Hyperlocal Journalism

The decline of local newspapers and the rise of online community news

David Harte, Rachel Howells, Andy Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317200765
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

In the wake of the withdrawal of commercial journalism from local communities at the beginning of the 21st century, Hyperlocal Journalism critically explores the development of citizen-led community news operations.

The book draws together a wide range of original research by way of case studies, interviews, and industry and policy analysis, to give a complete view of what is happening to communities as their local newspapers close or go into decline to be replaced by emerging forms of digital news provision. This study takes the United Kingdom as its focus but its findings speak to common issues found in local media systems in other Western democracies. The authors investigate who is producing hyperlocal news and why, as well as production practices, models of community and participatory journalism, and the economics of hyperlocal operations.

Looking holistically at hyperlocal news, Hyperlocal Journalism paints a vivid picture of citizens creating their own news services via social media and on free blogging platforms to hold power to account, redress negative reputational geographies, and to tell everyday stories of community life. The book also raises key questions about the sustainability of such endeavours in the face of optimism from commentators and policy-makers.

1

Hyperlocal News in Context

In this chapter, we set out the theoretical framing for our study of hyperlocal news. Such a framing is partly an examination of the ways in which hyperlocal news might be considered within traditional notions of the democratic roles of journalism, and partly based on rationalist conceptions of citizenship. Yet we also draw on ideas from a cultural studies perspective to examine the value of the more banal aspects of hyperlocal journalism and, in doing so, seek to frame it as an emergent cultural practice. Recent work by Kristy Hess and Lisa Waller (2016) argues for resituating the debate about hyperlocal news within a different framework from that which has most occupied journalism scholars to date. We therefore consider the extent to which we might see the role of hyperlocal news operations as a set of practices that extend beyond ‘news’. We begin by looking at scholarly concerns over the impact a declining local press has on democracy before arguing that hyperlocal news is situated at the juncture of alternative and bourgeois pubic spheres. Finally, we look at how theories of the everyday could be particularly important in describing those aspects of the civic and community value of hyperlocal news content which fall outside, or on the margins of, the traditional foci of public sphere or democracy-oriented theories.

The crisis in local news

Chris Morley (2013), a senior officer in the National Union of Journalists and a former local journalist, argues that the “havoc” wreaked by media owners wanting to extract as much economic value as possible from a declining local press means that the case should be made for local newspapers to be seen as community assets, which would allow them to be ‘rescued’ by citizens under the 2011 Localism Act. Without a robust local press, who will do the job of “holding the rich, powerful and those with vested interest to scrutiny and account in the public good, while standing up for those that do not have a voice?” (Morley 2013). Morley’s community-led vision of local journalism’s future reveals, as does much of the commentary around hyperlocal, attitudes to the role of local newsmaking in the public sphere. He isn’t the first to lament the “apparently remorseless advance of the market as the arbiter of the nature, the content, the form, the labour relations and mode of production and the ownership of the local press” (Franklin and Murphy 1998: 22). In their account of scholarship about the “crisis” in the newspaper industry (a crisis of declining audiences and income streams), Siles and Boczkowski note that a lack of empirical studies has not stopped academics stating “that the crisis has had negative implications for democracy because it undermines the watchdog role traditionally played by the press and its significance as a vehicle for free speech” (2012: 1380). The public interest value of news is often viewed through the prism of its relationship to democracy (McNair 2009). Key to this is the idea that representative democracy enables good government most effectively if citizens’ decisions are based on accurate and reliable (and, where necessary, oppositional) information (Chambers and Costain 2000; Habermas 1989).

McNair identifies four principal (and interrelated) democracy-enabling roles for the news. He sees news: as a source of accurate information for citizens; as a watchdog/fourth estate; as a mediator and/or representative of communities (a role which can help with community cohesion); and as an advocate of the public in campaigning terms (McNair 2009: 237–240). The value of local news has been defined similarly. Bob Franklin argues that “local newspapers should offer independent and critical commentary on local issues, make local elites accountable, [and] provide a forum for the expression of local views on issues of community concern” (2006b: xix). However, numerous studies have found the ongoing crisis in the UK news industry is endangering the ‘localness’, quality and independence of local news (Fenton 2011; Franklin 2006a; Howells 2015). These studies find that as revenues fall and staff are cut, workloads increase, mainstream local news relies more on official sources and PR, and only a very narrow range of sources are routinely cited (Davis 2008; Franklin and Murphy 1998; Howells 2015; O’Neill and O’Connor 2008; VanSlyke Turk and Franklin 1987). This news becomes less local in focus as editions are cut, high-street offices are closed, and use of cheap news agency filler becomes more prevalent (Davies 2008; Franklin 2011; Hamer 2006; Williams and Franklin 2007). This has all led to increasing concerns about the industry’s ability to play its democracy-enabling roles.

