The Jefferson Center launched Your Voice Ohio in 2017, the second phase of an ongoing collaborative effort to help Ohio newsrooms better understand and respond to the needs of their communities. We’re looking at a variety of methods of engagement — both in-person and online — to find the most effective and sustainable approaches for local newsrooms. Here’s what we’ve learned so far (as of 2018).
In 2017, The Listening Post Collective, with support from an Omaha based foundation, conducted an Information Ecosystem Assessment in north Omaha, Nebraska. The resulting assessment maps the existing media and information ecosystem and offers examples and suggestions of steps that may improve access to information and news coverage of north Omaha.
The Wichita Eagle newspaper created a reading challenge through a closed Facebook group. Participants in the virtual book club can track their progress in the challenge, share book reviews, make recommendations, provide links to book-related stories and events. It’s managed by books columnist and education reporter, Suzanne Tobias.
Abstract: This research examines the impact of One River, Many Stories, a community storytelling project designed to disrupt relationships between news organizations and their audiences. Community engagement methods were used to study this two-year storytelling project. Ripple Effects Mapping methods measured its impact. Findings reveal that traditional news media deviated little from established journalism routines while citizen participation was diverse and expansive.
Verify debuted in 2016 in response to a challenge from WFAA’s corporate parent, TEGNA, to find ways to “truth-test” the news. For Verify, reporter David Schechter and producer/photographer Chance Horner select a topic of public interest (e.g. homeless camps, fracking, the death penalty) and invite a citizen reporter to join them on a “road trip” throughout the reporting process.
The Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University works to grow and strengthen the local journalism ecosystem in New Jersey. Its flagship project, NJ News Commons, works with about 150 news organizations — from legacy publishers to hyperlocal startups — on collaborative journalism projects in New Jersey.
Open:Housing is a platform, a network, and a set of strategies aimed at strengthening the information ecosystem that supports civic engagement around housing issues. Journalists, housing advocates and experts, and Portland residents came together with a shared interest: to create inclusive, informed public conversations that drive solutions to the Portland region’s housing crisis.
A collaborative relationship between citizen journalists and professional journalists has long been an aspiration for many media scholars. While tensions surrounding professional control are significant, scholars also have to consider the structural dynamics of content online and across social media networks, particularly in an era of the corporatized and commercialized Web. The rise of social discovery tools and algorithms is also addressed. This article aims to bring to light these concerns and moves the conversation about citizen journalism forward by proposing a model that identifies the pathway through which news organizations gather, select, package, and disseminate citizen journalism content.
The shift to online news is increasing engagement, adding more perspectives, and introducing more witnesses and a wider spectrum of voices to the media industry … In a new paper from Tom Rosenstiel, the paradoxical state of news in the digital age is weighed not in a manner of whether we are better off or worse, but instead in better understanding what is better, what we are losing, and what we can do about it.
Abstract: Drawing on a structural theory of reciprocity, this essay introduces the idea of reciprocal journalism: a way of imagining how journalists might develop more mutually beneficial relationships with audiences across three forms of exchange—direct, indirect, and sustained types of reciprocity. We introduce this concept in the context of community journalism but also discuss its relevance for journalism broadly.
