Engaged Journalism and News Work: A Sociotechnical Analysis of Organizational Dynamics and Professional Challenges

Schmidt, Thomas; Lawrence, Regina G.

doi:10.1080/17512786.2020.1731319

Cited by 27 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…In this context, scholars have defined audience participation in journalism through a series of related terms, such as participatory journalism (Singer et al 2011), citizen journalism (Lasica 2003), collaborative journalism (Sambrook 2018), networked journalism (Van der Haak et al 2012), peer-to-peer journalism (Bruns 2016), open-source journalism (Deuze 2001) and, most recently, engagement journalism (Schmidt and Lawrence 2020). These characterizations have different foci, but their essences are equivalent: the inclusion of the audience into the news process.…”

Section: Cooperation and Co-creation As Modes Of Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Data Journalism in favela: Made by, for, and about Forgotten and Marginalized Communities

de-Lima-Santos

Mesquita

2021

Journalism Practice

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In Brazil, inequalities are visually represented in its favelas. These neighborhoods are usually comprised of low-income informal settlements neglected by governments and often forgotten by mainstream media. The pervasive nature of information and communications technology (ICT) has brought new ways to produce news content in the media industry, giving voice to these communities. Thus, small, alternative, community, or nonmainstream media became a vital terrain of opposition activism. Drawing on user participation, collaboration, and data journalism theories, this article analyzes three alternative media organizations (Agência Mural, data_labe, and Favela em Pauta), which proposed producing data-driven content by, for, and about favelas through a mixed-method research design. Results show that four contributing factors tend to help these organizations to produce data stories despite these challenges: citizen participation, activism, collaboration, and humanizing data. The article concludes by demonstrating how elements developed in these initiatives and presents an agenda for future research.

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Section: Cooperation and Co-creation As Modes Of Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Data Journalism in favela: Made by, for, and about Forgotten and Marginalized Communities

de-Lima-Santos

Mesquita

2021

Journalism Practice

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“…First, there were aspects relating the affordances of Hearken’s tools that we could not explore due to space constraints. For example, for this study, we did not explore if and to what extent Hearken’s software structures interactions between journalists and audiences in patterned ways (see Schmidt and Lawrence [2020] for such an analysis). Second, since this wasn’t a longitudinal research project, it is impossible for us to conclude if the “normalization” we observed is temporary or if it does indeed seep “into the DNA” of the newsrooms in which Hearken has been adopted.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A growing number of academic studies has illuminated certain aspects of these engaged journalism efforts (Ferrer-Conill and Tandoc, 2018; Lawrence et al, 2018; Lawrence et al, 2019; Nelson, 2018b; Schmidt and Lawrence, 2020; Wenzel, 2019); however, the institutional dynamics and professional challenges of this approach to journalism invite closer examination. Two issues specifically currently remain unexplored: (1) the extent to which engaged journalism as a practice aligns with engaged journalism as a theoretical construct, and (2) the extent to which the assumptions about audiences underlying the pursuit of engaged journalism align with actual audience expectations and desires.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptualizing the Active Audience: Rhetoric and Practice in “Engaged Journalism”

2020

Self Cite

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A constellation of journalistic tools, platforms, companies and nonprofit funding has recently emerged, promoting the idea that allowing the audience to contribute to the news agenda is a promising strategy to increase trust in journalism, create new revenue streams and foster community-building. Despite a growing body of research, however, two main issues remain currently unexplored: (1) the extent to which engaged journalism as a practice aligns with engaged journalism as a theoretical construct, and (2) the extent to which the audience assumptions underlying the pursuit of engaged journalism align with actual audience expectations and desires. This paper begins to address both of these issues by comparing how advocates of engaged journalism conceptualize the public’s interest in participating in journalism with observations of actual instances of that participation. We find that there is indeed a gap between engaged journalism theory and practice, which we attribute to a distinction between what engaged journalists believe audiences want from news and how those audiences actually behave. At the same time, we also find that institutional rigidity in newsrooms that leads to some reluctance with regard to making news production more collaborative.

