Participatory Journalism 2018 Abstracts
Open-Source Media Project: Community Attitudes After Five-Year Organizational Evolution • Bonnie Bressers, Kansas State University; Samuel Mwangi, Kansas State University; David Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, Queensland University of Technology; Steven Smethers, Kansas State University • This paper examined the community attitudes toward a rural Midwest journalism initiative whose services evolved over the past five years beyond the original mission of citizen-produced news and information. Survey research found substantial support among residents for both the new services and the participatory-journalism mission, suggesting that organizational learning and adaptation that meets the needs of the organization and its customers is mutually beneficial and may offer a model for other community media organizations.
Citizen Journalism Scholarship Revisited: A Meta-Analytic Approach • Young Eun Moon, University of Oregon; Meredith Morgoch, University of Oregon; Seungahn Nah • This paper examines how the scholarship of citizen journalism has evolved over the last 15 years. Despite the prolific literature, few studies have taken a systematic approach to examine theories, conceptual definitions, and outcomes. Most of studies are limited to asking for journalists’ reactions, and value of citizen journalists focusing on specific cases. The present study calls for the necessity of a more theoretically solid and methodologically rigorous research beyond specific case studies.
Citizen Engagement with Live Blogs: Passive Consumption Rather than Participation • Mirjana Pantic, Pace University • This study investigated citizen participation in live blogs in the changing media ecosystem from the public sphere perspective. The live blog is an online, participatory-oriented journalistic genre, comprised of brief updates of an event in motion, designed to deliver real-time information from multiple sources about breaking news and scheduled events (Thurman & Newman, 2014; Thurman & Walters, 2013). To examine participation in this contemporary news format, the current, exploratory study, collected survey responses from 339 volunteers and found that participation was not a motivating factor for readers to engage in live blogging on a deeper level. Other study findings pertaining to participation were also pessimistic, showing that the majority of participants were not personally interested in participating in live blogging. This implies that the capacity of online platforms to accommodate participation does not necessarily translate into citizens’ willingness to participate.
“I Love Weather More Than Anybody”: A Digital Ethnography of The Weather Channel’s Online Fan Community • Jeremy Shermak, University of Texas at Austin; Kelsey Whipple, University of Texas at Austin • We Love Weather is the fan community of The Weather Channel. Launched in 2016, We Love Weather aims to serve so-called “weather geeks” by providing exclusive and specialized weather content, as well as participatory and communal elements. This study proposes that We Love Weather is an “affinity space” where participants create, procure and develop content and knowledge. It exemplifies the power and capability of a high-functioning, efficient online information hub.
Can journalists make a difference? How journalists’ involvement in comment sections affects perceived journalistic quality • Nina Springer, LMU Munich; Ina Innermann • This experimental study contributes to our knowledge on the effects of active comment moderation and investigates whether (1) user commentary addressing journalistic quality criteria and (2) journalists’ engagement ‘below the line’ would affect the audience’s quality perceptions. We find that a journalist’s involvement can positively impact recipients’ quality assessments. Further, our findings suggest that newsrooms should engage especially with comments that address journalistic quality since such comments almost always lead to (significantly) lower quality assessments.
To share is to receive: News as social currency on social media • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University Singapore; Alice Huang, NTU Singapore; Andrew Duffy, NTU; Rich Ling; Nuri Kim, NTU Singapore • Guided by the framework of reciprocity on social media, this current study investigated antecedents to news sharing. Using a two-wave panel survey involving 868 respondents who took two surveys about a year apart, this study examined the effect of frequency of receiving news on social media on subsequent news sharing behavior, while controlling for demographics, news sharing motivations, and trust in social media news. The study found that motivation for self-presentation and trust in news shared by one’s social media network positively predicted news sharing on social media. Frequency of receiving news at Time 1 also predicted sharing news subsequently at Time 2. This points to news being valued as a form of social currency.
Co-Constructing Journalistic Knowledge with the Audience: A Case Study of Sustained Reciprocity • Neta Kligler-Vilenchik; Ori Tenenboim, University of Texas at Austin • While audience members can engage in news-production processes, ongoing reciprocal relationships between them and a journalist are rare. Using a multi‐method qualitative approach, this study demonstrates such relationships on WhatsApp. It shows that a continuous conversation between a journalist/blogger and audience members in a non-public online space allows a continuous co-construction of journalistic knowledge. We identify this space as a meso-newspace, occurring between the private and public realms, and discuss the implications for journalist-audience relationships.
Engaged Journalism in Rural Communities • Andrea Wenzel; Sam Ford • With a growing interest in audience engagement and membership models in local journalism, engagement has been positioned as the one-stone that may address the two-birds of building trust and financial sustainability. However, little is known about how these practices play out in rural areas. This case study explores the efforts of one rural hyperlocal outlet as it attempts to adapt community traditions as engagement interventions—reimagining “society columns” as community contributors, and “liars tables” as listening circles. Using a communication infrastructure theory framework, it draws from 18 interviews with journalists, participating residents, and community stakeholders to examine how these efforts have and have not affected the local storytelling network and activated existing communication assets.
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