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This study explores a Capstone course's pedagogical process and considers both the challenges and triumphs that emerge from experiential learning within a news desert region. The research employs micro-ethnographic methods to analyze the learning outcomes gleaned by both students and instructors of one magazine publishing Capstone course over the timespan of 9 years, 2014 to 2023. The research acknowledges the pedagogical evolution of the Capstone course as both a means of assessment and workforce preparation and seeks to add the concept of the Capstone as a venue for service and community journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Effective Journalism: How the Information Ecosystem Works and What Journalists Should Do About It" by Jessica Roberts explores the impact of news and online content on audiences, emphasizing the role of journalists in responding to the evolving media landscape. Roberts delves into concepts like agenda setting and framing, advocating for literacy around the information ecosystem and transparency in media operations. The book also addresses challenges such as information overload, polarization, and fake news, offering solutions like solutions journalism and service journalism to enhance community engagement and empathy in journalism. [Extracted from the article]

Small-market journalists occupy an important role in keeping local communities informed. This research examines the job-related stressors post-COVID these U.S. small-market newspaper journalists face that impact their stress and anxiety and how the support provided by their news organizations also contributes to their sense of well-being. Interviews with 17 journalists in the Southeastern United States indicate that key aspects of organizational support may have a significant impact on well-being and job satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kiowa County Media Center was set up as a community media that would focus solely on citizen-produced news content. But challenges such as technophobia, citizen's lack of time to contribute content, and an aging population meant the media center had to reinvent itself and evolve beyond its citizen-journalism mission if it hoped to survive. Four main findings from this study offer key lessons for other community media facing challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the use of citizen journalism for social mobilization in war-affected Tigray. A mixed approach was used, involving individual interviews, focus group discussions and a quantitative content analysis. The results revealed that citizen journalists provided information for community members to unite, support each other and make informed decisions. This was valuable for women and girls, as the allied forces used rape and hunger as weapons of war. Citizen journalists have inspired people to discuss war-related issues, enlightening capable individuals to join the Tigray Defence Forces. They travelled long distances to send videos and news reports to the Tigray Media House (TMH) and other news organizations abroad. The war coverage of TMH alerted the international community to undertake an independent investigation of genocide. This study contributes to our understanding of the role of citizen journalism during an information blackout, in which mobile phones were not alternative communication channels but the main sources of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalism has long been presumed to serve as a check on the powerful, shedding light on wrongdoing; however, as local newspapers reach market failure, extant theory predicts corruption will go unchecked. We operationalize corruption as federal prosecutions for public corruption (PPCs), defined by the US Department of Justice as crimes involving the abuse of public trust by federal, state, and local public officials. We examine changes in the local news media ecosystems: first, whether declines in local newspaper employment and circulation are associated with changes in PPCs; and second, whether efforts to supplement watchdog journalism with nonprofit journalism might mitigate associated declines in federal PPC. Our findings suggest nonprofit interventions in failing local commercial news markets may be an important safeguard for keeping public officials accountable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examines the influence of press releases about scientific studies in terms of their impact on news coverage. Using an innovative approach that allowed for analysis of a large corpus of text and calculation of similarity scores, we were able to trace the uptake of press release materials into news media articles. In some cases, up to 65% of sentences in science news articles reflected high similarity to press release material—a potent indication of how powerful information subsidies can be. While our results contain some good news for public relations practitioners, they also carry a warning for consumers of journalism and for the public science agenda, which may be left vulnerable to bad actors undermining the trust that the public, and journalists, have in science. News organizations that had a history of producing award-winning science journalism were much less likely to draw on press release materials, indicating the importance of topic area expertise in producing independent science journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Journalism Manifesto" by Barbie Zelizer, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and C. W. Anderson is a book that critiques and offers solutions for the future of journalism. The authors address the challenges faced by journalism in the current global political climate, particularly in response to the presidency of Donald Trump. They argue for reform and revolution in journalism, challenging the illusions of autonomy, centrality, cohesion, and permanence that have hindered its progress. The book examines the role of elites, norms, and audiences in journalism, and concludes with a discussion on whether reform or revolution is the more relevant solution. This thought-provoking and accessible book is recommended for journalism studies scholars and can be used in journalism courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. [Extracted from the article]

