News has traditionally served as a common ground, enabling people to connect to
others and engage with the public issues they encounter in everyday life. This
article revisits these theoretical debates about mediated public connection
within the context of a digitalized news media landscape. While academic
discussions surrounding these shifts are often explored in terms of normative
ideals ascribed to political systems or civic cultures, we propose to reposition
the debate by departing from the practices and preferences of the news user
instead. Therefore, we deconstruct and translate the concept of public
connection into four dimensions that emphasize people’s lived experiences:
inclusiveness, engagement, relevance, and constructiveness. Situating these in
an everyday life framework, this article advances a user-based perspective that
considers the role of news for people in digital societies. Accordingly, it
offers a conceptual framework that aims to encapsulate how news becomes
meaningful, rather than why it should be.
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