St. Louis convention panels represent balance of teaching, research, PF&R

Note: This article also appears in the Summer 2011 edition of the CCJIG newsletter

By Kirsten Johnson
CCJIG Vice Chair

This year’s conference in St. Louis features an exciting slate of programming in teaching, research, and professional freedom and responsibility. The following sessions are co-sponsored by CCJIG with other interest groups and divisions.

Wednesday 3:15 p.m.
Going Public

This panel will focus on how different journalism schools are teaching undergraduates to cover and serve local communities through citizen journalism and journalism-related service projects. (Magazine, CCJIG)

Wednesday 5:00 p.m.
Location, Location, Location:
Using Location-based Services to Add Some Mobile to Your Journalism Course

Use of location services in journalism has been on the rise recently, with the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times making inroads to attract readers with mobile applications such as Foursquare. At the same time other location services such as Yelp! have on their own generated significant content solely from users. This panel will explore how to fit location into the classroom curriculum. Best practices and specific assignments will be highlighted. (Mass Communication and Society, CCJIG)

Thursday 8:15 a.m.

Beyond the Box: Issues and
Innovations in Researching Digital Content

In exploring user participation and the works of citizen journalists, researchers commonly apply methods of content analysis, one of the most popular methods of inquiry in media research. Media scholars traditionally apply the method to analyze content in static forms such as newspapers, magazines, films, or video. The Internet has not only enabled new forms of publishing – leading to an explosion of user-generated content – but also has introduced new considerations for scholarly examinations of such content. This panel will examine methodological issues surrounding content analysis of online content. (CCJIG, Radio and Television Journalism)

Thursday 5:00 p.m.
News With a View

For decades the concept of objectivity in journalism has been disputed. With the rise of new technologies that allow more individuals to claim they produce news, and the increasing reliance of mainstream journalism on manufactured spectacle, this panel will discuss how the increasing presence of subjectivity in news is affecting the news we receive. (Community Journalism, CCJIG)

Thursday 6:45 p.m.
Membership meeting

Election of officers, a review and preview of the past year and coming one, along with networking and camaraderie.

Friday 8:15 a.m.
The Role of Citizen Journalists, Bloggers and Digital Media in the Political Campaign

This panel will discuss the use of different forms of digital media for political purposes and explore their effects on a range of important political variables. It also will address how citizen journalists and bloggers contribute to democracy and influence campaigns, and how they reconcile the notions of journalistic neutrality and ethical standards for all candidates with the passion and authenticity that readers often expect from citizen journalists and bloggers. (CCJIG, Communication Technology)

Friday 12:15 p.m.
Community News Sites: What Works (J-Lab Luncheon)

More than 7,000 placeblogs have launched around the country. Thousands more hyperlocal community news sites are now covering town and school board meetings that have never been covered before – not even in the heyday of American journalism. Building on the new J-Lab report: New Voices: What Works, this session will examine what is working in terms of content and sustainability. (Council of Affiliates, CCJIG, COMJIG)

Research to be presented in 3 sessions at St. Louis Convention

Note: This article also appears in the Summer 2011 edition of the CCJIG newsletter

Wednesday, August 10
10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Emerging Understandings of Civic and Citizen Journalism

Moderator and discussant: Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky.

Papers and presenters:

• “No Experience Necessary: The Perceived Credibility of Citizen Journalism,” Sara Netzley & Mark Hemmer, Bradley University
  
  
• “News Innovation and the Negotiation of Participation,” Seth Lewis, University of Minnesota*
  
  
• “Exploring Contexts in Citizen Journalism: A Conceptual Framework,” Nakho Kim, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  
  
• “Not Paid to Play: A Case Study of Online Community Participants and the Effects of Non-Monetary Motivation Upon Public Journalism,” Robert Gutsche, Jr.; Rauf Arif; The University of Iowa.