As the liberal international order has been falling, the heteropolar order coupled with politics of uncertainty has been rising. In this context, illiberal regimes of status-seeking powers have realized the value of public diplomacy to promulgate their versions of the "reality." Those illiberal regimes' adoption of public diplomacy tools (incl. international public news agencies) has generated discussions on theoretical and practical approaches to the field at the intersection of political science/international relations, media, and communication studies. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to contribute to the emerging literature on public diplomacy of non-Western illiberal democracies. With the assumption that those regimes' illiberal democratic characteristics will be reflected in their public agencies' coverage styles (e.g., monologic, conflictive, and unbalanced), the article raises the following question: How do illiberal democracies utilize international public agencies as public diplomacy channels? To answer this question, it compares framing strategies (peace/war journalism) of the Russian TASS and the Turkish Anatolian Agency public agencies during the Syrian crisis. The findings reveal that those illiberal regimes' public agencies have reported the crisis as a state-centric monolog in conflict with the West by distrupting the global public good (i.e., peace). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of citizen journalism in Kazakhstan, utilizing quantitative and logical methods, drawing on both foreign and local insights. Findings reveal trust in mainstream media, concerns about bias and recognition of citizen journalism's value for diverse perspectives. Media professionals acknowledge its significance and express varied opinions on credibility and future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, the peninsula experienced a progressive transition of telecommunication and broadcasting infrastructure under Russian influence, followed by a wave of repression of Ukrainian media. Between 2014 and 2015, dozens of Ukrainian media organizations and independent journalists left the peninsula to continue working in exile. This paper explores the phenomenon of informational annexation using a mixed methods approach consisting of in-depth interviews with media and IT professionals as well as digital ethnography and network measurements. It argues that, besides pressure from pro-Russian authorities, journalistic work in the area is challenged by legal and infrastructural factors such as the absence of legal and financial protections for Ukrainian journalists traveling to Crimea, lack of holistic digital security within media organizations, and increased Internet censorship in Crimea. By analyzing the risk perceptions and digital security practices of exiled and Crimean civic journalists, this paper explores how informational annexation challenges journalistic work on the infrastructural and organizational level, enabling the rise of civic journalism, and how it affects journalists' individual digital security practices. In the context of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, this research provides insights into some of the informational annexation tactics used by Russians in the occupied Ukrainian territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volume 48, issue 3 of the Journal of Communication Inquiry explores the theme of "Journalism Studies and the Power of Place." The issue contains eight peer-reviewed articles and one book review that delve into the influence of place on journalism. The articles cover topics such as rural news consumption, the impact of physical newspapers on readers, the role of education in shaping journalistic norms, the evolving discourse around the term "alt-right," the changing role of public broadcasting, the portrayal of journalism in film narratives, and the importance of community connections in effective journalism. The research presented emphasizes the need for journalism to engage with its local environment and develop responsive and responsible practices that support the communities it serves. [Extracted from the article]

Journalism teaching hospitals have long been a steady source of news in the communities they call home. As these programs have a track record of increasing essential public knowledge and adding vitality to journalism programs, this study mines the knowledge of current and former journalism teaching hospital leaders to ascertain the necessary elements for starting what will be a sustainable program. Critical elements found included a passionate founder, a local coverage gap the program can fill, and support from academic leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rural weekly newspaper industry rooted in traditional geographically bounded U.S. communities was long thought to have been shielded from industry dilemmas—revenue and circulation—at larger mainstream daily newspapers. However, recent data show a shift in these rural community journalism trends, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. Using normative theory and diffusion of innovations, this study examines how rural weekly newspaper publishers perceived, nearly 18 months after the onset of the pandemic, how COVID-19 impacted their newspapers' advertising, news, technology, and community involvement. Survey results reveal short-term and long-term content and financial challenges plague U.S. rural grassroots information sources with circulation less than 3,000—indicating the end of the "golden era" of weekly newspapers. Despite the constraints, publishers remain optimistic and dedicated to their audiences, albeit reluctant to swift change, as they perceive themselves as the only reliable information source for their rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through comparative content analysis of online news reports (N = 420), we examined how indigenous values and source citation practices (re)define journalistic objectivity away from the normative