That the UK local, regional and national news media face a deep and continuing crisis and that this is having detrimental effects on news is now widely accepted (we offer a detailed account and case study of this in the next two chapters). Newspaper publishers have traditionally made their money in two principal ways: by selling news to us and by selling our attention to advertisers. But advertisers have left newspapers in numbers, large increases in audience figures for online news have not been translated into profits, and revenues at most major local and regional news publishers in the UK have been hit hard (Freedman 2010; Williams and Franklin 2007; Williams 2012). Many advertisers no longer find subsidising the production of local and regional news to be as profitable as previously and are, quite understandably, migrating to other more lucrative outlets such as online search engines, social networks and classified advertising websites (Fenton 2008; Freedman 2010: 37–39; Mintel 2013). At the same time, many readers no longer feel inclined to pay up front for news, and this has had very marked effects on the profits companies can make from newspaper sales. Even though most major industry players report growing advertising profits from online news and expanding audiences for their websites, they have yet to formulate a reliable business model to compensate for the significant revenue losses caused by the ongoing collapse of print (Greenslade 2009; Mintel 2013; Williams 2012). The impacts of such significant changes in the local and regional news industry have arguably been exacerbated by the business strategies pursued by the dominant UK newspaper publishers for much of the last two decades. The most challenging market conditions are a relatively recent phenomenon brought about by the large local and regional newspaper publishers pursuing cost-cutting measures to increase profits in the short term and failing to invest significantly in their journalism even while profits were very high between the late 1990s and mid 2000s (Franklin 2005, 2006a; Freedman 2010; Williams 2012). The publishers’ unrelenting pursuit of profit has had worrying impacts on the quality and independence of local news.

Harrison (1998), echoing others’ findings (Franklin and Murphy 1998; VanSlyke Turk and Franklin 1987), reported that local newspapers’ reliance on sources in local government was very high, even going as far as to suggest that the growing power imbalance between local media and local governments means that “local newspapers are unlikely to be able to perform their role as ‘principal institutions of the public sphere’”(Harrison 1998: 161). O’Neill and O’Connor (2008) provide the most detailed investigation into patterns of source access to local news. They found that local and regional journalists in the North of England relied very heavily on a relatively small range of official sources, usually those with the most resources to devote to media relations and the production of effective “information subsidies” (Gandy 1982) to journalists (O’Neill and O’Connor 2008). The police, court officials, local government, businesses and those who run public services were quoted the most often, and very few members of the public or local activists were cited at all (O’Neill and O’Connor 2008: 491–492). They also note with alarm that the majority of stories (76 per cent) relied on single sources, with less than a quarter of stories employing secondary sources who may provide alternative, opposing or complementary information to that provided by primary sources (O’Neill and O’Connor 2008: 492). This suggests a local press that takes too much information on trust, is too uncritical and provides readers with limited access to the range of (often competing) voices and perspectives actually present in local public debates.

Scholars have reached similar conclusions about the range of topics covered by UK local newspapers. In-depth coverage of local politics and the governance of local communities has gradually given way to a more tabloid-oriented spread of news (Franklin 2005). Franklin uses data from content analysis and interviews with journalists to chart a move towards an increased emphasis on news about entertainment, consumer issues and human interest stories (2006a: 12). Specifically in relation to the coverage of politics, there have also been shifts away from hard news topics often associated with information that equips readers to be informed local citizens. Since the mid 1980s the local press in the UK has reduced coverage of local elections, has produced fewer election stories with distinct local angles, and has had a “growing emphasis on trivial and entertaining coverage rather than a sustained discussion of policy concerns” (Franklin et al. 2006: 257).

The public sphere

It’s unsurprising, given this rather gloomy picture of the decline of the mainstream local press (a picture we add to in the next two chapters), that Habermasian notions of the public sphere have been invoked by scholars seeking to understand the emerging phenomenon of hyperlocal news. Normative ideals about how citizens should be able to participate in decision-making in society are articulated by Habermas in his key work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989, originally published in 1962 in German). He details the development of a bourgeois public sphere: “the sphere of private people come together as a public” (Habermas 1989: 27). Within this specific historical phase and place (the 16th to 18th centuries in Western Europe), it was possible for citizens to use the “coffee houses, the salons, and the Tischgesellschaften (table societies)” (Habermas 1989: 30, his italics) and engage in wide-ranging discussions about art, literature and “common concerns” (36). In essence, subjects that lay previously only within the domain of the church or state came within the domain of groups of private citizens who represented the ‘public’: “the issues discussed became ‘general’ not merely in their significance, but also in their accessibility: everyone had to be able to participate” (Habermas 1989: 37). This in turn prepared the way for “human self-determination and political emancipation” (Hohendahl and Silberman 1979: 90). Habermas spends some time discussing the role of the media in the public sphere. He charts the way in which the 18th-century press shifted from being primarily carriers of information to being editorialising vehicles through which the public were able to make their contribution felt in the public sphere: “the editorializing press as the institution of a discussing public was primarily concerned with asserting the latter’s critical function” (Habermas 1989: 184).