*Top faculty-authored paper

Thursday, August 11
1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
(Scholar to Scholar session)

Papers and presenters:

• “The Refrigerator as a Megaphone: Addressing the Motivations of Citizen Photojournalists,” Tara Buehner, University of Oklahoma
  
  
• “Interactions of News Frames and Incivility in the Political Blogosphere: Examining News Credibility and Political Trust,” Porismita Borah, Maryville University.

Discussant: Burton St. John III, Old Dominion University.

Friday, Aug. 12
3:30 - 5:00 p.m.

Citizen Journalism and New Technologies

Moderator and discussant: Nikhil Moro, University of North Texas.

Papers and presenters:

• “Case of the UT Shooter: Citizens working around, with, and for traditional news media,” Avery Holton, University of Texas-Austin *
  
  
• “Exposing the Digital News Photo Hound: A Study on the Normative Structure and Routines of Citizen Photojournalists,” Tara Buehner and Julie Jones, University of Oklahoma
  
  
• “#Forward! Twitter as Citizen Journalism in the Wisconsin Labor Protests,” Aaron Veenstra, Narayanan Iyer, Namrata Bansal, Mohammad Hossain, Jiwoo Park, Jiachun Hong; Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.

*Top student-authored paper

“News organizations will rely upon a greater variety of revenue streams… and their proportions will vary”

Sustainable business models have emerged as a Holy Grail of America’s news industry. Frustratingly elusive, such models have caused much mind-wringing by a variety of media scholars, one of whom is Robert G. Picard.

A leading light of the media business, Picard holds the Hamrin Professorship in media economics at the Jönköping International Business School, Sweden, and is a fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at University of Oxford. In this instant-messenger conversation with Nikhil Moro of UNT’s Mayborn School of Journalism, Picard expands on views he articulated a few days earlier at the AEJMC conference in Denver.

Professor Picard, you have said, “The real problem we have today is too much news.” What do you mean by that?

We have too much news in the sense that we are bombarded with news from print, broadcast, Internet, mobile, and outdoor sources. It has made certain types of news ubiquitous and commoditized it. Flow of events news is particularly widely available. Consequently one cannot create much value with it.

When news turns into a commodity, does its quality tend to suffer?

It can. However, one can have quality information and news that is commoditized, which primarily strips it of economic value, but it may still have some social value.

You have said that the news industry’s problem is not revenue as much as a poor quality of its product. Elaborate?

The product problem today is that most news outlets are filling themselves up with inexpensive flow of events news from news agencies and features from feature agencies and syndicates that serve all types of media. The end result is that there is very little unique provided by different news organizations. Because some provide it free or nearly free, it makes it difficult to get the public to pay for news. News organizations have to pay attention to their products and ensure that they are higher quality and unique compared to competitors that did not previously exist.

Can you name five attributes of great journalism that also help the business side of news operations?

Uniqueness, credibility, specialization, knowledgeable analysis, and application to readers and listeners' lives.

How would you define credibility in news?

Credibility results from audience faith that the news source is primarily concerned with the public's interest, that it is making efforts to be fair and accurate, and that it is an honest broker of information. It is not just something news organizations do, but something the public BELIEVES they do.

Can a business model define the product’s social value?

Social value comes from news and information that helps us understand the world about us, gives us knowledge needed to participate in society, and helps us interact effectively with those around out. That kind of material is relative expensive to produce and only small percentage of news outlets engage in that kind of news production. A business model—the parts that define what the product is and how it will be produced—can incorporate activities most likely to produce social value.

The news industry’s movement from mass medium to “niche medium”may be alienating mass advertisers. But can any good come of it?

Perhaps. It will begin to move news organizations away from being primarily providers of non-news content (75% or more of content in newspapers, for example, isn't news) toward a focus on news and providing in ways other distributors do not, and in better ways than other providers.

Is the health of journalism related to the stability of news organizations?

