Revising Legacy Media Practices to Serve Hyperlocal Information Needs of Marginalized Populations

Bibliographic Data

ID7511099
AuthorsLetrell Crittenden (Communication, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA), Antoine Haywood (0000-0002-4211-8395, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Year2020
Volume14
Issue5
Pages608-625
Publication date2020-05-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournalism Practice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1751-2786 • E-ISSN: 1751-2794
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17512786.2020.1759124
OpenAlexW3024985944
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited22

This study explores how two nonprofit media organizations–PublicSource and Philadelphia Community Access Media (PhillyCAM)–have transformed their legacy practices to better connect within and serve marginalized populations in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, PA. As traditional newsrooms have been depleted by dire financial realities, new journalism outcroppings have heeded the Knight Commission’s Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age (2009) report and, consequently, revised their approaches to community engagement. Adjacent to these reformed legacy newsrooms are community media organizations that operate a municipality’s public, educational, or government (PEG) access media production facilities. Although PEG access media’s legacy has no clear genealogical ties with traditional journalism, an increasing amount of PEG operations over the past ten years have started to intentionally test editorialized forms of community news reporting. The data collected and assessed in this study has indicated that news organizations like PublicSource have an explicit need to do more relational community engagement work that will enable it to fill hyperlocal information gaps and better serve marginalized populations. Community media organizations like PhillyCAM have extensive experience engaging diverse publics; however, as this study reveals, they could benefit from employing formalized news production methods that are guided by journalistic standards

Broadcast journalism · Commission · Community engagement · Community organization · Government (linguistics · Journalism · Media studies · Political science · Public relations · Social media · Sociology · Media Studies and Communication · Radio, Podcasts, and Digital Media · Social Media and Politics · Law