comfort domain of 'The American standard'. We argue that 'African' journalistic practices will more possibly reflect more 'objective' narratives with a critical gaze to African values such as ' Ubuntu ' and ' Afriethics '. By comparing 'grassroots' with 'elite' source citations as reflected in 'African' media reportage, we found that African news narratives that embrace 'Community Journalism' reflect more grassroots than elite voices as distinct from 'Western' libertarian journalistic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Beacons in the Darkness: Hope and Transformation Among America's Community Newspapers" by Dave Hoekstra is a book that explores the world of community newspapers in the United States. The author, a former columnist and critic, interviews editors and publishers from various small-town newspapers to shed light on their dedication and perseverance. While the book is not a manual on saving community journalism, it offers inspiring stories of individuals who have devoted their lives to covering local news. However, the book lacks organization and fails to provide critical analysis or practical solutions. [Extracted from the article]

This paper investigates the origin stories of local journalism entrepreneurs in the UK, based on 57 in-depth interviews and a survey of 116 practitioners, carried out in 2020–2021. In doing so, it focuses on the motivations and identities of editors of what are variably known as community journalism outlets and hyperlocals. These outlets represent a growing sector which has filled the gap left behind by the closure and consolidation of local and regional newspapers. Many have been established over the past decade, frequently by journalists previously working for traditional media organisations. Drawing on insights from the field of social enterprise, the article shows that, like other social entrepreneurs, community journalists are driven by a range of motivations: Their decisions to start up new outlets are frequently informed by economic conditions, including gaps in the local news market. But more importantly, they also tend to be strongly influenced by normative ideals, including the desire to improve their communities through news provision. The distinctive articulation of these normative ideals demonstrates that local journalism entrepreneurs embody distinctive professional identities associated with conceptions of what constitutes "good" local journalism. These are tied to the provision of news which authentically captures the experience of the local community. Editors' origin stories reveal an emphasis on authority grounded in knowledge of, and a passionate attachment to, the local community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study of a community newspaper, Namaskar, and its impact in 'underdeveloped' areas of coastal Odisha in India, discusses the potential of alternative media for social change. It scrutinises and analyses the participatory advocacy activities of Namaskar. Studying participatory journalism favours a more dialogical and reflexive approach, which also draws on ideas of 'critical' and 'radical' media, while also calling attention to the significance of content in bringing about social change. Building on observations and testimonies from the field, collected through multiple qualitative methods for data collection, the study infers that Namaskar ensures significant participation in its advocacy practices, leading to observable changes in and around its catchment area. However, basic gatekeeping and editing work to make news copy print-ready also restrain the extent of 'absolute participation'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the role news organizations play in disseminating information and shaping public response to the crisis. This study adopts an ecological approach in examining Russian regional journalists' adaptations to the pandemic. Based on in-depth interviews, the study found that a worsened economic situation has increased dependence on state subsidies. Journalists avoided questioning authorities' response to COVID, with some publishing government information and others focusing on practical tips for readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the dangers and threats faced by Syrian journalists covering the conflict since the pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011. While most Western research on the Syrian Revolution has focused on the working difficulties faced by correspondents, parachutists or foreign freelancers, this article scrutinizes the working conditions for Syrian content providers. Syrian journalists' testimonials of fear and their perception of danger and vulnerability provide a humanistic lens not only on the scope of what revolution and war mean to many who have lived it and been transformed by it, but also on the reality of informing in dangerous contexts. The study contemplates the practitioners' working risks and perceptions of fear and threats, as well as their personal security measurements. The characterization of fear during the militarization of the rebellion as a semi-normalized way of life, suggested by Pearlman's article, 'Narratives of fear in Syria' (2016), allows the authors to place their study in a conceptual frame. The implementation of a survey answered by 82 Syrian journalists was complemented by semi-structured interviews with a selected group of 12 participants. In a context in which 86.6 percent of the respondents had colleagues who had died while working, the findings illustrate that Syrian reporters and media activists perceive their work as extremely dangerous. In the perception of fear, the adoption of personal safety measures by practitioners does not always contribute to decreasing it; the trauma experience can act both as a paralysing and empowering working factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism" by Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen explores the phenomenon of news avoidance and why a significant portion of the population chooses not to consume news. The authors define news avoiders as those who intentionally or unintentionally do not consume news produced by professional journalists. They find that news avoiders are more likely to be young, female, and from lower socioeconomic classes. The book argues that three key variables influence news avoidance: identities, ideologies, and infrastructures. The authors provide a framework for understanding news avoidance and call for change in journalism to meet the needs of these audiences. [Extracted from the article]

