The value of hyperlocal news in the UK: A new analysis of content - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The value of hyperlocal news in the UK: A new analysis of content

Andy Williams (Cardifg University) Jerome Turner (Birmingham City University) Scott Dewey (Cardifg University) Dave Harte (Birmingham City University)

Friday, 18 January 2013

Context: The Value of Local

• The value of news often viewed through prism of

its relationship to democracy (McNair 2009). Key to this is idea that democracy enables good government most efgectively if citizens’ decisions are based on reliable information (Habermas, 1989; Chambers and Costain, 2001)

• Numerous studies have found the crisis in the UK

news industry is endangering the local-ness, quality and independence of local news (Franklin 2006, Williams and Franklin 2007, O’Neill and O’Connor 2009)

• But the web has enabled a new generation of

community-oriented news outlets producing hyperlocal news (Bruns 2009, Metzgar et al 2011),

Friday, 18 January 2013

Context: Consumption of Local News in the UK

Source: Communications Market Review,

Friday, 18 January 2013

What we did:

• This content analysis of hyperlocal news in the

UK pays particular attention to: sources (who gets to define hyperlocal news and in what ways); topics (what news is covered?); the “local-ness” of this news; the civic value of the news (in relation to coverage of politics and local institutions, but also the role of this developing cultural form in fostering difgerent forms of community activity)

• Sample: Posts published on the sites of members of

the UK’s “Openly Local” hyperlocal news network during 11 days at the beginning of May 2012 (http://

• penlylocal.com/hyperlocal_sites)
• 3819 posts were published on 313 active

websites, and we coded every other story (odd numbers) in each site: in total, 1941 posts

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The value of hyperlocal:

What gets covered?

n=1941

Top topics

Freq. %

Community 252 13.0 Politics (Government) 227 11.7 Sport 224 11.5 Crime/Legal (Individual) 134 6.9 Business/ Industry 133 6.9 Environment/ Nature 109 5.6 Entertainment/ Leisure 98 5.0

• Geographically-

focused, community-oriented form of local news… local clubs, societies, leisure time activities covered regularly

• Lots of coverage of

local politics – which is declining in mainstream press

• Very little coverage
• f local political

activism

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The value of hyperlocal: Who gets to

n=187 Top Sources Fre q % Local Politics392 20. 9 Business/ Commercial 268 14. 3 Member of Public 233 12. 4 Community Group 133 7.1 Police 114 6.1 Sportsperso n 106 5.7 Culture/ Arts 102 5.4

• Some similarities with,

and some difgerences from, the commercial local press…

• Offjcial sources in local

politics, business, the police are still very important source groups…

• But there’s much more
• f a voice for local

people (members of the public, members of groups, clubs, and

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The value of hyperlocal: Local news for local “Local-ness” of the story, n=1941 “Local-ness” of source utterances,

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The value of hyperlocal: a

• The number of sources

cited was quite low (only around half of posts rely on sources, & only around a fifth cite more than one source)

• When secondary sources

were cited, it was mostly to convey agreement, or to add context

• Disagreement between

sources was only found in 3% of posts

• Could have implications for:

http://alittlebitofstone.com/ 2012/05/10/ducklings-rescued-

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The Value of Hyperlocal: Fostering community activity

Calls to difgerent kinds of community activity

Friday, 18 January 2013

Calls to difgerent kinds of citizen

The value of hyperlocal: Fostering collaborative citizen

Friday, 18 January 2013

The value of UK hyperlocal news:

• Where do we go next with the

research?

• We’ve looked at the value of

hyperlocal content. Next comes research on the production and reception of hyperlocal news.

• The next steps of the project

involve researching value:

– Qualitative work with hyperlocal audiences – In-depth semi-structured interviews with, and an

• nline survey of, hyperlocal

Friday, 18 January 2013