GateHouse Media will consolidate 50 of its weekly newspapers in Massachusetts into 18, according to a memo posted online Friday night.

The plan, set to begin Monday, will affect weekly papers, according to an internal memo posted online by Dan Kennedy, a Northeastern University professor and Media Nation blogger.

“The new, larger weeklies will cover the same market areas and total circulation will be largely unchanged. Readers will enjoy the same news coverage and advertisers will reach the same audience. The difference is that we are grouping some very small weeklies into geographic clusters that make sense for readers and advertisers,” Peter Meyer, the president and publisher of The Providence Journal and publisher of GateHouse Media New England wrote in the memo dated May 31.

Many of the newspapers being grouped together currently cover one town, like the Shrewsbury Chronicle, The Westborough News Village News, Tewksbury Advocate and the West Roxbury Transcript which are all part of the restructuring. These papers will be merged under new titles to report on smaller regions.

The memo did not say whether staff cuts would also come with the changes.

GateHouse’s parent company is publicly traded New Media Investment Group Inc., which is run by Fortress Investment Group LLC. The company owns 156 daily newspapers and 464 weekly papers across the country.

GateHouse has a reputation for purchasing newspapers and immediately cutting staff and downsizing operations. Last week the company laid off about 200 employees, which New Media Investment Group CEO Mike Reed called “a small restructuring.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that GateHouse is in talks with Gannett about a potential merger. Gannett owns USA Today and other local papers.