Through two separate surveys targeting visual professionals (VP) and citizen visual contributors (CVC), we assess their views on citizen journalists' roles along with their views on the likelihood to act on those views (i.e., role performance intention) in order to identify associations between perception and performance. The role that perceived media credibility plays in the assessment of role conceptions and potential role performance was also examined. Findings indicate that CVC rate their roles as significantly more important than the ratings of VP on citizens' roles. Correlation analysis points to associations between the roles but misalignment in the relationship between conceptions and performance among CVC but alignment among VP. When looking at the impact of media credibility on role conceptions and performance, it is clear that perceived media credibility plays a significant role among the views of professionals. However, media credibility is not much of a factor in the assessments by CVC. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream news outlets continue to ignore Indigenous people or cover them inadequately, resulting in mistrust and alienation by the former towards the latter. Yet, ways to meet Indigenous peoples' needs for accurate media representation is understudied and undertheorized. Based on 16 in-depth interviews with Native and Indigenous citizens, we develop a conceptual framework of situated multidimensional representation to elucidate the agentic processes for citizen journalists to empower members of various tribal affiliations. Findings reveal that citizen journalists' situated knowledge and expertise encourages humanizing Indigenous people, engenders media trust through evoking feelings of relatability and belonging, and strengthens Indigenous identity by foregrounding the focus on complex personhood. Our analysis highlights a need for transforming conventional journalistic values and relationship building practices to incorporate marginalized Indigenous perspectives. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined news sources and formats in relation to cultural competence indicators in 140 obesity articles in mainstream and ethnic urban newspapers. Through semantic network analysis, the research found that community and non-government sources and personalized news formats were most strongly associated with cultural competence. Ethnic newspapers pursued a culturally competent approach across all news formats and with their community sources, providing important health news to audiences who need it most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on a new trend in journalism, which we conceptualize as transnational citizen journalism. We argue that the diasporic and transnational production and consumption of alternative and counter-hegemonic information by nonprofessional individuals have sparked fresh imaginations and opened up new spaces for journalism, particularly in authoritarian contexts. We specifically examine several prominent transnational citizen journalism projects that played a significant role in the large-scale protests against China’s stringent Covid-zero policy in late 2022. Through a content analysis of the multimodal content posted on these projects’ Instagram accounts, and semistructured interviews with account creators, we argue that these transnational citizen journalism projects have built a solidarity infrastructure, connecting individuals and communities who share the value of challenging authoritarianism but come from different localities and backgrounds. Its foundation rests on the passion of diasporic creators for their native country, the engagement of a largely youthful audience with public affairs, and a global platform enabling transnational information flow. This network also extends to international communities opposing oppression in nations such as Iran and Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the interactions between journalistic actors and emerging open-source intelligence and investigation (OSINT) communities. It employs qualitative content analysis of discourse from two OSINT communities surrounding three events following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which received substantial coverage in news media. OSINT practices are rapidly becoming a mainstay of the contemporary political process by allowing ordinary citizens to verify information shared through digital platforms, which is traditionally the societal task assigned to journalism. In doing so, they provide a timely factual baseline for opinion formation and political decision-making. This research explores the role constellations resulting from this shift in verification duties from journalistic actors to amateur online communities on digital platforms and maps the fundamental dynamics involved in OSINT. We analyze how information is received and processed in OSINT communities, how digital platforms facilitate the fact-checking process, and how journalism and OSINT interact. Based on our findings, we develop a theoretical framework that distinguishes between the input, throughput, and output phases of OSINT. Our model contributes to a baseline understanding of the crucial and novel partnership between citizens and journalists on digital platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its 2016 launch, negative attitudes toward The Athletic, a network of hyperlocal subscription sports news sites, have resonated throughout the journalism community because of the new media startup's nontraditional approach, one centered on hiring established journalists from the hometown newspaper. Therefore, to accurately paint a picture of The Athletic 's perceived impact on print journalism, 22 in-depth interviews were conducted with newspaper sports