However, with the establishment of the ‘state’ and its increasing influence, the press was left to focus on profit-making, with the result that by the Victorian period, its editorial freedom had become an illusion and newspapers more readily reflected the commercial interests of their owners, whilst doing their best to shape ‘public opinion’. This illusion is at its most rampant in the era of mass media, Habermas (1989) argues. State intervention in electronic media (that is, the development of state broadcasters for television and radio in many Western countries) combined with the development of public relations as a practice results in a kind of ‘dumbing-down’ of the public sphere and a giving way to the logic of late capitalism: “because private enterprises evoke in their customers the idea that in their consumption decisions they act in their capacity as citizens, the state has to ‘address’ its citizens like consumers” (Habermas 1989: 195). Ultimately, he argues, “the communicative network of a public made up of rationally debating private citizens has collapsed” (Habermas 1989: 247). Indeed, the Habermasian view of the role of the media in advanced capitalist societies is ultimately a discussion of its responsibility for the “refeudalisation of the public sphere” (Habermas 1989: 195).

For many scholars, hyperlocal journalism can potentially fulfil the role of rejuvenating a ‘denigrated’ public sphere whose journalism is “turning people off citizenship rather than equipping them to fulfil their democratic potential” (McNair 2000: 8). Moreover, as Luke Goode argues, there is an inevitability about citizen journalism initiatives feeding the democratic imagination, “because it fosters an unprecedented potential, at least, for news and journalism to become part of a conversation” (2009: 1294). For Chen et al., hyperlocals “serve not only as a traditional information source but also as a forum for ongoing discussion of local affairs and a mechanism for building and strengthening relationships among local residents” (2012: 932). James Curran notes that the “divergence of approach between liberal and radical perspectives [on the public sphere] also give rise to different normative judgements about the practice of journalism” (1991: 32). Liberal-plural judgements certainly seem to infuse the current discussion on hyperlocal, essentially seeing it as playing a useful role in the democratic functioning of society, where it can seemingly help citizens to engage with local democracy and understand the political alternatives facing them: “it is clear that the hyperlocal news sector has a considerable contribution to make to media provision, plurality of voice, democratic scrutiny, accountability and information provision at a local level” (Carnegie UK Trust 2014: 13).

David Baines (2010) draws on Habermas for his study of a commercial web-based hyperlocal initiative in the UK. The intention was to create a “putative public sphere” (Baines 2010: 584) to support the development of an ‘informed’ citizenry (drawing on Schudson 1999: 123). Baines emphasises the “glocalised” nature of being on the Internet, where one has the potential not just to make local connections but also to draw on many previously unavailable sources of information:

In a “glocalised”, networked society, even relatively isolated communities will have a large range of networks and sources of information, from direct social interaction, business, professional and civic contacts and customers; to regional, national and global networks occupying numerous channels of communication, some one way, most two way.

(2010: 584)

Yet when set against this idealised public sphere, the commercial hyperlocal offering comes up short, failing to meet the “monitorial” needs of citizens and neglecting to engage with global perspectives (Baines 2010: 590). Metzgar et al. also draw on Habermas to reflect on the role of the interactive technology employed by hyperlocal sites (2011: 784), while Steven Barnett and Judith Townend draw on and adapt Curran’s (1991) formulation of the “classical liberal” theory of a free press when isolating the “informing, representing, campaigning, and interrogating” of those in power as key democratic roles for news against which hyperlocal content can be measured (Barnett and Townend 2015: 335). They come to the conclusion that hyperlocal journalism has the potential to “fulfil the journalistic norms for contributing to local democratic engagement” (Barnett and Townend 2015: 344).

Karin Wahl-Jorgensen (2007: 13–15) outlines the many criticisms of Habermas’ work, in particular noting that his idealised notion of the public sphere tends to exclude women and the poor, and their concerns. It also presumes that actors in the public sphere have a shared sense of the ‘public good’ rather than holding ferociously onto their own points of view. Essentially, it ignores the messiness of real debate, she argues. Nancy Fraser, however, states that although Habermas’ work “needs to undergo some critical interrogation and reconstruction” (1990: 57), it is an “indispensable resource” (56). She makes the case that the Habermasian view that a multiplicity of publics “is necessarily a step away from, rather than toward, greater democracy” is flawed (Fraser 1990: 62). Rather, both in egalitarian, multicultural societies and in more stratified societies, her reconceptualising of the public sphere as a space of multiplicity and with less divide between ‘public’ and ‘private’ can better show “how inequality affects relations among publics in late capitalist societies, how publics are differentially empowered or segmented, and how some are involuntarily enclaved and subordinated to others” (Fraser 1990: 77).

Alternative public spheres

In later reviewing his key work, Habermas acknowledges many of his critics and concedes that understanding the complexity of the public sphere requires acknowledgement of ‘alternative institutions’, which would include not only ‘independent media’ but other forms of informal gatherings “outside of the state and the economy” (Habermas 1992: 453). He makes a contrast between the powerful role that ‘citizen movements’ played in the overthrow of totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe and the more complex picture in the West:

This is the question of whether, and to what extent, a public sphere dominated by mass media provides a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Hyperlocal news in context
• 2. The withdrawal of local and regional news journalism
• 3. Inside a news black hole – case study of a town with no newspaper
• 4. From lost pets to local corruption: What gets covered in hyperlocal news
• 5. Practising hyperlocal journalism – authenticity and reciprocity
• 6. Inside the hyperlocal newsroom
• 7. Sustaining hyperlocal journalism
• Conclusion
• Index