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“…Audiences are not only these organizations' customers but also their key resources, and their increasing preferences for mobile and social content need to be followed closely by these outlets. In this context, the emerging concept of "engaged journalism" aims to reconnect journalists with the communities that they serve (Green-Barber & McKinley, 2019;Schmidt & Lawrence, 2020). Engaged journalism is, therefore, a form of interactive, participatory, and collaborative journalistic practice that considers the public as an active audience and even co-creators of news, which contrasts their previous role as passive recipients.…”

Section: Engaging the Publicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Engaged journalism is, therefore, a form of interactive, participatory, and collaborative journalistic practice that considers the public as an active audience and even co-creators of news, which contrasts their previous role as passive recipients. According to this practice, news organizations attempt to take the audience into earlier stages of news production and aim to build relationships with their communities (Lawrence et al, 2018;Schmidt & Lawrence 2020). "Understanding how to reach audiences, how to keep them, and how to thread each piece of journalism through a complex maze of different sites and applications has fundamentally changed the way newsrooms operate" (Bell & Owen, 2017, p.25).…”

Section: Engaging the Publicmentioning

confidence: 99%

EXPERIMENTING WITH USER-GENERATED CONTENT IN JOURNALISTIC PRACTICES: adopting a user-centric storytelling approach during the covid-19 pandemic coverage in Latin America

Sanseverino

de-Lima-Santos

2021

BJR

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– Many scholars have recognized the benefits that user-generated content (UGC) can bring to news publications. In this context, the coverage of the pandemic has undoubtedly forced news outlets around the world to embrace such content to present relevant information during this time. To understand how Latin American outlets are exploring UGC in news reporting, we proposed an exploratory study that includes a devised observation of 80 news websites and their social network channels between April and August 2020. During this period, we conducted a systematic observation to analyze how these outlets open spaces for the public and experiment with integrating user content into their news processes. Our findings suggest that the majority of the observed portals have punctually adopted UGC with minimal engagement. However, the pandemic disrupted interesting experiments regarding the integration of UGC into news creation that generate innovative forms of storytelling.RESUMO – Muitos acadêmicos têm reconhecido os benefícios que o conteúdo gerado pelo usuário (CGU) pode trazer para as notícias. Nesse contexto, a cobertura da pandemia, sem dúvida, forçou os meios de comunicação de todo o mundo a adotar esse tipo de conteúdo para apresentar informações relevantes durante esse período. Para entender como os veículos latino-americanos estão explorando o CGU em reportagens, propusemos um estudo exploratório que inclui uma observação planejada de 80 sites de notícias e seus canais de rede social entre abril e agosto de 2020. Durante esse período, conduzimos uma observação sistemática para analisar como esses veículos abrem espaços para o público e experimentam integrar o conteúdo do usuário em seus processos de notícias. Nossos resultados sugerem que a maioria dos portais observados adotou CGU pontualmente com envolvimento mínimo. No entanto, a pandemia promoveu experimentos interessantes sobre a integração de CGU na criação de notícias que resultaram em formas inovadoras de storytelling.RESUMEN – Los estudios académicos han reconocido los beneficios que el contenido generado por el usuario (CGU) puede aportar a las noticias. En este contexto, la cobertura de la pandemia sin duda ha obligado a los medios de todo el mundo a adoptar este tipo de contenido para brindar información relevante durante este tiempo. Para comprender cómo los medios latinoamericanos están explorando el CGU en la cobertura de noticias, proponemos un estudio exploratorio que incluye la observación de 80 sitios web de noticias y sus redes sociales entre abril y agosto de 2020. A lo largo de este período, hicimos una observación sistemática para analizar cómo estos medios abren espacios para el público y experimentan la integración del contenido del usuario en sus procesos de noticias. Nuestros hallazgos sugieren que la mayoría de los portales observados adoptan puntualmente el CGU con un compromiso mínimo. Por otro lado, la pandemia ha disrumpido algunos experimentos interesantes de integración del CGU en la creación de noticias que generaron formas innovadoras de storytelling.

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Engaged Journalism and News Work: A Sociotechnical Analysis of Organizational Dynamics and Professional Challenges

Cited by 27 publications

References 27 publications

Data Journalism in favela: Made by, for, and about Forgotten and Marginalized Communities

Data Journalism in favela: Made by, for, and about Forgotten and Marginalized Communities

Conceptualizing the Active Audience: Rhetoric and Practice in “Engaged Journalism”

EXPERIMENTING WITH USER-GENERATED CONTENT IN JOURNALISTIC PRACTICES: adopting a user-centric storytelling approach during the covid-19 pandemic coverage in Latin America

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