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Making News with Citizens

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Making News with Citizens Laura Ahva MAKING NEWS WITH CITIZENS Public Journalism and Professional Reflexivity in Finnish Newspapers ■ ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Tampere, for public discussion in the lecture hall A1, Tampere University main building Kalevantie 4, Tampere on December 18th, 2010 at 12 o’clock. University of Tampere Tampere 2010 MAKING NEWS WITH CITIZENS Laura Ahva MAKING NEWS WITH CITIZENS Public Journalism and Professional Reflexivity in Finnish Newspapers ACADEMIC DISSERTATION University of Tampere Department of Journalism and Mass Communication Media studies -series includes books dealing with mediated communication. Perspectives vary from media culture to publicity of politics, from organization of mass media to reception studies, from history to new media, and from media management to representations. Copyright ©2010 Laura Ahva Distribution Bookshop TAJU P.O. BOX 617 33014 University of Tampere Finland Tel. +358 40 190 9800 Fax +358 3 3551 7685 [email protected] http://granum.uta.fi Cover design and layout Ismo Sihvonen Printed dissertation ISBN 978-951-44-8287-8 Electronic dissertation Acta Electronica Universitatis Tamperensis 1020 ISBN 978-951-44-8288-5 (pdf) ISSN 1456-954X http://acta.uta.fi Kopijyvä Oy, Tampere 2010 Foreword I first heard about a phenomenon called ”public journalism” in 1997 at a lec- ture that was part of the introductory course to studying journalism at Uni- versity of Tampere. I remember that the lecturer was enthusiastic about the idea and that the central point of public journalism was to consider citizens as important sources in news journalism. But I also remember realizing that public journalism seemed like a reaction to some of the certainties of ”regular journalism”. Therefore the idea was difficult for a first year student to grasp because those certainties were still as new to me as the claims of public jour- nalism. The next time I came across with the idea of public journalism in 2002 when I was starting to plan my master’s thesis. I spotted an announcement on a mailing list about a research assistant position in a public journalism project to be carried out together with an NGO and a local newspaper. The announcement was posted by the same enthusiastic researcher from the in- troductory lecture, who was by now a professor. I got the job as a research assistant and was pleased with the opportunity to write a thesis connected to something practical. Furthermore, by that time I had been studying journalism for several years and had some work expe- rience as a journalist from newspapers, so the concept of public journalism made more sense to me. During the years between the introductory lecture and the MA thesis project I had – at least to some degree – internalized the idea of professional journalism, and therefore ideas of public journalism reso- nated more clearly. For me, the central point of public journalism at that stage was the idea of producing more dialogical journalism. I also became aware of the wide theoretical foundation that encompassed public journalism. I could have become a public journalism oriented journalism practitio- ner, but instead I ended up becoming a practice oriented public journalism researcher. After finalizing my master’s thesis I started to explore the possi- bility of doing further research on the topic and applied to study for a PhD. I started my research in 2004 by doing interviews and collecting material at 5 Helsingin Sanomat, then at Aamulehti and last at Itä-Häme. I was interested in the ways these newsrooms had applied the ideas of public journalism in an environment where participation had become an increasingly important tenet in many segments of society. Citizen participation has been a central theme in various areas of research for the past few decades. Two lines of research are important to identify if we want to understand how citizen participation in public affairs is currently looked at in journalism research. One of the lines is public journalism that dates back to the early 1990s and stems from the will to renew or refresh tra- ditional journalism practices with citizen participation. The context of this line of research is professional journalism and the way in which it could pos- itively contribute to the functioning of democracy. In this sense, public jour- nalism is also rooted in the theories of the public sphere. The second line of research considers citizen participation from the perspective of new techno- logy and it dates back to the late 1980s and the evolution of the internet. In this line of research, the focus is on the possibilities of technologically-aided citizen engagement and the ways in which these activities may democratize information delivery and prevailing hierarchical communication structures. Both of these lines have specific features and both have tension between the ideal and the practical, but for different reasons – because