The opportunity for non-elite actors to share their opinions and experiences is often cited as a key democratic element of the media, developing in recent years alongside a rethinking of the audience as active contributors. Yet, given many of the temporal and resource-related newsroom pressures, the reliance on information subsidies and official or elite voices remains pervasive. This study focuses on coverage of healthcare and health policy, drawing on 14 weeks of news reports (n=896) from five Irish websites. As well as recording the prevalence of private citizens, a novel methodology allows a deeper understanding of how journalists obtained these contributions, such as through "cannibalising" quotes from other media reports. While private citizens have salience in the news, this may primarily be due to journalists' reliance on easily accessible information, rather than more fundamental democratic shifts in news reporting practices. Further analysis shows private citizens rarely appear as detached, informed commentators, but typically as victims with direct negative healthcare experiences. The findings and discussion reinforce the idea of news sourcing as a social system that is continually reproduced, steered by structural forces to do with signification, legitimation and available resources.

Environmental journalists have been at the forefront of news industry changes. Over the past 30 years, they have had to deal with a range of challenges, including increased complexity, greater reliance on data, exposure to online negativity, and cooption into polarised political debates. At the same time, they have been among the most vulnerable to newsroom cutbacks. This exploratory study examines the extent to which environmental journalists can be considered emblematic of challenges facing beat journalism in general. Drawing on rare, onthe-record interviews with environmental reporters in the US, UK, and Ireland, the study finds that, based on environmental journalists' experiences, specialised environmental beats are becoming the preserve of larger media organisations with dedicated audiences, while at smaller news outlets, specialist reporters have taken on two or more beats, thereby diluting coverage of specific areas overall. Environmental journalists have also had to reconsider traditional roles, such as the conduit function, and long-standing norms, such as objectivity and impartiality. These trends may come to be replicated across other beats as journalists begin to report from a social justice standpoint, or rely more on science and data, as has happened during Covid-19 coverage.

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Push notifications provide news outlets with direct access to audiences amid concerns around information overload, disinformation, and heightened competition for reader attention. Such news distribution is relevant because it (a) bypasses social media and news aggregators, reaching readers directly; (b) alters the agency and control of temporal news personalisation; and (c) reinforces mobile as the locus of contact between news organisations and audiences. However, push notifications are a relatively under-researched topic. We explore news organisations' use of alerts, considering whether they attempt to integrate with existing mobile-user behaviour patterns or seek to be a disruptive element, garnering attention when audiences are not typically using devices. Through quantitative content analysis, this study examines the temporality of push notifications (n ¼ 7092) from nine Northwestern European countries, comprising 34 news outlets. These data allow for comparisons at two levels: publisher type and national context. The study shows how the temporal patterns of push notifications' dissemination align with existing news consumption behaviours; concepts of content-snacking and audiences' rhythms and rituals are a useful lens through which these immediate, concise texts can be considered. Our findings show that news organisations use the mobile channel for attracting and maintaining users' attention, with varying interpretations of temporal customisability.

This study of tweets ( n = 2247) explores discussions about a pro-choice blocklist (@Repeal_Shield) used during the 2018 Irish abortion referendum campaign, capturing conflicting interpretations of engagement and political participation. Although qualitative Twitter studies bring methodological challenges, deep readings were needed to analyse arguments in favour and against the blocklist, and to consider what we can learn about users’ expectations of Twitter. Through deductive and inductive coding, opposing perspectives emerge on whether such lists are useful, democratic or regressive, but both sides share normative aspirations for Twitter to serve as a space for healthy debate, even if there is clear tension in how that is best achieved. Blocklists are traditionally cited as a harassment solution, facilitating participation from otherwise-excluded counterpublics. However, @Repeal_Shield demonstrates how this affordance has evolved towards omitting broad spectrums of undesired content, while using blocklists – and being listed – can be a bold political statement in itself.