Futures for News Media in the Face of Citizen Journalism

Brisbane.
We're now starting the first panel session of the CCi conference, and this is the panel on citizen journalism that my paper is in as well, so I'm including the Powerpoint below (audio to be added later available now).

The first speaker is David McKnight from UNSW, whose focus is on the future of quality journalism in the emerging media environment. He points to a perspective that newspapers are now an 'endangered species'; The Australian passionately rejected this in a September 2006 editorial. It suggested a commitment to quality journalism as an important continuing strategy for newspapers. Nonetheless, the economic case for newspaper publishing is becoming increasingly difficult; circulations are falling and especially classified advertising is moving away from print.

The problem is that newspapers are still by far the major source of news and key agenda setters for public discussion. Will electronic and online media be able to pick up the slack if newspapers do decline and disappear, and how does this affect the quality of democratic engagement in the public sphere?

A common response in online contexts has been a move to more tabloid styles of reporting, and a focus on search engine optimisation strategies to make content seen; against this, a few quality online news sites exist, but remain largely cross-subsidised by offline news organisations. (Online ads do not generate the same level of revenue as offline advertising, so a simple shift from one medium to another is not feasible.) What is sustainably possible in the online world?

In Australia, newspaper circulation is declining, but not as fast as elsewhere; worryingly, advertising revenue development is no longer directly connected to the performance of the overall economy here, either. One consequence of the online unbundling of stories (as users get straight to specific stories rather than accessing the entire newspaper product) is that more targetted advertising is possible in the online environment, providing customers with a new kind of efficiency; this is problematic, however, as it introduces a very strong short-termist focus on content that sells ads and confuses what is popular with what is good (leading for example to a reduction in strong and balanced foreign news coverage).

What space is left for thoughtful, reflective, discursive journalism in this environment? Additionally, the professional media have developed a rich ecosystem which may be in the process of being dismantled by the economic decline of news media, and citizen journalism may not be able to make up for what is being lost in the process. Critiques of the decline in quality in journalism miss a wider decline in democratic participation, David suggests - so journalism itself is no more to blame here than society overall.

News blogging and other forms of citizen journalism continue themselves to rely on mainstream journalism's output, to engage with and criticise where necessary, and so a decline in mainstream industrial news may in the same process also undermine its major critics. Journalists provide a crucial linkage between politicians and audiences; most online sites as yet do not operate on the same level, and are not able to ask critical questions of politicians in the same way that mainstream media are able to - especially if their financial basis remains tenuous at best.

One answer in the online world is a strong focus on user-generated content, but where this is done by commercial operators it may resemble a new form of sharecropping, where site owners provide the digital space, and content is created by their dependent digital 'peasants'. Australian print newspapers have traditionally been more autonomous in their political coverage, David suggests, than future news organisations are likely to be; the rise of private equity as major shareholders in news organisations may prove to be highly problematic for their independence.

Next up is Georgie McClean from SBS, whose focus is especially on questions of how public service media organisations may need to reshape themselves to suit the emerging mediasphere. New media technologies are tied to the gradual devolution of mass media, and SBS and other organisations must respond to this while maintaining their public service role, which is based on an implicit universalism. Any erosion of public service broadcasting leads to an impoverished public sphere - so while public funding for PSBs may be seen as anticompetitive, the commercial aspects of media must not be allowed to overshadow their cultural role.

PSBs should be assessed in terms of their status just as much as in terms of their ratings, therefore, and the bleeding of these elements into one another is problematic; PSBs must continue to be able to guarantee pluralism and diversity. In this context, new approaches to content and engagement with media users have evolved. Many networks have turned towards entertainment content and away from news and informational content. At the same time, the increasing diversity of media channels and significant investment in development may have led to a reduction in media diversity, due to increasing competition between channels.

Overall, there is both a decline in audiences for serious news, then, and an increase in channels for accessing such news for those who still want to do so. The management of editorial standards remains a key challenge for PSBs, and engaging with curated user-generated content in context becomes increasingly important. This is not a zero-sum game; user-generated and professionally prodused content can be used in combination. Questions of how such combinations may work best emerge especially in the context of niche content and niche audiences, many of whom cannot be addressed effectively by commerical media organisations alone. Market failure in providing non-mass or 'unpopular' services, the need for quality and diversity of voices, and a focus on public value and democratic principles all point to a continuingly important role for PSBs in this context. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for public service broadcasters, and notions of community engagement and universalism are all the more important here. For SBS in particular, its low level of direct government funding further complicates its performance in this area, however. (Whew, Georgie talks fast - hope I got the main gist of this...)

We move on to Anne Dunn from the University of Sydney, who continues our focus on public service broadcasting. She is currently working with the ABC on a user-generated content project, part of the second wave of digital developments in PSB (following the move to the online space which constituted the first wave). Digital media mean a vast increase on part of users in demand for content; there is, then, a need for a transition from PSB to public service media, and here, the dilemma is whether to open up or hold back in negotiating this transition. Anne's research as presented here has been mainly with cross-media content producers in ABC regional radio, but is also informed by wider processes of upskilling ABC journalists for future media environments, including audience-generated content.

ABC radio remains in a very strong position in the marketplace overall, even in spite of strong and sustained commercial challenges, and public support for continued public funding for the ABC is also strong, therefore. The ABC's ability to respond to user needs is also complicated by the demands of its charter (requiring it to provide coverage of parliamentary discussion, for example). However, governments (especially conservative governments) are also often criticising the ABC for apparent bias, and undoubtedly succumbs to a kind of 'pre-emptive buckle' in response to such criticism.

The ABC's editorial policies therefore highlight the need for editorial balance, and position the organisation overtly as owned by the public; they require all news and current affairs content to be accurate, impartial, and objective. This focus on impartiality is problematic in its universality, and no commercial competitor to the ABC is under similar obligations; consciousness of this 'sacred duty' of impartiality strongly affects especially also the ABC's response to the challenge of online media.

Media organisations overall need to respond to this challenge, of course, but often continue to position their users merely as an inactive, infantilised audience; PSBs claim a responsibility for the audience, but also hold a strong anxiety about relinquishing any control to that public. Such relinquishment is seen as undermining universality, comprehensiveness, the sustenance of national and local identities, respect for public opinion, and quality and innovation in coverage. The weight of responsibility remains on content, quality, and editorial judgment, and programmatic innovation in this context means risk-taking at a significant level. Loosening the reins of editorial control is difficult here, and has usually taken place only in a strictly limited fashion (at the ABC and BBC, for example); going beyond any form of pre-filtered audience involvement further amplifies that risk.

The ABC's responses to the desire for participation by users in media production have remained within that editorial framework; any level of participation in the news environment has remained especially limited (largely to photographs), and user-generated content remains clearly distinguished from professional work. In order to move beyond this, the ABC needs to train its own journalists to better generate content across platforms; it needs to find a model for participatory journalism, and it needs to retain a commitment to responsibility and editorial politices while working with the people who own and pay for the ABC as a public service media organisation.

Finally to my paper "Beyond the Pro/Am Schism: Opportunities for Collaboration between Professional and Citizen Journalists under a Produsage Framework", then - here's the Powerpoint...

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