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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
emerging camera or editing professionals to work on such a format than to film
and edit other programs.
Discussion
The findings have shown that nrwision programming is produced mainly by
ordinary citizens who are guided by and receive feedback from professional
journalists. This way the channel combines democratic access with the aim of
developing the producers’ media competence and guaranteeing a certain
program quality. In this respect, this participatory TV project goes beyond what
is possible in the social web today. In addition, this project embeds audience
participation in a structure while many offerings in the social web are
fragmented and do not reach a significant public (“long tail”). At nrwision, in
contrast, the professional journalists even try to establish a network between
the amateur producers and to give suggestions for joint topics. For example,
just recently, a whole week was dedicated to the broad topic “luck”, and more
than 40 programs were produced just on this subject.
Furthermore, analysis of the topics has revealed that the programming was
diverse with foci on cultural as well as on entertaining and local topics. The last
one goes in hand with the fact that amateur reporters are usually more engaged
in topics that affect these producers’ immediate surroundings or daily life and
they have experience with (e.g. Kopp & Schönhagen, 2008, p. 86). Especially
on TV, where there are only a few windows for local reporting, the programming
enriches the professional reporting in this respect.
To analyze the diversity of reporting, the diversity of the producers and topics
are important indicators. However, additional indicators have to be taken into
account to measure diversity, and those require a deeper look at the material.
For example, actors, praise and criticism or opinions have to be analyzed in a
more detailed analysis in the next step. Beyond that, the next steps will be to
analyze the overall quality of the citizens’ productions and the cooperation
between them and the professional journalists organizing and guiding this
participatory project. While the preliminary results focus on the micro-level of
diversity the final aim will be analyze how this participatory TV channel can add
to diversity also at the meso-level and even at the macro-level.
References
Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Landesmedienanstalten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
(ALM) (Ed.). (2008). ALM Jahrbuch 2008. Landesmedienanstalten und privater
Rundfunk in Deutschland. Berlin: Vistas Verlag.
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