editors. This analysis reveals that most sports editors were generally accepting of The Athletic and viewed its presence as reinforcement that newspapers need to stick to daily coverage to stand out in the crowded sports media marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an interdisciplinary field, data-driven journalism integrates the intellectual origins of investigative journalism, computer-assisted reporting, and the emerging paradigm of computational social science. Studies of news production have revealed, however, that news professionals are reinforcing existing power structures via an interpretive community, where homophily-evoked social interactions—even in the social media context—create echo chambers and discussion fragmentation. Is the representation of data-driven journalism in the electronic public sphere breaking boundaries among people from different domains or does it resemble the existing power structure? This study adopts a network analytics approach and constructs a representational network among actors who joined the public discussion of data-driven journalism in the Twittersphere—the co-retweeted network—such that two accounts are connected if their tweets are retweeted by the same user. Public tweets containing search queries related to data-driven journalism published from February 2017 to February 2018 were collected with Twitter real-time streaming application programming interface (API). A co-retweeted network with 1,148 accounts was derived from verified accounts' retweeting posts. Results found that several communities emerged, and news organizations, nongovernmental and nonprofit professional organizations, and academic institutions were in the crucial positions of the network. The exponential random graph models (ERGMs) based on this network revealed the extent to which gender, geographical location, and institutional type of the users were associated with the tie-formation. This study documents the major actors who are discussing the subject of data-driven journalism and raises critical reflections toward the interdisciplinary collaboration in the production of public knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reliance on untrained reporters with limited or no understanding of journalistic standards has become increasingly widespread particularly in less democratic environments and these practices have impacted news gathering and reporting. There however has been some debate about the conceivability, capacity, reliability and acceptability of citizen journalists due to the lack of the professional standards associated with the profession. Even so, diverse forms of citizen journalism continue to emerge and develop in several countries in the Global South, such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique, examined in-depth in our study of the current frameworks, trends, practices and principles of citizen journalism in Africa. Buoyed by what appears like a slump in global citizen journalism research, we identify specific cases to rethink the concept, seeking to theoretically contribute to new directions on the phenomenon's role in African societies. Our analysis suggests that a reconceptualization of citizen journalism is imperative thanks to several factors, including improved access to the Internet and changing attitudes toward political dissent and participation, citizen journalism in Africa is taking new directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Independent news websites and press played a vital role in creating spaces of contention in the context of the Moroccan pro-democracy movement of 2011. This article looks at the role of this press in disseminating alternative narratives in the hybrid media and political environment that followed the pro-democracy movement. Based on extensive interviews with journalists, this article examines journalists' practices in countering hegemonic media and political discourse, to understand how they contribute to—or hinder—the formation of counter publics under tough repression. The article uses the critical frameworks of dominant and counter-publics and Judith Butler's concept of silencing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research sought to understand how the loss of a local newspaper impacts the community. Focus groups were conducted among a purposive sample of community leaders. The overall consensus was that residents miss having a single community information platform. Business owners lack an effective way to advertise. Respondents' perception of the emerging communication platforms trying to fill the information void depends on the consumers' technical proficiency and prior use of such platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widespread perception that there has been a collapse in court reporting in England and Wales as local legacy media struggles to survive in times of falling revenues and shifting audiences. However, there is little empirical evidence with which to examine the issue. This research aims to fill this knowledge gap by carrying out the first week-long systematic coding of the activity of one England and Wales magistrates' court coupled with a concurrent survey of local media coverage of the courts. While 240 cases were observed during the week-long study, only three stories appeared in the local press and only one case was attended by a journalist. Moreover, the research team identified a significant number of 'newsworthy' cases among the sample – all of which were missing from media coverage. Although small in scale, this research does indicate that, in an average week, the vast majority of cases heard at this level of the criminal justice system is largely invisible to the public, with virtually no independent oversight from journalism. This is at odds with the key principle of open justice. The article ends with some suggestions for regenerating the area by shifting from court reporting to a Justice Reporting model, with the ultimate aim of effectively filling the void in external scrutiny of day-to-day criminal justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, and around the world, journalism and public information exist