Revisiting the Audience Turn in Journalism

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates that journalism scholars tend to overrate the value of transparency for audiences. The digitization of journalism and the dwindling trust in news media have "prompted calls for a normative shift from objectivity to transparency in journalism". The chapter illustrates what clicking and not clicking actually means for people and how clicks are a limited instrument for capturing users' interests. Journalists often assume that users' attention for news is reflected by their clicking patterns indicating a limited scope of news favorites: sports, crime, and celebrity news. The chapter shows that the limited success of participatory journalism is due to an underestimation of citizen journalists' capabilities and confusion of tongues between users and producers. Participation of citizens in professional journalism apparently works out when and if professionals and citizens have corresponding expectations of each other's roles and responsibilities.

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