It has been 50 years since the Kerner Commission argued that the legacy media presented a world through “white eyes” and with a “white perspective,” yet countless studies have demonstrated that communities of color continue to be misrepresented on a daily basis. This study will attempt to find answers to this problem via conversations with journalists of color and sources of color within the Pittsburgh area, a location often represented in the media as one of the most “livable cities in the nation.” Specifically, this study will attempt to answer this question as it pertains to the Steel City through a series of interviews and focus groups with stakeholders of color within the Pittsburgh region. One group, journalists of color who have worked in Pittsburgh-area newsrooms, will be asked to discuss their perceptions regarding news coverage in the city. They will also be asked to discuss the level of agency they believe journalists of color are given to impact change within newsrooms. Additionally, as a means of understanding how sources of color are treated within the news media, interviews and focus groups will also be conducted with various community leaders of color heavily involved within the subaltern public sphere of Pittsburgh. Additionally, all sources will also be asked to give their perspectives on how they fare on an everyday life basis as individuals of color within Pittsburgh. This will be done to determine if the marginalization communities of color may face within the media is actually a representation of the mistreatment of communities of color within the city on a global, everyday basis. It is the hope that this work will move to present a holistic understanding of the place communities of color have within the Pittsburgh media ecosystem.
Project lead: Letrell Crittenden
The distance between “the media” and communities has been a critical facilitator of public distrust of journalism. Recent Tow Center research has highlighted the voices of community members who have felt misrepresented by structures of parachute journalism that fail to capture the nuance and complexity of place—whether that place be in rural Kentucky, the South Side of Chicago, or Philadelphia. This, of course, is situated within the context of shrinking local journalism resources, where consolidation, changing distribution platforms, and market failure have led to areas that are, or are at risk of becoming, media deserts—and communities who perceive themselves as only receiving stigmatized coverage, if any. Responding to these realities, researchers have also recommended that funders and organizations supporting journalism turn their attention to local news outlets and, when possible, go beyond the usual suspects.
This project examines several foundation-supported models attempting to strengthen the capacity of local news to report on and in communities that have largely been under-resourced and/or under-represented in local, regional, or national media. This includes national projects that support reporters working in local newsrooms, as well as locally-driven projects that use a variety of strategies to encourage storytelling that is more inclusive and representative of diverse communities. For projects expected to be in Charleston (WV), Chicago (IL), Philadelphia (PA), Pikeville (KY), and South Bend (IN), this study examines local journalism needs and community engagement/trust over the course of the projects. Research methods will include: focus groups with panels of community members at project start and end, interviews with community organization representatives and participating journalists, observations at newsrooms, periodic monitoring of project content, and check-ins with project participants.
Project leads: Sam Ford, Andrea Wenzel
Increasingly, outlets and analysts argue that news business models will be poorly served by relying heavily on traditional advertising. These challenges are especially prevalent in hyperlocal rural news, where the total potential audience for an outlet is often relatively small and the number of interested advertisers (and their budgets) equally so. At the same time, local outlets serve a purpose that can’t be tackled on a broad scale: there remains community interest in staying connected to what’s happening at the most local level, in a way that regional coverage cannot provide. How do local outlets in rural places capitalize on the strength of their embeddedness and their connection to the community in a way that is sustainable?
Even as we see indications that events and community engagement efforts have a correlation with people who are willing to pay to support the news, few have had opportunities to test whether and what kinds of engagement efforts have an influence on the success of subscriber-based local news. A few niche media studies have suggested that engagement initiatives do have the potential to increase subscription. But what would that look like for hyperlocals serving small towns and rural communities—often the outlets that face the most precarious financial futures?
This project takes a deep dive into how various strategies influence the subscription business model, using one rural hyperlocal as a case study. Over the course of 3 months, this project will work with Ohio County Monitor—a locally-owned hyperlocal digital publication in Ohio County, Kentucky, that has just converted to a subscription model and has participated in our ongoing “Polarization to Public Sphere” project—to conduct a series of engagement and outreach activities and monitor the corresponding subscription rates and subscriber opinions over the course of this process.
Project leads: Sam Ford
Team member: Andrea Wenzel
While concern over a lack of "trust" in journalism is often associated with the current political moment, the concept of mistrust is not new. Examining the experiences of communities where distrust of the "mainstream media" is grounded in historical power dynamics may reveal insights into patterns of how publics adapt to meet their information needs, as well as lessons for journalists trying to understand what it means to be trusted and how they can respond.