No. News organizations are in poor health today, but journalism is in good health. I say that because not just journalists but public officials and the public are discussing the importance of journalism and journalism practice and seeking new ways to ensure society has the kind of journalism necessary for public life and democracy to take place. The focus on the functions of journalism and how to achieve them in the future indicates an esteem for and support of journalism that has not been evident for many years.

You have said that the “mass media model won’t go away completely, but it will not be the primary model of newspapers in the future.”

The mass media business model is dependent upon creating an audience of such size that advertisers will be willing to pay a disproportionate part of the costs of operations so audiences can access content at a low price or free (as in television). Some advertisers will still be interested in reaching the smaller audiences that news produces, but additional revenue will be needed from other sources. In the future, the business model will include revenue generation from more sources.

What might be the other sources?

Raising the price to audiences is one. Engaging in commercial activities that can subsidize news operations is another option. Obtaining grants and donations may work for some providers.

Does Rupert Murdoch’s payment model have a chance when competitors such as BBC Online, which is funded by a license fee, are offering similar content for free?

That depends on how one defines success. Although BBC Online provides news and features, there is some unique content in papers such as The Times of London and there are people in Britain and elsewhere who will wish to access it for a fee. Those numbers will be far lower than those who want it free, however. There is no reader income when it is free and at least some when it is paid. From that standpoint it will be a success. However, a second question is whether advertising revenue lost from the reducing readers with the pay wall will decline to the point it outweighs the new income.

So is free a model?

It is a model, but only if someone other than readers, viewers, or listeners is willing to pay the price. Although many think of it as free, the BBC and its online operations are not and are paid for by the licence fees of nearly every British household. In general, free is not a good price from the producer’s standpoint, but consumers may like.

Professor Dan Gillmor said last week, “I am not clear which business model is going to emerge.” What is your assessment? Regardless, would you like to share a list of five emerging business models that are most likely to prevail?

It would be nice to say there is a single model that will emerge but there will be many, depending upon the unique characteristics and situations of each news organizations. I don't think it is possible to say there will be clearly separate models. What I foresee is that all news organizations will rely upon a greater variety of revenue streams than in the past and that the proportions from each will vary. Even not-for-profit media such as the BBC, NPR, and The Guardian now have multiple income streams, including commercial income.

If American newspapers have been losing 1-2% of their audience every year for 40 years, what is different now?

The current situation did not happen suddenly and the Internet is not to blame, but is compounding the long-term challenge. What has happened it that circulation has now reached a critical tipping point. Combined with new developments in digital media, both the public and advertisers are changing their consumption patterns and reconsidering all their media use.

Please name a couple of your favorite news outlets, perhaps newspapers that you read every day.

I regularly read The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and The Guardian in hard copy when they are available and otherwise online. CBS News and BBC are my main broadcast sources.

Any favorite Swedish newspaper?

When I am in Sweden I favor Dagens Nyheter.

Do you see a consolidation in the news industry in America? If so, at what levels?

Consolidation is already occurring at the local level through joint ownership and joint ventures between local newspapers, television stations, and cable channels. At the national and global level we are seeing major media operating several outlets and news services and we are seeing use of bureaus and reporters from other news organizations in gathering international news. When organizations encounter financial problems, consolidation is a normal business response.

Are you elated or bothered by consolidation at the national/global levels?

Both. It is a two-edged sword that has to be viewed with caution. From one view it is improving news provisions in some outlets, reducing costs, and making news more readily available. From another view, however, it reduces the number of news and information sources and creates fewer independent sources. That said, we are better off today in terms of the number of news providers at the national and international levels than in the past and the number is growing. Even at the local level we are now seeing a variety of new startups If the entrants balance the consolidation we will not have a problem; if they don’t, we will need to be worried about the effects.

Would you share some wisdom? -- your top five tips for entrepreneurs that are about to start a media startup such as a hyper-local or community news portal.

1) Do something different from newspapers and television stations in your cities.

2) Focus on what your readers need and are not getting elsewhere.