across broken media architectures. Citizens are at the mercy of those eager to take advantage of platform infrastructures in which access, quality, and diversity varies so wildly. Increasingly, politicians are taking advantage of these platform architectures to position people against one another. The result is a fracturing of belief, where truths splinter and trust erodes. Our digital environments are at the center of this fracturing, and our social and civic cohesion is at risk. What has resulted is a rampant cynicism, which is reflected in an intentional disengagement from the information infrastructures that provide civic cohesion. This is buoyed by an erosion of local news environments, which has further disconnected communities or forced them to rely on large scale digital media companies. This article will detail three areas eroding public trust and engagement— distributed propaganda, hijacking of local news, and reifying polarization —and their contributions to growing cynicism toward our current civic and political environments. It will unpack the frame of cynicism to articulate a lack of willingness to participate in civic processes that are seen as inclusive and reach beyond differences. The essay will pivot to the concept of civic-mindedness to promote an approach to combat the cynicism that has engulfed our political and civic infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of public journalism journal articles from 1991 through 2018 revealed significant gaps in (a) conceptualizing the public sphere, and (b) ascertaining the credibility of public journalism efforts. These gaps have implications for a press that is becoming increasingly challenged in an era of self-curated news selection and polarization. This work offers conclusions regarding how journalistic engagement efforts can better consider audience perspectives and thereby examine more sustainable footings for a citizen-engaged press. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the scourge of "fake news" continues to plague our information environment, attention has turned toward devising automated solutions for detecting problematic online content. But, in order to build reliable algorithms for flagging "fake news," we will need to go beyond broad definitions of the concept and identify distinguishing features that are specific enough for machine learning. With this objective in mind, we conducted an explication of "fake news" that, as a concept, has ballooned to include more than simply false information, with partisans weaponizing it to cast aspersions on the veracity of claims made by those who are politically opposed to them. We identify seven different types of online content under the label of "fake news" (false news, polarized content, satire, misreporting, commentary, persuasive information, and citizen journalism) and contrast them with "real news" by introducing a taxonomy of operational indicators in four domains—message, source, structure, and network—that together can help disambiguate the nature of online news content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study of Australian participatory-journalism project ABC Open analyzes the role of professional staff in the gatekeeping of user-generated content. Informed by the concept of 'reciprocal journalism' and applying the 'network gatekeeping theory' developed by Barzilai-Nahon, this study finds a user-generated content project that prioritizes rapport between user-generated content contributors and the initiative's professional gatekeepers ('producers'). Analysis suggests that the 'collegial gatekeeping' approach of ABC Open is resource- and labor-intensive, but succeeds by prioritizing quality over quantity in a long-term, non-profit initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public engagement with investigative journalism content is a challenging pursuit in the competitive digital era. As investigative journalism organizations innovate to engage the public, leveraging comedy may be worth considering, given comedy's ability to attract attention and encourage public sharing. To explore this proposition, an investigative reporting collaborative project about toxic environmental contamination in New Jersey, Dirty Little Secrets, worked with stand-up comics to translate investigative news material into stand-up comedy routines performed in front of two live audiences. Through post-viewing surveys, this study found that the stand-up comedy show audiences learned factual information and perceived comedians as credible sources of environmental contamination information. In-depth interviews with one participating journalist and four participating stand-up comics reveal a positive collaborative experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between online commenters and journalists has been challenged as frustrated journalists pull back on commenting and introduce rules to make it more difficult to participate. As new rules and policies emerge, journalists engage in a public campaign to change how commenting and journalism are perceived. This study seeks to understand how journalists attempt to frame commenting and its role alongside journalism. Boundary work was used to consider how journalists use public statements about commenting to establish appropriate roles for both the journalist and the commenter. But these statements also represent philosophies about strategies, policies, and practices related to commenting. Journalists take three philosophical approaches to online comments based on whether they willingly welcome commenters, see the commenter as a threat, but recognize their role, or take action to keep the audience at a distance. Along with these three roles, strategies and professional responses to commenting are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relevance of voice, recognition and consent as central attributes of the subject of participatory journalism. On the understanding that in democracy the design of political and social organisation ought to favour a process that develops the public voice of citizens, it explores the role that journalism, above all the public service kind, plays in meeting this