This study seeks to understand how neighborhoods in the Philly metro area, with a range of relations to power and place and perceptions of ambiguity/threat, think about "trust" in media. It will draw from a series of focus groups, "story diaries," and interviews with residents of varied areas—expected to include a historically African American neighborhood grappling with issues of gentrification and development and a mostly-white suburb where nearly half of residents voted for Trump.
It will explore how residents decide how to assign trust to various outlets or personalities—and how they adapt and develop alternate verification strategies in situations where trust is in short supply. By seeking to establish an understanding of residents’ communication ecologies, storytelling networks, and attitudes towards media, this study seeks to establish a baseline to inform possible future interventions through applied media projects.
Concurrently, researchers will interview and informally shadow local media outlets potentially interested in following up on study findings. Findings will then be shared with community stakeholders and media in a series of community events which will double as brainstorming sessions to determine potential next steps. These steps may include collaborative, participatory, and/or solutions-oriented projects—depending on interests and priorities expressed by residents and media outlets.
Project lead: Andrea Wenzel
Team members: Marc Lamont Hill, Anthony Nadler, Melissa M. Valle
Local journalism provides civic connective tissue in communities around the United States. It shines light in dark places and bears witness to threats facing democracy in city halls and congressional districts. At its best, local journalism helps towns, cities and communities of interest solve problems. But local journalism is not only under economic pressure: it also faces big challenges as audiences increasingly prefer to engage with news online, using mobile devices and social media.
As the platform revolution renegotiates the relationship between audiences and information, it’s worth pausing and asking a series of fundamental questions of the thousands of local news outlets dotting the United States. How aggressive have local news publishers been about engaging their audiences on social platforms? How many have taken steps to enhance their users’ mobile engagement through features such as responsive web design and faster load times? How widespread is the use of familiar website ad tech, and have local publishers caught the digital video bug? How many publishers keep their content gated behind a paywall, or indeed have little to no digital footprint at all?
A local news digital adaptation index will address these questions, tracking the success of local news publishers as they adapt to an information environment that is increasingly mobile and networked. Through website and platform observations, the project will quantify the ways in which local news publishers are embracing, avoiding and innovating with digital technologies. With an analysis of a sample of print, broadcast, and digital publishers from around the U.S., the findings will speak not only to nationwide trends, but also regional ones. The insights gleaned here will offer a measured view at the bird's-eye level of the digital state of play in local news and will point in the direction things are going.
Project lead: Jesse Holcomb
This project examines what political polarization and urban-rural divisions look like in the daily lives of residents at the local level—and what role local media may play in creating spaces for dialogue across parties and demographics.The project is rooted in a case study of a predominantly Republican-leaning region of Kentucky. This includes the more “purple” college town of Bowling Green, home of the infamous “Bowling Green Massacre,” as well as the more rural area of Ohio County, which is more solidly “red.” Using a communication infrastructure theory framework, this project examine residents’ communication storytelling networks. Through a series of focus groups, “story diaries,” and interviews, it explores residents’ access to communication resources, interactions they do or do not have with “others” in their community, and their attitudes towards local and national media. This study also looks at the needs of local and rural journalists—and how they may contribute to a region that is more connected and engaged. Following the study—and a related workshop for local and regional media, community stakeholders, and actors working in engagement journalism, solutions journalism, and rural/local journalism—the project is designing possible projects that respond to local needs and seek to create opportunities for dialogue and engagement.
Project lead: Andrea Wenzel
Team member: Sam Ford
This study examines the case of a local public radio initiative attempting to engage historically underrepresented audiences through a year-long outreach experiment. Curious City, a series produced by WBEZ Chicago Public Media, uses the Hearken digital engagement platform to invite listeners to ask and vote on questions, and then participate in the reporting process. Drawing from interviews and observations, the study examines best practices to combine digital and offline strategies, and the importance of pre- and post-broadcast engagement. The study also reflects on journalistic norms and approaches to participatory media, local news “storytelling networks,” and relations between public media and marginalized publics. The final report was published in spring 2017.
Project lead: Andrea Wenzel
A report on the response of small U.S. market newspapers to the shift to digital technology in everything from editorial content to distribution to advertising.
Project leads: Christopher Ali, Damian Radcliffe
City Beat is a social media tool that uses publicly available hyper-local social media geo-tagged data to extract real-time information about city life and search for newsworthy events. The system collects streams of geo-tagged photos and texts, identifies trends, and offers an interactive visualization of urban activities.
Project leads: Nicholas Diakopoulos, Alexander Howard, Jonathan Stray