Citizen Journalist or information source: an exploratory study of publics role in participatory jour

1
Citizen Journalist or information source an
exploratory study of publics role in
participatory journalism within the main
Brazilian web portals

• Profa. Dra. Elizabeth Saad Corrêa
  bethsaad_at_gmail.com
• Francisco Madureira francisco.madureira_at_gmail.co
  m

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The study

• At the beginnings of 2006 major Brazilian
  Internet portals released channels for its users
  participation as news providers.
• To analyze this scenario we present preliminary
  data about the status of participatory journalism
  initiatives undertaken by the main portals of the
  Brazilian web.
• Our main assumption is that the major portals in
  the country have not still been able to adopt
  participatory journalism in depht and breadth of
  the experience reported by the original
  participatory concept.

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Brazilian Scenario

• A strong concentration of information in digital
  environments originally created to access the web
  - the so called portals
• Portal news
• Traffic atractor
• Sources international agencies feed, proprietary
  newsrooms and connection to a journalistic
  traditional brand
• Web use in Brazil shows, as studies conducted by
  Ibope / NetRatings, that, primarily, the users
  get information through the portals, to then
  browse on newspapers websites
• The reader's engagement on information production
  is difficult.
• Genneraly, the vehicles use the material sent by
  internet users as a source of information
• The news processing is performed by professional
  journalists responsible for websites, a practice
  that tends to discourage the "old reader" to
  become the protagonist of news process, or making
  this a conversation

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Top 10 Search Engines / Portals And
Communities Pageviews and Unique Audience, Feb.
2009

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Main concepts

• Cultural Studies
• Reception
• Social media phenomenon
• Participatory Journalism
• Dan Gillmor, Bowman Willis, Bruns, Brambilla
• the action of a citizen or group of citizens who
  have an active role in the process of collecting,
  reporting, analysis and dissemination of news and
  information
• New media studies

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Methodological procedures

• Main hypothesis
• the major portals in the country have failed to
  adopt participatory journalism in the depth and
  breadth of international experience reported by
  other authors
• Exploratory field study, content analysis
• The sample Brazilian Portals
• Audience
• Specific area to display forms of UGC
• Terra portal VC Reporter
• Globo.com portal VC no G1
• UOL and iG out of sampling criteria
• Observation and collection participatory
  journalism pages from these portals during the
  period of March, 1st/2009 to March,15th/2009
• 163 published materials were collected and
  analysed.

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Content analysis categories

• Editorial area
• Content localization hyper localism
• Level of users engagement
• Simple flagrant
• Source quotation
• Use of multimedia photos, videos, audio
• Narrative aspects

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Editorial area

• 105 stories related to metro news (daily events)
• 32 stories related to culture and entertainment
  (higher focus on concerts)
• 12 stories related to sports (as a local event)

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Hyper localism

• 93 of stories covered events that took place in
  the physical surroundings of citizen reporters

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Flagrant x news construction

• 56 (92 stories) were not identified as mere
  striking of reality
• 44 (71 stories) of the published material were
  identifies as flagrant
• a simple record of an event in photo or video,
  without contextual information, or check with
  official sources of data and / or witnesses, case
  of

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Narrative aspects

• 51 (83) of stories with no citation of any
  source.
• In 34 (55) of the cases, only one source of
  information is mentioned - in some cases, the
  source is the individual citizen reporter,
  paradoxical practice for the purpose of
  participatory journalism that will be addressed
  forward.
• In 14 (23) cases two sources are mentioned, and
  in only two subjects, or 1 of cases are cited
  three or more sources.

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Differences between portals

• Portal Terra 35 (27) of stories were considered
  a mere flagrant
• Good mix the work of the citizen reporter to the
  journalist contribution
• Portal Globo75 (44) is characterized as
  flagrant
• Newsroom enrichment of news before publishing
• Snapshot journalist
• The newsroom practice is to quote, sometines, the
  citizen reporter information
• The citizen reporter does not develop activities
  of investigation, but believes that being at
  relevant events, book them soon either by
  pictures or videos, and refers them with small
  essays on the major portals
• Citizens news are an additional channel for
  receiving information as well as a single source
  or of the advisory press
• Credibility possible presence of commercial and
  marketing content in the mainstream news

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Final remarks

• The participatory journalism in Brazil would not
  arouse the reader's engagement with the
  production of information - much less the
  vehicles show this concern, to use the material
  sent by Internet users as mere starting point for
  a process of investigation.
• Assigning the channels of UGC evaluated in the
  main Brazilian portals as the label of citizen
  journalism becomes dangerous, especially within
  the theoretical frame of reference outlined by
  Bruns
• Brazilian web users that are involved in these
  services the title of citizen reporter in
  conceptualization of Bowman and Willis, as
  practice involves a former "reader" as the
  protagonist of news process, not only as
  adjuvant.

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Final remarks

• Further discussion for the study progress
• the degree of editorial intervention exercised by
  the portal, partly weakened the concept of
  citizen journalism
• the effects on the portal brand credibility
  facing the collaborative content which it
  provides
• the characterization of "news" within a space of
  participatory journalism and how this concept
  should reflect the characteristics of traditional
  news process, and
• differentiated characterization in between
  citizen journalists and the "citizen-source" that
  seems to emerge that study.
• Inclusion, as a comparative data, of the well
  succeeded independent initiatives
• Independent Media Center
• Brazil Wiki
• Garapa
• Overmundo