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This article analyzes the nature of debate on “below the line” comment fields at the United Kingdom’s Guardian, and how, if at all, such debates are impacting journalism practice. The article combines a content analysis of 3,792 comments across eighty-five articles that focused on the UN Climate Change Summit, with ten interviews with journalists, two with affiliated commentators, plus the community manager. The results suggest a more positive picture than has been found by many existing studies: Debates were often deliberative in nature, and journalists reported that it was positively impacting their practice in several ways, including providing new story leads and enhanced critical reflection. However, citizen–journalist debate was limited. The results are attributed to the normalization of comment fields into everyday journalism practice, extensive support and encouragement from senior management, and a realization that comment fields can actually make the journalists’ life a little easier.

While the newspaper industry is in crisis and less time and resources are available for newsgathering, social media turn out to be a convenient and cheap beat for (political) journalism. This article investigates the use of Twitter as a source for newspaper coverage of the 2010 British and Dutch elections. Almost a quarter of the British and nearly half of the Dutch candidates shared their thoughts, visions, and experiences on Twitter. Subsequently, these tweets were increasingly quoted in newspaper coverage. We present a typology of the functions tweets have in news reports: they were either considered newsworthy as such, were a reason for further reporting, or were used to illustrate a broader news story. Consequently, we will show why politicians were successful in producing quotable tweets. While this paper, which is part of a broader project on how journalists (and politicians) use Twitter, focuses upon the coverage of election campaigns, our results indicate a broader trend in journalism. In the future, the reporter who attends events, gathers information face-to-face, and asks critical questions might instead aggregate information online and reproduce it in journalism discourse thereby altering the balance of power between journalists and sources.

This chapter investigates the use of Twitter as a source for newspaper coverage of the 2010 British and Dutch elections. Almost a quarter of the British and nearly half of the Dutch candidates shared their thoughts, visions, and experiences on Twitter. Subsequently, these tweets were increasingly quoted in newspaper coverage. We present a typology of the functions tweets have in news reports: they were either considered newsworthy as such, were a reason for further reporting, or were used to illustrate a broader news story. We discuss the implications of such practices in light of journalism practice and political communication more broadly.

This chapter investigates the use of Twitter as a source for newspaper coverage of the 2010 British and Dutch elections. Almost a quarter of the British and nearly half of the Dutch candidates shared their thoughts, visions, and experiences on Twitter. Subsequently, these tweets were increasingly quoted in newspaper coverage. We present a typology of the functions tweets have in news reports: they were either considered newsworthy as such, were a reason for further reporting, or were used to illustrate a broader news story. We discuss the implications of such practices in light of journalism practice and political communication more broadly.

This chapter investigates the use of Twitter as a source for newspaper coverage of the 2010 British and Dutch elections. Almost a quarter of the British and nearly half of the Dutch candidates shared their thoughts, visions, and experiences on Twitter. Subsequently, these tweets were increasingly quoted in newspaper coverage. We present a typology of the functions tweets have in news reports: they were either considered newsworthy as such, were a reason for further reporting, or were used to illustrate a broader news story. We discuss the implications of such practices in light of journalism practice and political communication more broadly.

