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Next steps for audience participation research

The ICA conference in Montréal was a very nice opportunity to move on in the debate on the research of participatory journalism. I chaired a panel that outlined the different approaches to date:

• The study of the attitudes and strategies of mainstream online media
• The exploration of the newsmaking routines of citizen reporters in comparison to those of professionals

Alfred Hermida, who participated in the panel, summarizes nicely the findings of two of the studies presented there: British online editors' attitudes and Israeli citizen reporters' routines. In the discussion, two research questions were identified as next steps to take:

• What are journalists offering back to the audience that participates?
• Who are the citizens that participate and what are their motivations?

The first question has a normative implication: if participatory journalism is to be relevant at all to improve the role of media as catalyzers of a more engaged citizenry, then journalists should get involved in the participation processes. If business rationales and legal cautions prevent this, "participatory journalism" may need to be renamed into "audience publication architectures", as proposed by Hermida: spaces where user-generated content is published in a very controlled and limited environment completely separated from professional newsmaking processes and products.

The second question may shed some light into the value of participatory journalism for the other side of the equation, the citizens. Knowing why do they participate will help to see if they have any aspirations of changing mainstream journalism... or just become part of it.

The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication just published an article (PDF) in which I try to contribute some theoretical and historical context to this debate. I describe "interactivity" as a powerful myth that has just been renovated by the discourses on "participatory journalism". Online journalists feel compelled to incorporate the myth into their products, but their professional culture and organizational constraints push the actual developments out of the core routines of online newsrooms.

A book about online news production routines

The long-awaited moment has arrived for me! This morning I received the first copies of the book I have co-edited with Chris Paterson: Making Online News: The Ethnography of New Media Production. It is the first compilation of research into the working routines and values of online journalists. Chapters by 15 authors --including Thorsten Quandt, Jane Singer and Mark Deuze-- offer for the first time the insight of ethnography
into the newsrooms.

In a field where most books tend to deal with the theoretical possibilities of online news, we have tried
to offer a reality-check: researchers contributing to the book have lived with journalists in the online newsrooms to describe their real practices and the constraints they face. We hope that this perspective will be very useful for the teaching of online journalism and for professionals willing to have a deeper understanding of the evolution of their job.

It is, at the same time, an invitation for more ethnographic research, for the rich data it generates. Ethnography entails observing professionals at work until their routines and values are fully understood, but also in-depth interviews and work with on-site documents. It is time-consuming, but the results are worth the effort!

The book has two added attractive features: it has a multi-national dimension, showcasing examples from Argentina to Germany, from the USA to China. And also, it collects research from different moments in the evolution of online journalism, form late 1990s to 2007: it can be read in part as a history of online news.

We have set up a website, makingonlinenews.net to continue the task of the book. Our intention is to keep track of relevant and critical online journalism research. There you will also find info about the book chapters and authors. The book will be in stores on May and you can already pre-order it on Amazon --you will get a 5% discount!