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November
15, 2002 The
emphasis is always on: When you think about it, this really puts the focus not on the consumer, but on the supplier. It becomes Us vs. Them. Our work in the civic journalism arena has tapped into a public appetite for other kinds of news and information. And this appetite has big ramifications for distinguishing between noise -- and there is a lot of noise out there -- and meaningful information. Moreover, I suggest that information becomes meaningful when the user develops some kind of attachment to it or involvement with it. Let me repeat that: Information becomes meaningful when it is accompanied by attachment or involvement. Digital
stories offer all kinds of new opportunities for enhancing the news experience.
And I offer these goals for building those attachments. We need to think
about constructing ways to add: The
focus then changes. Instead of focusing on Us, the journalists,
we need to pay attention to Them. This means thinking about: Notice the words interaction, participation -- you could add "involvement." Digital storytelling entails introducing a level of interactivity into our story telling. Building some entry points for ordinary folks to participate -- then letting that interaction improve the journalism. That participation gives consumers some attachment -- and ultimately some ownership of the learning process. It's just like anything -- once you get involved in something, you tend to form some attachment, care about it and want to learn more about it. This process of interactivity, I think, really distinguishes what we can offer in a digital age. And I think it changes the construct a bit from what journalists have traditionally done. You could think of it this way: Future News might well be less about story telling -- the stories we journalists want to write, produce or tell -- and more about story making -- the stories that our consumers are assembling for themselves via their own process of gathering information, sifting through the onslaught of daily info-bits and participating in learning about things. Less about storytelling -- and more about story making. Future news will be, in part, be about building the components that help users co-author the story. ItŐs not an Either/Or but an And. And it will include linear narratives, visual information, news bits, and interactive information. A
news organization's Web site becomes: Such a shift in purpose requires a rethinking of journalists' relationships with the public. And this calls for really thinking out of the box, which is hard to do both in newsrooms and classrooms, which tend to take a conservative view of the world. It calls for different thinking going INÉ as well as different products coming OUT. People
nowadays are able, thanks to new technology, to co-author or co-produce
their own stories. Think about it: They are building their own internal
master narrative of events or issues by assembling information from various
points. And, remarkably, they do a pretty good job of ferreting out the truth. So, instead of thinking of our audiences as users, readers, viewers,customers or consumers, we need to think of them as co-authors, co-producers, active citizens. I know that to some degree this is heresy to a conventional journalist. Our standard mantra is that we must tell people what they NEED to know, not what they WANT to know. And, yes, that is almost always true. We just don't like to admit that people can be pretty smart about what they don't know and what they need to know. Editors are supposed to be the arbiters of that, right? But ordinary people have great -- and empowering -- capacity to find out what they want to know. And unlike a lot of pundits and experts, ordinary people are not afraid to admit it when they don't know something. What we see developing around the country is an appetite for a level of interactivity that is very much informing our story telling. Indeed,
in a poll the Pew Center released in 2001, found that: From the input side: People are getting used to talking back because, quite simply, they can. They can email, fax, voicemail, instant poll. And they like it. So
how do you involve people? Now
there are two kinds of journalists: Those who hold their noses at interacting
with the public. And those who have discovered that it can be real asset. When people have some participatory stake in a story, you get intelligent interaction. Civic
journalism has morphed significantly in this direction since the early
1990s. At its heart, civic journalism has always entailed some kind of
interaction with ordinary people. Through various entry points, including: Then in the mid 90s, came one-on-one interactions through civic mapping. So when the Internet came on the media scene in a big way in the 1990s, it was an easier transition for a lot of civic newsrooms. Now, those civic interactions are moving into the digital arena. And we have seen the creation of entry points that connect with news audiences in new ways. Some
of the interesting interactions include: Examples: Visuals and photos are great entry points and let people tell their own stories, literally through their own lenses. For instance, Portland, Maine's 20below.org photo gallery. Webcams at KDVA-TV in San Antonio in the homes of viewers who become neighborhood correspondents and hubs for the community.
Dynamic Databases also present a lot of potential for interaction, like this one listing all the uses of coal severance taxes in the state of West Virginia, created by the Huntingdon Herald-Dispatch. The challenge for the future is to bypass meaningless conventions and construct meaningful interactions that help people learn and get engaged. One producer at New Hampshire Public Radio, offered this observation on their current efforts. "I don't have a word yet for what we are doing. I know that itŐs not just journalism." When pressed to offer some ideas, he said: "We're a convener, a catalyst, an intermediary." The focus, then becomes less on Craftsmanship. More on connections. And you build the connections by developing entry points that let people participate in the news. The participation builds attachments. The attachments build relationships. And the relationships build audience. The ultimate goal is Less Noise, More Intelligent Interaction. J-Lab
is a center of the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College
of Journalism. It is a spin-off of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism
(www.pewcenter.org). © 2004
University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism
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By
Jan Schaffer
Not
enough feet on the street? Put a computer kiosk out there instead like
the Missoulan
newspaper in Montana.