including the ‘weaponisation’ of online communities by political actors, and the frequently changing priorities of the platforms. We find that, in response to political attacks, and the risks associated with various forms of what we’re calling platform capture’, these news organisations are evolving, and are increasingly focused on forging deeper, narrower, and stronger relationships with audiences, emphasising physical encounters, investment in niche audiences over empty reach, and moving communities to action." (Publisher description)