new media, new forms of citizen participation
during the time i worked for the newspaper in portugal, several people looked for me wanting to share stories, find out more about a story i’d written, say thank you or even complain (small privileges of those who work in ‘community-level news’).
whenever that happened, i always tried to take the opportunity to find out what those people thought about the newspaper, what could be improved and what being done wrong. it always surprised me that, for many of them, the favourite pages were the ones that the journalist had little or no effect on – ‘letters to the editor’ or columns written by other people, for example.
a lot of times, that investigation that had taken several hours to complete and another few hours to put into words was put aside because of the hole on the road next to mr smith’s house. because, for mr smith, that hole was a lot more important than any major investigation. it affected his life in a direct way.
none of this is surprising or new. proximity has always been one of the fundamental criteria in journalism. And I say proximity in many different levels and not just a geographic proximity. For example, whenever something newsworthy happens in timor, you can be sure you’re going to see it on the news in Portugal. In this case, the geographic distance is secondary because the emotional bonds between the two countries are stronger (and, therefore, come higher up in the hierarchy).
in a way, this is also related to the criteria that lead people to, more and more, choose the internet over other media to stay informed. instead of the passive act of consuming whatever is put in front of them, they select, choose, search and comment. the key for the success of the whole chain is the engagement of the reader/viewer/listener and that’s why web2.0 is so successful. people want to be part of the process and they want to feel like they contribute to it rather than just acting as a passive receiver. even if it’s just to say ‘I agree’ or ‘I disagree’, a lot of times without adding anything else, they just want to feel included.
this is also strongly related to the rise of ‘citizen journalism’ (with websites like cnn’s ireport proving its power) but that’s a subject for a totally different post.
the fact of the matter is that in journalism, like in politics, citizens’ participation is fundamental to prevent the structure from collapsing - whether it guarantees a more democratic society, that’s open to discussion.
