The future of news: Collaboration #ijf12

After arriving in Perugia, the first event I attended at the festival was a panel discussion entitled The future of news: collaboration.

Collaboration is one of those themes that always gets discussed when people talk about the future of journalism. It’s an important topic because of the changing relationship between journalists and the audience members they’re communicating with.

 

The news landscape has changed, and audiences are no longer going to sit back and passively absorb the content that’s dished out to them from news organisations. The panel discussion only emphasized this point further to me. Audiences want more opportunities to contribute to news stories, and journalists need to give them more opportunities to participate.

After attending the panel discussion, and then thinking about some of the points raised, I’ve pulled together some of my own thoughts on collaboration.

 

Why is collaboration important?

Journalists don’t know everything. The audience is now a potential resource in which journalists and news organizations can tap into. They can provide greater insight and expertise that’s not always available to journalists.

Audience collaboration can help with the quality and authenticity of facts and information, which ultimately should result in better stories.

Collaboration helps to engage audiences, which can build more loyalty and better relationships between the audiences and media organisations.

 

You have to build a community

To use your audience as a resource, you need to develop a sense of community that people feel part of. Building a community isn’t easy. I thought about what makes a community; and came up with ideas such as shared identity, whether it’s experiences, interests, beliefs, or location.

You need content that brings people together to form a community, that engages that community and help it grow. This can only happen if people can connect and interact with each other by having the chance to comment and debate.

 

This week, I was looking at how the BBC, and newspapers such as the Guardian and The Daily Telegraph have been at the forefront in experimenting and finding ways to include more user generated content in their reporting.

All three have strong brand images and their audiences relate and identify with those brands. It helps that they are long established media organisations in which people want to identify with, but they’ve all actively tried to talk and understand their audiences more by asking them to participate.

 

Audiences need an incentive to participate

People need a reason to participate and collaborate in the production of news. Getting their voices and stories heard is always a big incentive for some people, but for others they might be reluctant to speak out and they may need more encouragement.

Leading on from the idea of developing communities, people in those communities need to be valued and understood. If they believe they’re being listened to, even told that they’re a resource and that their contributions are appreciated; by doing so there’s a greater chance they’ll want contribute in the future.

One idea I liked which can be developed in online communities, is giving people status rewards. Identifying those people of have contributed interesting and valuable content within their community. I liked this idea as it’s a way for people to gain recognition within their own communities.

 

Dangers of user participation

The basics of journalism need to be applied when using audience content. Information needs to be verified and checked for accuracy.

Legal issues need to be taken into account – is the content submitted legally safe?

You also need to look at quality control. Not every piece of content will be of the right quality and this can harm the reputation of the brand of a news organisation.

One issue that I see a lot with online journalism is audience comments to blogs and message boards. Comments can be hostile and aggressive, both to other users and the journalists writing the report or blog. This can put other people off from contributing, which defeats the purpose of trying to develop greater audience participation.

 

Despite hearing how more media organisations are trying involve and engage their audiences more, it doesn’t change the fact that there’s still reluctance and resistance in some quarters.

I think one of the main reasons is the issue of power and control. If you allow greater collaboration with your audience you’re losing some control on how a story is developed, reported and experienced.

Audiences won’t always act or do the things that’s expected or wanted from them, and this isn’t easy to accept if you have an old media traditional journalism viewpoint.

Away from news reporting, audiences have greater opportunities of self expression in the form of social media; with that expression comes a bigger expectation that they can have a greater presence and participation in the reporting of news.