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When the Crowd Doesn’t See the Value:

When the Crowd Doesn’t See the Value:. Crowdsourcing, Citizen Journalism, and the Cultural Production of Local Online News . Two Case Studies out of Minnesota. Twin Cities Daily Planet (in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN -- combined population of about 3.5 million)

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When the Crowd Doesn’t See the Value:

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  1. When the Crowd Doesn’t See the Value: Crowdsourcing, Citizen Journalism, and the Cultural Production of Local Online News

  2. Two Case Studies out of Minnesota • Twin Cities Daily Planet (in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN -- combined population of about 3.5 million) • Locally Grown Northfield (in Northfield, MN -- population of about 17,000) • Both working with different models of citizen journalism combined with professional journalism • Looking at questions of cultural production and value (cultural, financial)

  3. What is Twin Cities Daily Planet? • Publication established to give voice to those who might not have any exposure in MSM • Citizen-generated blogs • Community and ethnic member media’s stories • Training for would-be citizen journalists who do write for TC Daily Planet and elsewhere

  4. Research Questions Related to Citizen Journalism and Value • First, how does the crowd or participant feel about the value of its contribution to a news site? • And second, how does the journalist or editor feel about the value of its contribution to a news site?

  5. TC Daily Planet • Founded in 2006 • Founded by TC Media Alliance • Supported by grants and reader donations • Overseen by fulltime editor • Executive director/publisher • A couple of fulltime editors, interns

  6. Citizen journalism as somewhat professionalized • News and feature stories are largely by reporters and bloggers from member sites, or • Citizens trained to be journalists working for TC Daily Planet • Training through workshops open to the community members • Do open it to comments - do not use crowdsourcing (buzzword to be defined later) • Reporters organizations see this as win-win: Daily Planet gets important stories and content, other publications, reporters, organization get exposure

  7. From citizen journalist whose story was published… • “I was so excited to learn my story had been published in Twin Cities Daily Planet. It was great exposure for me since I’m just starting out as a journalist and am in college planning to major in journalism. It was also great that the story could be seen by a wider audience than Engage Minnesota (the publication where it originated) has.”

  8. What is Locally Grown Northfield? • Blog/podcast about Northfield, Minnesota, established in 2004 by community activist/former online community manager for Utne Reader • Combination of soft news (blog style writing), discussion, opinion, video clips of events • The blog grew out of a community radio show with the three of them discussing issues related to Northfield • The other two are the executive director of the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation and a local business owner • Blog started soliciting advertising in January 2009 but largely does not pay at all

  9. Examples of a Locally Grown Blog Post • What happened to SNL at Northfield Middle School? • Council Approves Walinksi as City Administrator • Snowpiles on Division Street Downtown • Regular community of followers, many of whom also listen to radio show and comment or contribute on the blog

  10. What is Representative Journalism, or RepJ? • Idea from a blog written by a professor at Kennisaw State (and former employee of MN Public Radio), Len Witt • What if blogs could hire and support their own reporters to do actual reporting and newsgathering for them? • Received a $50K grant from the Harnisch Foundation, a small family foundation

  11. How was the first RepJ set up to work? • A blogging community -- in this case LoGrowNo -- would be given a fulltime reporter • Salary paid by grant • May questions: Who should this person be? • Local who already knows Northfield? • Outsider who can maintain more of an objective stance?

  12. Examples of RepJ reporting • Business survey reveals some needs met, others not • Will be accompanied by live chat with some of the people involved • Community radio station will have Bonnie on Saturdays -- starting with this story -- to discuss the story • She writes about it on her blog • Community comments and helps with stories-in-progress

  13. More examples • Story in progress: Intern piece • NTV package: a more indepth story in progress • Uses the comments to follow and improve upon stories in a transparent reporting process (she notes if it is a story in progress) • Here’s the buzzword again = Crowdsourcing

  14. Crowdsourcing • Facet of citizen journalism -- the act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information (Bowman & Willis, 2003) • The act taking on a job that is traditionally done by a professional and outsourcing it to a large group of undefined persons (Howe, 2006) • “Assignment Zero,” which used Internet users from various walks of life to work as reporters on a collaborative news project (Rosen, 2007)

  15. PROS The greater good and wisdom of the crowd prevails People can fact-check one another Allows audience to invest in product and therefore, the product is more valuable to them (Gillmor, 2006) CONS Expertise, thorough reporting, storytelling and ethical grounding is lost A thousand monkeys with typewriters is still a thousand monkeys with typewriters (no such thing as wisdom of the crowd) Crowd has agendas (Keen, 2007) The Pros and Cons

  16. How is this working with RepJ and Locally Grown Northfield? • Audience actively participates, Bonnie values contributions • Audience sometimes argues with one another and Bonnie over stories • Thorough coverage of issues and pieces not covered by local paper • Bloggers appreciate added benefit of a reporter to enhance their site (did serve as a value-add for advertisers)

  17. Audience as Cultural Producer • Bourdieu: Cultural production - allows a person to act within a hierarchy to produce something of cultural value, elevates them • Could this translate to value within sites that use citizen journalism?

  18. Town Hall Meeting for RepJ, Feb. 2009, in Northfield • Many regular commenter/contributors were in attendance, also ME of Northfield News, Len Witt, Bonnie the reporter • By and large, feeling was their own contribution to Locally Grown Northfield was worthless • Would not pay for something citizen generated, did not see the worth of that • Would consider paying for a professional to do newsgathering, depending on “format” (Potential models: Co-op, community garden, public radio), but would not pay for a blog

  19. Comments “I don’t think you should hire a whole bunch of bloggers who are just following the (whims) of the readers of Locally Grown and the people who are always commenting on the stories. It’s better to have Bonnie, or some other reporter who really knows the whole community and the important stories.”

  20. Comments “I definitely don’t see the collaborative reporting as important here. It’s great that we have Bonnie, who is a trained journalist who has worked in journalism as the person who we can count on to make sense of all of this.”

  21. Cultural production/Value • In general, the feeling of everyone there seemed to be that the collaborative aspect of the reporting and ability to comment or make suggestions was dismissed. • However, people also were hesitant to discuss whether they would pay to have a fulltime reporter working for the blog

  22. The Immediate Future • Both publications continue to maintain crucial community partnerships • Both utilize digital media technologies to tell stories (Twitter, video, podcast, etc.) • Both publications seek to remain funded • Both publications seek to remain relevant to their communities - TCDP will keep same model, Locally Grown will begin to use Spot.us tools and has offered freelancers positions

  23. With regard to cultural production… • The way the citizen journalism is practiced has implications for the cultural production value of its users • Editors of both sites strongly value contribution of audience/citizens • Citizens themselves do not always see it, and editors also value traditional news values, adding another dimension of how not to pay for at least some aspects of journalism

  24. Can cultural production translate into financial value in local online news? • Can crowdsourcing translate into crowdfunding? • Too soon to say with regard to two case studies here • Must pay attention to the correlation between cultural production and cultural value

  25. Thank you stern180@umn.edu

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