Community Journalism 2008 Abstracts
Community Journalism Interest Group
Evaluating Reader Feedback Importance to Newspapers: A Look at Community Structure and Economic Influences • Carly McKenzie, Hal Hays, Jee Young Chung, Chang Wan Woo, and Wilson Lowrey, University of Alabama • This paper compared the relative influence of reader feedback and economic influences with regard to determining news content. A survey of newspaper editors assessed the frequency of monitoring, and the emphasis placed upon, reader responses and key economic indicators. A structural pluralism approach informed the study. Community pluralism was found to function through organizational size to exert influence on newspapers’ attention to audience/clients.
Finding It, Storing It, Discussing It: A Content Analysis of Weekly Newspaper Web Sites • Kelly Mitchell, Erik Collins, and Anna Saunders, University of South Carolina, School of Journalism and Mass Communications • The research reported in this study examined a sample of U.S. local community weekly newspaper Web sites. Specifically, the researchers sought to determine the presence or absence of three key elements – hyperlinks, archives of information and classified advertising, and interactivity – suggested by scholars and practitioners as necessary elements of an ideal newspaper Web site. The findings suggest that many weekly newspapers are not embracing the Internet at all, much less using it to their fullest advantage.
Collaborator or Competitor? Community News Editors’ Perceived Roles of Professional and Citizen Journalists • Seungahn Nah and Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky • Using a statewide, Web-based survey targeting community newspaper editors, this study examines community newspaper editors’ professional role conceptions along with their views of emerging citizen journalists’ roles. Results indicate that while the perceived roles of professional journalists are positively correlated with their perceived roles of citizen journalists, community news editors rate the importance of professional journalists’ roles higher than citizen journalists’ roles.
Using a Newspaper to Stabilize a Community • Lindsey Wotanis, University of Maryland • This paper is a historical inquiry of a regular column written by Gertrude Poe, former editor of The News Leader, the weekly newspaper serving Laurel, Maryland. Poe’s column sought to stabilize the community at a critical time of change—the years following World War II—and its regular appearance in the paper produced a symbolic cultural product that helped not only to define the community, but also to ground it in a time of change.
Beyond Standard Professionalism: Journalism and Language Roles Among European Minority Language Journalists • Iñaki Zabaleta, Journalism, University Basque Country; Nicolás Xamardo, University of the Basque Country; Arantza Gutierrez, University of the Basque Country; Santi Urrutia, University of the Basque Country; Itxaso Fernández, University of the Basque Country; Carme Ferré, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona • This paper examines to what extent European minority language media journalists believe their journalistic role before the community is strictly professional, professional plus language supporter or professional plus language activist/militant. Results from a representative and weighted survey of 230 journalists from ten European language communities indicate they favor a concept of professional journalism in which the role as language development actors is also incorporated. This may suggest the need for a contextual approach to professional journalism.
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