objective. From this perspective, an analysis is performed on the discourses of the viewers of the newscasts of the Spanish public TV channel TVE, with a view to determining to what extent public recognition is based on the following three elements: (1) the recognition of citizens as such, (2) their capacity to give or withhold their consent and (3) to develop a voice capable of vindicating participation. The discussion and results aim to contribute to the debate on the 'critical juncture' of media history, at which the information ecosystem is undergoing far-reaching changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a standardized operationalization of the watchdog, civic, interventionist, loyal-facilitator, infotainment, and service roles, this study combines survey (N = 643) and content analysis data (N = 19,908) to explain gaps between newspaper journalists' role conceptions and the performance of their press organizations in nine countries from Latin America, Western Europe, and Asia. Taking an institutional approach by focusing on institutional influences on the conception–performance gap at three levels (individual, organizational, societal), our results show that these gaps are largest for the two roles most connected with the public functions of journalism, the civic, and the watchdog roles. Multilevel analyses offer significant evidence on that, across all six analyzed roles, the size of the gaps differed more clearly between journalists and between media organizations, than among countries. Although influences on an individual level (i.e., perceived autonomy) have some explanatory power, influences on the organizational level and, more specifically, ownership and codified editorial policies are the factors that best explain conception–performance gaps. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the public skepticism about the performance of journalism and the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dharamshala is home to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Its small-town journalism landscape is unique due to specific forms of community journalism practice adopted by Indian and Tibetan journalists. The Tibetan press there faces a paradox: simultaneously "local and community specific" for Tibetans-in-exile, "refugee voices" for the international community, and "foreign journalism" for Indians. This framing study identified interpretive packages in news coverage of conflict and integration between Dharamshala communities, by examining stories from community news outlets. Indian Hindi journalists enact a "community booster" role by actively framing issues of conflict in favor of the community, while Tibetan journalists' approach was comparatively more balanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalism hackathons are computationally based events in which participants create news product prototypes. In the ideal case, the gatherings are rooted in local community, enabling a wide set of institutional stakeholders (legacy journalists, hacker journalists, civic hackers, and the general public) to gather in conversation around key civic issues. This study explores how and to what extent journalism hackathons operate as a community-based laboratory for translating open data from practitioners to the public. Surfaced from in-depth interviews with event organizers encompassing nine countries, the findings illustrate that journalism hackathons are most successful when collaboration integrates civic organizations and community leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political and economic disjunctures associated with the 2008 financial crisis and the policy responses to it have coincided with the deepening of professional journalism's cultural crisis of authority and legitimacy, associated with declining public confidence in the hegemonic norms underpinning journalism practice. This paper presents the findings of research undertaken in the newsroom of Ireland's main public service media organisation aimed at exploring the durability of key tenets of journalistic professionalism as its practitioners negotiated the crisis. In demonstrating evidence from interview testimony of limited editorial responses to crisis, enduring support for dominant professional norms and prevailing practices of representation, inclusion and participation, the findings are suggestive of a broad normative resilience in the face of crisis. Such stability, it is argued, reflects the ideological enmeshment of public service media and journalistic professionalism within the political and cultural systems of their host states but offers few resources for extricating public service journalism from deepening professional and institutional cultural crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study examines the social institutional influence on how a nonprofit community newspaper conducts newswork. Utilizing both in-depth interviews and participant observation, the data illustrate how the government, the audience, donors and advertising impact news construction processes. The results are analyzed through both management and media sociology theories. Finally, the authors elucidate how nonprofit news organizations can optimally operate as an open-system (or organism), allowing for all peripheral social institutions to impact newswork without losing any autonomy over the journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the knowledge gap regarding small market newspapers in the United States. We address a deceptively simple research question: what is the state of small market newspapers in the United States as seen through the eyes of practitioners and industry experts? Based on in-depth interviews with experts and practitioners, we argue for a more nuanced vocabulary to describe newspapers and local news. Grouping all newspapers into a monolithic industry – as general sector analyses often do – suggests a homogeneous experience. That is not the case. Smaller publications face their own challenges and opportunities, and they define success and innovation on their own terms. This reality needs to be better understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]