This study reviews the scholarly literature on participatory journalism and mediatized audience engagement as two emergent perspectives of digital journalism studies. We discuss four propositions ...drawn from an interdisciplinary literature. We find that a review and critical discussion of the nexus of relations and impacts of these perspectives provides valuable insights to the transformation of journalism and the news media industry. Furthermore, we believe that thinking about participatory journalism and mediatized audience engagement can be fruitfully applied to various novel approaches regarding research on the fundamental transformation of journalism in the digital age.
The mobile phone has technologically changed from a voice- and text-oriented communication tool to a multimedia device. But are people using it as a multimedia device? This article examines the ...diffusion and adoption of mobile devices for multimedia, with a focus on journalistic news content. The article highlights two aspects of mobile multimedia use: diffusion, seeking the factors that differentiate users from non-users, and attitudes, looking specifically at adoption behaviour. The results are based on several quantitative surveys conducted in 2005, 2006, and 2007, which are representative for the country of Sweden.
This article presents a hermeneutical epistemology for the assessment and production of truth-claims in journalism. This epistemology is based on Gadamer's functional hermeneutics, and it advances ...the concept of source criticism as an alternative to other practices and understandings of information verification in journalism. The article argues that source criticism is a better approach to bridge the gap between news and truth in journalism in a time of "information disorder". Source criticism is a common concept in certain journalistic cultures, for instance in Scandinavia, but it needs revision due to current developments in digital information networks. A modern version of source criticism offers great value to journalism as (1) guidelines for the practical assessments of sources and source material, (2) a professional attitude related to what it takes to produce truth-claims, and (3) a tool to perform audits of journalism. The article ends with highlighting three norms for journalistic practice and audits of journalism. These norms, which contain operationalisation of source criticism as journalistic epistemology and methodology, are: (1) harness truth-claims with modesty; (2) deploy interpretive transparency; and (3) operationalise self-reflective truth-claims.
The link between journalism and participation has since long been envisioned and argued to be an important one. However, it is also a complex link. It encompasses how the news media and their social ...actors actively work towards enabling and engaging citizens as active participants through the digital infrastructures of their proprietary platforms, as well as the ways citizens potentially make use of such opportunities or not in their everyday lives, and how this affects epistemologies of news journalism. However, to date, journalism studies scholars have mostly focused on positive forms of participatory journalism via proprietary platforms, and thus fail to account for and problematize dark participation and participation taking place on social media platforms non-proprietary to the news media. This introduction, and the thematic issue as a whole, attempts to address this void. The introduction discusses three key aspects of journalism’s relationship with participation: 1) proprietary or non-proprietary platforms, 2) participants, and 3) positive or dark participation.
Misinformation is a complex and global problem of social and technical dimensions. It is a problem that is exacerbated and sought to be solved by using diverse technologies. It is also a problem that ...flourishes on platforms and can lead to partnerships with platform companies. These sociotechnical dimensions of misinformation as a problem involve different actors. Some actors create or contribute to the problem, while others perceive it as their problem to solve and work to address it. Identifying the problem of misinformation is at the heart of the issue of problem-solving in fact-checking, as different actors have interests in how problems are discursively presented. This article draws on an international interview study conducted throughout 2020-2022 with 46 fact-checking actors (21 fact-checkers, 14 journalists, and 11 newsroom managers). This article analyzes how these actors reflect on "misinformation problems," and how these problems become "fact-checking problems" for the actors to work with and solve. Ultimately, the article argues that fact-checking must be approached as a sociotechnical and problem-solving-oriented practice. Doing so highlights specific obstacles in information distribution and platform affordances.
Legacy news media have invested substantially in developing digital and mobile news provisioning, alongside the widespread diffusion of information and communication technologies. Amid these ...developments, many people have shifted the ways they access the news in everyday life, with mobile devices gaining much significance. This has shifted the roles traditionally played by newspapers, television stations, radio broadcasters and news sites, ultimately relating to their democratic functions and the diminishing effect of their business models. This article will describe and explain displacing vis-à-vis complementary effects among age cohorts. It shows how the recent uptake of mobile devices has influenced news consumption via newspapers and news sites. It investigates three research questions, each focusing age cohorts in relation to single-media use, cross-media use, and nonuse. The article presents a statistical analysis of datasets nationally representative to Sweden and the specific case of evening tabloids. The data used originate from scientific omnibus survey projects conducted annually from 1986 to 2012 at the University of Gothenburg. The findings show that the public generally engage in single-media rather than cross-media news consumption, whereas age cohorts have developed divergent forms of single-media use: (a) the 1930s and 1940s age cohort are primarily single-media users in print, (b) the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s age cohorts are computer-oriented single-media users; and (c) the 1980s and 1990s age cohorts are mainly single-media users via mobile devices, but also cross-media users of mobile devices combined with a computer. As of 2012, the uptake of mobile news and cross-media news consumption reached new records, whereas the single-media use of printed newspapers reached a new low. The integrated theoretical framework proves useful for comprehending such transforming news consumption among age cohorts, and reveals the significance for legacy news media to explore and exploit the opportunities arising from mobile devices and tablets.
This study reviews the scholarly literature on participatory journalism and mediatized audience engagement as two emergent perspectives of digital journalism studies. We discuss four propositions ...drawn from an interdisciplinary literature. We find that a review and critical discussion of the nexus of relations and impacts of these perspectives provides valuable insights to the transformation of journalism and the news media industry. Furthermore, we believe that thinking about participatory journalism and mediatized audience engagement can be fruitfully applied to various novel approaches regarding research on the fundamental transformation of journalism in the digital age.
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