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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
central aim is not only to add to the diversity of producers and reporting but also to
strengthen the producers’ media competence. They are emerging media professionals,
young people in on-the-job training or university project teams, but also ordinary
citizens.
The project has chosen a third path between the total autonomous citizen journalism
approach and unilateral traditional journalism, since the TV channel organizes and
guides the participation process. Following Nip’s (2006) typology, we define this as
participatory journalism, since “user contribution is solicited within a frame designed by
the professionals” (Nip, 2006, p. 217). We differentiate this from citizen journalism
“where the people are responsible for gathering content, visioning, producing and
publishing the news product” (Nip, 2006, p. 218).
Against this background, this paper addresses the question of how this channel adds to
the diversity of producers. Furthermore, the paper reveals the first data about the
diversity of content the channel delivers.
Theoretical Framework: The concept of diversity
Theoretically, the paper is attached to the concept of diversity and the public sphere
theory of deliberation. The origin of the demand for media content diversity lies in the
liberal democratic and pluralistic state (c.f. McQuail & van Cuilenberg, 1982, p. 682).
From a normative point of view, the diversity in modern societies, for example, issues,
options, actors, should be reflected in the media. Ishikawa and Muramatsu (1996) state
that this is the main condition for a democratic society:
Each member of the audience, with differing interests and concerns, should have equal
rights for selection. Therefore, even if individual viewers/listeners may not come into
contact with broadcasting in its entirety, broadcasting as a whole should strive to be
diverse enough in its contents to serve all interests. […] We feel that each member of
the audience should have the opportunity to come into contact with the individuals with
different personalities or viewpoints. In order to build a democratic society, each citizen
must be aware of the existence of other citizens who may have quite different values
and attitudes (Ishikawa & Maramatsu, 1996, p. 200 f.).
In this way, media coverage enables a discourse between individuals and groups in
society (c.f. Roegele, 1977, p. 214).
At the same time, mass media in modern societies have the function of social
integration by “providing a common set of values, ideas and information” (McQuail,
1992, p. 71) and to focus on the issues that are relevant to the public discourse.
For both perspectives – integration and diversity – ‘too much’ can be dysfunctional for
society. Focusing too closely on particular issues can result in control and censorship;
whereas, an extremely diversified coverage may lead to fragmentation of audiences.
(Rössler, 2007, p. 464)
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