3) Make the public part of your effort; draw on their knowledge and expertise; allow them to participate in many different ways.

4) Pay attention to the management of the enterprise and ensure you carry out tasks that will make it sustainable.

5) Do not assume that merely because you are doing something good, it will be perceived as valuable and useful by the public.

Thanks for the stimulating interview!

You are welcome. I have enjoyed it.

CCJIG's annual report for 2008-09 records significant achievements, key aspirations

I have placed on file CCJIG's annual report (and demographic profile) (pdf, 293 kb) for 2008-09.

The group's chief achievements for the year:

• Membership jumped by about 30 per cent to 116, from 89 a year ago. Of those registered members, 57 were female; six identified themselves as African-American, two as Asian-American, and 12 as International.

• CCJIG emerged as AEJMC’s largest interest group (by number of registered members), as announced by Council of Divisions chair Kimberly Bissell at the mid-winter meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, on 6 Dec. 2008.

• Entries for the 2009 research paper competition increased 50 per cent to 27 from 18 a year ago, including a record 14 graduate student paper submissions.

• An update of CCJIG’s research bibliography was published.

• New collaborations (Law & Policy and History; also Harvard University and MIT) were established for convention activities. Old collaborations were maintained (Community Journalism, Media Ethics, Newspaper, Council of Affiliates).

• The CCJIG blog, with more than 120 posts, became a primary catalyst of member discussion, meeting a key goal listed in the previous annual report.

• An additional 100 or so posts on AEJMC Talk, many of them repeats or elaborations of CCJIG blog posts, exposed the larger AEJMC membership to civic and citizen journalism discussions.

• Three newsletters (Fall 2008, Spring 2009, and Summer 2009) were published and circulated inside and outside of the group by newsprint and e-mail, each to about 200 receivers.

• As of 30 July 2009, CCJIG's account had a balance of $3766.50.

• CCJIG secured a $400 travel grant from AEJMC to fund the 2009 Boston convention travel of a non-member panelist from New York.

The report also lists CCJIG’s goals for the coming year. Some of those goals reflect perceived weaknesses; their order of priority is to be decided by the in-coming officers.

The group's goals for 2009-10:

• Facilitate a discussion of CCJIG possibly applying to be an AEJMC Division, in a light of the group's quickly rising membership, the ubiquity of user-generated media, and the burgeoning scholarship of citizen journalism.

• Maintain the CCJIG blog as a primary catalyst of member discussion, partly by encouraging blog participation by a cross-section of the membership.

• Increase membership of minority and International scholars by 5 per cent overall.

• Facilitate two or three Teaching panels in Denver 2010 (in Boston 2009 the group had only one) so that a relative balance may be restored between CCJIG’s Research, Teaching and PF&R activities.

• Increase submissions of research papers by 10 per cent (from the 27 papers in Boston 2009) and enhance the quality of scholarship, particularly that related to citizen-journalistic responsibility.

• Maintain an updated bibliography, preferably annotated.

• Facilitate an increase of 10 per cent in submission of research papers related to (a) newer and rapidly evolving technologies such as Twitter or its progeny, or (b) the impact of new writing styles on citizen-journalistic credibility or responsibility.

• Maintain overall acceptance rate of research competition papers at the current 55.55 per cent to par a course set by the Research Committee (known as the "50 per cent guideline").

• Publish a teaching compendium to address the curriculum, content and pedagogy areas of the Teaching Committee standards; particular effort may be needed from CCJIG’s teaching standards chair (this will be a goal carried forward from 2007-08).

• Organize a symposium or other meeting, online or offline, to mark the 20th anniversary – in 2010 – of James Batten's 1990 address that was a bellwether in the citizen journalism movement (this will be a goal modified and carried forward from 2007-08).

• Continue the top paper awards. (Re-institution of the two $151 "best paper" awards in 2008 may explain part of the 50 per cent jump in paper submissions for Boston 2009).

