Practicing Engagement

Participatory journalism in the Web 2.0 era

Bibliographic Data

ID7500965
AuthorsRegina G Lawrence (0000-0002-6559-2460, University of Oregon, corresponding author), Damian Radcliffe (0000-0001-7540-2416, University of Oregon), Thomas Schmidt (0000-0003-4389-2080), Thomas R Schmidt (0000-0002-4497-9180, University of Oregon)
Year2017
Volume12
Issue10
Pages1220-1240
Publication date2017-11-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournalism Practice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1751-2786 • E-ISSN: 1751-2794
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17512786.2017.1391712
OpenAlexW2766762475
LanguageEN
Citations received110
References cited17

In recent years, the rapid expansion of Web 2.0 tools has opened new possibilities for audience participation in news, while “engagement” has become a media industry buzzword. In this study, we explore approaches to engagement emerging in the field based on in-depth interviews with editors at a range of news outlets from several countries, and we map these approaches onto the literature on participatory journalism and related innovations in journalism practice. Our findings suggest variation in approaches to engagement that can be arrayed along several related dimensions, encompassing how news outlets measure and practice it (e.g. with the use of quantitative audience metrics methods), whether they think about audiences as more passive or more active users, the stages at which they incorporate audience data or input into the news product, and how skeptically or optimistically they view the audience. Overall, while some outlets are experimenting with tools for more substantive audience contributions to news content, we find few outlets approaching engagement as a way to involve users in the creation of news, with most in our sample focusing mostly on engaging users in back-end reaction and response to the outlet’s content. We identify technological, economic, professional, and organizational factors that shape and constrain how news outlets practice “engagement

Citizen journalism · Journalism · Media studies · Political science · Public relations · Sample (material · Sociology · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Media Studies and Communication · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Social Media and Politics

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