A new symbiosis? Opportunities and challenges to hyperlocal journalism in the digital age

Abstract

This article draws on ‘hyperlocal’ journalism scholarship to explore the civic functions of Australian local reporting in the digital age. Through place-based case studies based on interviews with media and civic leaders from three disparate communities, we find community groups are engaging with social media, particularly Facebook, to connect locals to services and community news. Community service providers are increasingly adept at using social media and, in many cases, prefer it to legacy media to gather, disseminate and exchange news. Concurrently, legacy media have lost newsroom resources that limit their practice of ‘shoe leather’ journalism and increase their dependence on official sources without independent verification. Yet, journalists are adapting to newsroom cutbacks by forming symbiotic relationships with non-media news providers, including local police. We find there are promising alternatives for fostering civic discourse and engagement through digital technologies despite less traditional local news and a reduced capacity for verified journalism.

Keywords

Australian local journalism civic function communicative social capital community engagement hyperlocal journalism local news public sphere social media

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Carson

(2015) Behind the newspaper paywall – lessons in charging for online content: a comparative analysis of why Australian newspapers are stuck in the purgatorial space between digital and print. Media, Culture & Society 37(7): 1022–1041.

Christensen

(2013) Is this the worst time to be a journalist? Mumbrella, 14 May. Available at: http://mumbrella.com.au/is-this-the-worst-time-to-be-a-journalist-155470 (accessed 16 October 2014).

Dahlgren

(2009) Media and Political Engagement: Citizens, Communication and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) (2012) Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Media and Media Regulation. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Australian Government Publishing Service.

Domingo

Quandt

Heinonen

. (2008) Participatory journalism practices in the media and beyond. Journalism Practice 2(3): 326–342.

Firmstone

Coleman

(2014) The changing role of the local news media in enabling citizens to engage in local democracies. Journalism Practice 8(5): 596–606.

Franklin

(2008) Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analysing Print Journalism. London: Routledge.

Friedland

(1996) Bringing the news back home: public journalism and rebuilding local communities. National Civic Review 85(3): 45–49.

Harte

Turner

Williams

(2016) Discourse of enterprise in hyperlocal community news in the UK. Journalism Practice 10(2): 233–250.

10.

Herman

Chomsky

(1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.

11.

Hess

(2013) Breaking boundaries: recasting the ‘local’ newspaper as ‘geo-social’ news in a digital landscape. Digital Journalism 1(1): 48–63.

12.

Kurpius

Metzgar

Rowley

(2010) Sustaining hyperlocal media. Journalism Studies 11(3): 359–376.

13.

Lewis

Kaufhold

Lasorsa

(2010) Thinking about citizen journalism: the philosophical and practical challenges of user-generated content for community newspapers. Journalism Practice 4(2): 163–179.

14.

McChesney

(2000) Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times. New York: The Free Press.

15.

Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) (2015) More cuts to regional Fairfax newsrooms – MEAA condemns massive NSW staff cuts. 14 May. Available at: http://www.alliance.org.au/more-cuts-to-regional-fairfax-newsrooms-meaa-condemns-massive-nsw-staff-cuts (accessed 12 December 2015).

16.

Meijer

(2013) When news hurts: the promise of participatory storytelling for urban problem neighbourhoods. Journalism Studies 14(1): 13–28.

17.

Molyneux

Holton

(2015) Branding (health) journalism. Digital Journalism 3(2): 225–242.

18.

Nielsen

(2015) Local Journalism: The Decline of Newspapers and the Rise of Digital Media. London: I.B. Tauris.

19.

Paulussen

D’Heer

(2013) Using citizens for community journalism. Journalism Practice 7(5): 588–603.

20.

Picard

(2008) Shifts in newspaper Advertising expenditures and their implications for the future of newspapers. Journalism Studies 9(5): 704–716.

21.

Putnam

(2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

22.

Rojas

Shah

Friedland

(2011) A communicative approach to social capital. Journal of Communication 61(4): 689–712.

23.

Schudson

(2008) Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press. Malden, MA: Polity Press.

24.

Simons

Tiffen

Hendrie

D, et al.

(2016) Understanding the civic impact of journalism. Journalism Studies Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2015.1129284 (accessed 1 March 2016).

25.

Tiffen

(2010) The press. In: Cunningham

Turner

(eds) The Media and Communications in Australia. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

26.

Wright

Street

(2007) Democracy, deliberation and design: the case of online discussion forums. New Media & Society 9(5): 849–869.

27.

Yin

(2014) Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 5th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.