The survey queried whether the news sites employed three specific content strategies for engaging their audience. They were asked whether their news site:
- Appealed to emotions in their content or outreach.
- Focused on helping the community understand or address its master narrative – the story it tells itself.
- Engaged in mapping the assets of their communities.
Appealing to Emotions
Just over 64% of 227 responding said they found that appealing to emotions in their coverage – frustration, anger, outrage or happiness – played a role in triggering engagement, and 95 respondents elaborated more in open-ended responses.
“People can get frustrated on community issues,” said one. “And we can give them a platform to voice their concerns.”
“Readers are more likely to engage when emotional,” said another. Numerous respondents said emotions particularly stirred engagement on social media.
“Our lurker readers provide a lot of hits to our unemotional coverage, but our commenting community is more active in emotionally appealing pieces,” said one respondent. “Frustration, anger and outrage frequently prompt sharing, commenting and discussion,” said another.
While many respondents embraced an appeal to emotion, others steered clear out of a concern for “journalistic integrity,” they said.
“We absolutely do not do this in our content because we purposefully have no editorial voice or positions,” said one respondent. “However, our social media is a different story. And I’ve found that digging out the nugget in a story that hits people on an emotional level has been extremely successful in engaging readers in our content.”
Master Narratives
Asked whether their news site made it a priority to help the community understand, or change, its master narrative, more than 68% of 239 responding said they did – although they don’t necessarily anchor their coverage in that ongoing narrative.
Master narratives are the overarching or meta-stories that are built from a lot of other “little stories” about a person, place or an issue. When the sum of these stories embody longstanding beliefs about how things work, they become conventional wisdom.
Examples of master narratives include the Rust Belt saga of deindustrialization in the Northeast and Midwest United States, or voter characteristics in Red States and Blue States. The depiction of Silicon Valley as a tech entrepreneurs’ paradise is a local master narrative.
When a master narrative rings true, it engages community members who find it to be authentic. However, when a new narrative is emerging – for instance, a downtrodden community that is starting to gentrify – audiences often experience it before journalists report it.
Grassroots news sites with close community connections have a unique opportunity to engage new audiences by being the first to understand and articulate any new narratives that are taking hold in their communities.
For instance, several respondents work to counter stereotypes about their community. Some focus on protecting a valued natural resource such as a river basin or lake. Others see a narrative of empowerment, helping people participate in community issues.
“We don’t have an ‘ongoing master narrative,’ but we do try to speak out against incorrect narratives, both within and outside our community,” said one respondent. “A city of immigrants that is constantly shedding its skins has to stay true to the ‘master narrative,’” said another.
“We share the … irritation that the external narrative is that [our city] is a backwater, that it’s been passed over, that its residents are criminals,” said one.
“People are beginning to see the need for an alternative narrative beyond the cops reports in the local paper,” one said. “We identify the master narrative as a quest for better health-care access, affordability and care,” said one health news site. “By informing readers of efforts to achieve this, it sparks debate on all sides.”
“Our master narrative is that we live in a good community, no matter what you read in the newspaper,” said one. “A master narrative works when it rings true.”