I wish to record my deep appreciation for the devoted service to our group in 2008-09 by fellow officers Mary Beth Callie, Deborah Chung, Burton St. John, Kirsten A. Johnson, Glenn Scott, Jeff South, Serena Carpenter and Clyde Bentley.

CCJIG invites non-members: Come say hello in Boston!

To acquaint non-members with our group I am reproducing below a brief profile which appears in AEJMC News (pdf 1.21 mb) of March 2009. We'd love to see new faces at the Boston convention August 4-8.

Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group
Head: Nikhil Moro, Central Michigan

Our interest group has emerged as AEJMC’s largest in 2008-09. We host scholars devoted to either public or participatory journalism. Of our 116 registered members 57 are female. Six of our members identify themselves as African-American, two as Asian-American, and twelve as International.

We are happy to report that thanks to our growing membership our budget is healthier than ever before. We are an active, welcoming group with a relatively young membership. We love new members!

Some of our members – those with an interest in civic journalism – explore the trend of professional reporters acting as participant observers (who might advance specific social agendas) rather than as dispassionate spectators. Such reporters recognize that “journalism has an obligation to public life – an obligation that goes beyond just telling the news or unloading lots of facts” (Pew Center). Academic interest in civic journalism was catalyzed by David Perry’s 2003 book titled The Roots of Civic Journalism and by other work by advocates such as Davis “Buzz”Merritt.

Other members of our group have an interest in “citizen journalism,” which is practiced by non-professionals who use a digital camera and a sharing spirit to observe events and record them on personal blogs, or on Twitter, iReport, CitizenSide and other such online forums. Unlike civic reporters, who are professionals, citizen journalists are not on the payroll of any legacy media organization. Typically, they are not even trained in jschool. Academic interest in citizen journalism pivots on the expositions of, among others, Mark Glaser, Jay Rosen, Dan Gillmor and Leonard Witt.

Many of our members are excited about technology-driven trends in journalism practice. In the last two years our group’s scholarship has addressed topics in civic engagement, pedagogical modeling, sources, transparency, perceptions of credibility, citizen journalism models, and political efficacy.

At the 2009 convention in Boston, we plan to build on that edifice as well as investigate new trends, such as topics in citizen/civic journalism in the 2008 presidential campaign season, newsroom projects, legal/ethical issues, the contrasts between crowdsourcing and “gatekeeping,” changes in the newspaper economy, media convergence, and use of polls and focus groups in civic reporting.

In Boston we plan to give away two “best paper” prizes of $151 each to a faculty member and a graduate student. Send us a paper! We also have slated two pre-convention workshops and about a dozen discussion panels. Details of our convention program and current discussions may be found at our blog http://ccjig.blogspot.com.

http://www.has.vcu.edu/civic-journalism

"The bloggers are omnipresent, and watching!"

Tom DeLay, Jeff Gannon, Dan Rather, Alberto Gonzales, George Allen... Important people brought to apologies by journalist bloggers is part of the lore of citizen journalism.

The latest to join the hall of fame seems to be Tom Daschle. Martha R. Gore writes in today's Examiner of Detroit:

When the White House announced the nomination of Tom Daschle for the office of Secretary of Health and Human Services, citizen journalists went into high gear. In a matter of seconds, Mr. Daschle's unpaid taxes and conflict of interest with the health industry problems were being examined, investigated, and discussed in blogs....

So it should be no surprise that by the time Daschle appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to explain away the complications in his selection by Obama for the cabinet position, information about every appearance he made, every speech he gave, the limo in which he traveled, and anything he might have said privately, was flying across the wires that connected computers to internet sources to immediately turning up on the blogs.

J-Lab grant for participatory news crucibles: Deadline February 12

Jan Schaffer would like to remind us of the February 12 deadline for this year's New Voices grants.

J-Lab: The institute for Interactive Journalism invites you to apply for funding to launch a participatory news venture in your community. J-Lab will select eight projects in 2009. Each project may receive up to $25,000.

