The Active Recipient: Participatory Journalism through the Lens of the Dewey-Lippmann Debate.

Alfred Hermida, David Domingo, Ari Heinonen, Steve Paulussen, Thorsten Quandt, Zvi Reich, Jane B Singer, Marina Vujnovic

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper

Abstract

News outlets are providing more opportunities than ever before for the public
to contribute to professionally edited publications. Online news websites
routinely provide tools to facilitate user participation in the news, from
enabling citizens to submit story ideas to posting comments on stories. This
study on participatory journalism draws on the perspectives of writer Walter
Lippmann and philosopher John Dewey on the role of the media and its
relationship to the public to frame how professional journalists view
participatory journalism. Based on semi-structured interviews with journalists
at about two dozen newspaper websites, as well as a consideration of the sites
themselves, we suggest that news professionals view the user as an active
recipient of the news. Journalists have tended to adopt a Deweyan approach
towards participatory tools and mechanisms, within carefully delineated rules.
As active recipients, users are framed as idea generators and observers of
newsworthy events at the start of the journalistic process, and then in an
interpretive role as commentators who reflect upon professionally produced
material.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages22
StatePublished - Apr 2011

Keywords

  • עיתונות
  • עיתונאים
  • חדשות (תקשורת המונים)
  • צריכה
  • אינטרנט
  • שיתוף פעולה
  • צרכנים
  • מחקר השוואתי

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