they draw from different traditions. Currently, there is a lot of discussion about citizen participation in journal- ism. For example, the terms participatory journalism and UGC (user-gener- ated content) surfaced in the early 2000s and they refer to user participation in professional media with the help of online communication. The research field in this area is active but somewhat incoherent. The two lines of research mentioned above – public journalism and technologically-aided participa- tion – have historically been apart but have now converged in the idea of par- ticipatory journalism. However, these research traditions are not always in dialogue with each other. I have been surprised how few references there are in participatory journalism literature to public journalism. In other words, even if many of public journalism’s ideas would now be more attainable with the help of online technology, audience participation is not often studied in the way that would use the legacy of public journalism as a reference or a point of comparison. This is linked to the contextual differences. Public journalism was born in a cultural context in which professional understanding was largely ignorant of the massive impact that the development of new communication technol- ogy would have on journalism. The true potential of the internet in terms of public discussion and civic communication was never one of the build- ing blocks of public journalism. Therefore, there is a contextual gap between public journalism and participatory journalism that was produced by the enormous changes in the technologic-cultural context. 6 These changes largely took place during the first decade of 2000s – whilst I have been undertaking my research on newspapers’ public journalism. In one sense, the quick development of the technological and cultural context at first annoyed me. It made me feel that my research would lose relevance. How- ever, during the process of writing this dissertation I have become more con- vinced of the fact that journalism as social practice changes slowly and that collaboration between professionals and amateurs is always challenging – no matter what the technological platform is. Therefore, I think this research can offer insights into the current status of citizen participation in journalism, which is a lot easier than before but still requires effort. Moreover, I think that truly collaborative journalism – making news with citizens – becomes more attainable if research can offer theoretically sound concepts for making sense of what is done and why. With this research I wish to offer analytical tools for studying various participatory news practices and uses of UGC that take place today in print, web or broadcasting, even if my starting point is public journalism in newspapers. Acknowledgements The personal process of becoming familiar with public journalism described above has been gradual. There are many people I want to thank for being part of this process. Firstly, I wish to thank Risto Kunelius, the enthusiastic lec- turer of 1997 who then became professor of journalism and the supervisor of my dissertation project. Risto never lost his interest in my work throughout the dissertation project. He is a supportive and encouraging supervisor. He has encouraged me by being a partner in theoretical discussions, giving prac- tical advice and helping to find funding. Thank you, Risto! Heikki Heikkilä has also been of help from the start. It was Heikki who in- troduced me to the case of Itä-Häme and encouraged me to include the local newspaper in my research. Heikki also acted as a ”stand-in” supervisor when Risto was visiting the U.S. and was there for discussions all along. I wish to thank the pre-examiners, Mervi Pantti and Lewis A. Friedland. Their sharp but encouraging comments and suggestions gave me the last spur of energy to finalize this dissertation. There are numerous other people who have read my texts and given me feedback. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen commented on the very first versions of some of the chapters in Cardiff. Esa Sirkkunen used part of his summer vacation to read through the whole manuscript. Kaarina Nikunen provided insight with some of the methodological points, Kari Koljonen supplied valuable com- ments about professionalism and David Domingo about participatory journal- ism. Thanks to you all! The Telakka (or Stinki) girls have been an important resource, both aca- demically and socially. I wish to thank Auli Harju, especially, for her help from the start of my work through to the final stages. Pauliina Lehtonen, Nii- 7 na Uusitalo, Jenni Hokka, Heidi Keinonen, Reeta Pöyhtäri and Anneli Lehti- salo are also to thank for feedback, lunch talks at Telakka and rolling in the snow in the cabin. The whole Journalism Research and Development Centre and the Depart- ment of Journalism and Mass Communication have been important and sup- portive work communities and I would like to thank all my colleagues here.
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