Instructions to submit to AEJMC

Today AEJMC published instructions for paper submitters. Here's the Uniform Paper Call for the Boston convention for your reading pleasure.

If you plan to direct your submission to CCJIG, here's our call, to be read in conjunction with the instructions. I look forward to all the good research!

We are the largest

Vice-chair Mary Beth Callie and I attended AEJMC’s mid-winter meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, this weekend.

While in Louisville I made sure to check out the famed Fourth Street.

And yes, I visited the Ali Center: Muhammad Ali was, after all, my sporting hero during much of high school. (Not that I could box to save my life!)

Ali may well have been "the greatest," but I am no less proud to announce that we, the Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group, are now the largest:

CCJIG has emerged as AEJMC’s largest interest group in 2008-09. We have 116 registered members of whom 57 are female; six identify themselves as African-American, two as Asian-American, and twelve as International. Kimberly Bissell, the Council of Divisions chair, made the announcement Friday evening.

The status reflects our growing ability to decipher the many challenges of practicing journalism in a quickly transforming media firmament.

Shortly I will post the details of CCJIG's program for the 2009 Boston convention.

Nikhil Moro, Ph.D.
Chair, Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group

Invitation to join AEJMC panel proposal

Burton St. John of Old Dominion University asked if I would blog the following announcement. Please send any response to Burt by October 7.

"Have you been noticing how mainstream, independent and citizen journalists have been starting to run into more problems with law enforcement? For example, during the St. Paul Republican National Convention, police actively investigated, detained and/or arrested journalists as diverse as an AP photographer, three members of indymedia outlet Democracy Now and citizen journalists from the group Eyewitness Video.

"I am putting together a panel proposal tentatively called 'Law Enforcement and Journalists: Security versus Rights' for next year's AEJMC conference which runs Aug 5-8 in Boston. If you're researching the tensions between law enforcement and the press please feel free to email me (bsaintjo@odu.edu) by October 7. Please provide a short synopsis of your proposed presentation. As a board member of the Civic and Citizen Journalism Group, which would sponsor this panel, I am especially interested in seeing suggested panel items that touch upon what these evolving tensions mean for journalism's assertions of its perceived rights in society today, and what implications the developments may hold for journalism's assertions in the future. -- Dr. Burton St. John III."

Nikhil Moro, Ph.D.

Transformation, emergence and norms: The promise of another great year

As CCJIG's incoming head for 2008-09, my big, big welcome to you.

What a year it promises to be! An engaging, and in many ways historic, presidential campaign is upon us. Emerging technologies have gone beyond "disrupting" newsrooms/studios to set norms for journalism practice/assessment. Convergence, of technologies and of skills, is the great new catalyst. Models of sustaining civic and citizen journalism are evolving as quickly as ever. The mass media's buffeting by gales of transformation continues, in business models and in consumer patronage. Journalism programs are increasingly using classrooms to address the pedagogy/practice of civic and citizen journalism. The collective intelligence is taking on traditional gatekeeping roles like never before.

Clearly, our field is growing in several directions all at an unprecedented pace. It is as relevant to democracy, to the media industries, as ever. And, as Sue Ellen Christian's bibliography evidenced, the scholars are catching up. More books, more research, more deliberation. Folks, we have a movement going!

In a day or two CCJIG will publish, on this blog and in other forums, our annual call for panel proposals. Please send your proposal in. Let's plan a stimulating agenda for Boston in 2009, as we did for Chicago in 2008.

As I take charge I would like to express deep gratitude to Jack Rosenberry, the outgoing head, for his captaincy in 2007-08. Jack's eye for detail might make him something of a legend if a history of our group is ever written. I'd like to also acknowledge the other outgoing officers for their enthusiastic service.

Let's keep the conversation going!

Nikhil Moro, Ph.D.
Chair, Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group, 2008-09