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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Abstracts
Paper panel 1 – Journalism and politics
Monday, July 4th 11.00 - 12.30 (Room 1)
Audience Participation Motivated by Media Politics: First data about a newly
introduced participatory TV channel in Germany
Sehl, Annika; Steinbrecher, Michael
Institute of Journalism, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany
While journalism has traditionally been attached to media institutions and based on
the work of professional journalists, in the past decade new communication
technologies have made it possible for everybody to publish content for a
potentionally global audience. A lot of promises were linked to this citizen journalism,
especially regarding its democratic potential (e.g., Gillmor, 2004). The first scientific
findings, however, paint an ambivalent picture (e.g., Neuberger et al., 2007).
In this situation, a unique participatory TV channel has just been introduced by media
politics in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Its central aim is not only to add to the
diversity of producers and reporting, but also to strengthen the media competence of
the producers. While these are mainly ordinary citizens, some are students from all
backgrounds and others are emerging media professionals. In this way, the project
takes a third path between the total autonomous citizen journalism approach and
unilateral traditional journalism as the TV organises and guides the participation
process.
Against this background, this paper adresses the question: How does this channel
add to the diversity of the producers and their media competence? Furthermore, the
paper reveals the first data about the diversity of the content delivered by these
producers.
The theories the paper examines are the concept of diversity (e.g., McQuail, 1992)
and the public sphere theory of deliberation (Habermas, 1992).
The data for this empirical study is mainly based on an analysis of programme
schedules for all of 2010.
One central finding is that most of the content is not up-to date news. In contrast, the
producers focus on niche topics neglected by professional TV journalism. The first
data about this participatory TV channel reveals a unique approach, but it is
necessary to explain the challenges and changes in citizen journalism as well as in
traditional journalism.
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