Over the past decade, particularly with the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies, we have seen an increase in the popularity of social media such as forums, weblogs and wikis and social media applications and services such as Facebook and YouTube along with the proliferation of open publishing initiatives and social news websites. This vibrant upsurge of participatory values and practices can be understood as a sign of a general cultural trend whereby audiences increasingly become active media producers. This participatory culture challenges the top-down model of journalism by allowing anyone to post and upload content without formal editorial moderation or filtering processes, while the boundaries between professional journalists and their audience begin to blur as audiences actively increase their control and involvement over their news consumption, becoming both consumers and creators of media content. Citizens are no longer passive receivers but rather are actively engaged in (re)creating, challenging, questioning, correcting, and personalizing news media. As a means of combating revenue loss and reconnecting with their audiences, mainstream news media throughout Western democracies have begun tapping into this digital media culture by increasingly adopting participatory forms of journalism. However, these new forms have yet to be study in any great detail. The empirical research that does exist focuses mostly on gauging the opinions, motives and perceptions of editors/journalists, mapping the current trends and forms, and ethnographic studies on newsroom practices. What is needed to take this body of research further is an analysis of the content. This chapter moves in this direction by addressing the question of whether user-generated content within mainstream news media today is improving the quality journalism, i.e. enhancing the public sphere. One of the most popular forms of user-generated content within mainstream news media is comment fields attached to news articles. Such spaces provide citizens the opportunity to react, debate, and comment on articles (or blogs) written by journalists. The focus of this chapter is on how people are engaging in these spaces. The aim is two fold. First, it is to see to what extent such spaces are facilitating deliberative communicative practices crucial to the public sphere. Are comment fields opening up spaces for citizen deliberation? Second, it is to see whether this type of user-generated content is improving the quality of journalism. Are citizens bringing new ideas, perspectives, facts, and sources to journalistic content? In order to address these questions, postings from comment fields were examined and assessed within the British online newspaper the Guardian. The sample consisted of 3,169 postings (comments) taken from all those articles/blogs (by Guardian journalists) on the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen during a two week period in December 2009. A case study design with normative and descriptive characteristics was utilized. A content analysis was employed as the primary instrument for examination. The coding scheme focused first on gauging the type and level of interaction. Are participants engaging with the content, journalist, or fellow participants, and are such spaces hosting critical-reciprocal exchange between participants? Second, the analysis identified the purpose of the postings; i.e. are participants providing an opinion/argument, posing a question, providing information, calling for action, and/or degrading or acknowledging another? Finally, the analysis focused on the level to which such spaces bring new and alternative opinions, arguments, facts, and sources to the article, to journalism.

Over the past decade, particularly with the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies, we have seen an increase in the popularity of social media such as forums, weblogs and wikis and social media applications and services such as Facebook and YouTube along with the proliferation of open publishing initiatives and social news websites. This vibrant upsurge of participatory values and practices can be understood as a sign of a general cultural trend whereby audiences increasingly become active media producers. This participatory culture challenges the top-down model of journalism by allowing anyone to post and upload content without formal editorial moderation or filtering processes, while the boundaries between professional journalists and their audience begin to blur as audiences actively increase their control and involvement over their news consumption, becoming both consumers and creators of media content. Citizens are no longer passive receivers but rather are actively engaged in (re)creating, challenging, questioning, correcting, and personalizing news media. As a means of combating revenue loss and reconnecting with their audiences, mainstream news media throughout Western democracies have begun tapping into this digital media culture by increasingly adopting participatory forms of journalism. However, these new forms have yet to be study in any great detail. The empirical research that does exist focuses mostly on gauging the opinions, motives and perceptions of editors/journalists, mapping the current trends and forms, and ethnographic studies on newsroom practices. What is needed to take this body of research further is an analysis of the content. This chapter moves in this direction by addressing the question of whether user-generated content within mainstream news media today is improving the quality journalism, i.e. enhancing the public sphere. One of the most popular forms of user-generated content within mainstream news media is comment fields attached to news articles. Such spaces provide citizens the opportunity to react, debate, and comment on articles (or blogs) written by journalists. The focus of this chapter is on how people are engaging in these spaces. The aim is two fold. First, it is to see to what extent such spaces are facilitating deliberative communicative practices crucial to the public sphere. Are comment fields opening up spaces for citizen deliberation? Second, it is to see whether this type of user-generated content is improving the quality of journalism. Are citizens bringing new ideas, perspectives, facts, and sources to journalistic content? In order to address these questions, postings from comment fields were examined and assessed within the British online newspaper the Guardian. The sample consisted of 3,169 postings (comments) taken from all those articles/blogs (by Guardian journalists) on the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen during a two week period in December 2009. A case study design with normative and descriptive characteristics was utilized. A content analysis was employed as the primary instrument for examination. The coding scheme focused first on gauging the type and level of interaction. Are participants engaging with the content, journalist, or fellow participants, and are such spaces hosting critical-reciprocal exchange between participants? Second, the analysis identified the purpose of the postings; i.e. are participants providing an opinion/argument, posing a question, providing information, calling for action, and/or degrading or acknowledging another? Finally, the analysis focused on the level to which such spaces bring new and alternative opinions, arguments, facts, and sources to the article, to journalism.

Over the past decade, particularly with the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies, we have seen an increase in the popularity of social media such as forums, weblogs and wikis and social media applications and services such as Facebook and YouTube along with the proliferation of open publishing initiatives and social news websites. This vibrant upsurge of participatory values and practices can be understood as a sign of a general cultural trend whereby audiences increasingly become active media producers. This participatory culture challenges the top-down model of journalism by allowing anyone to post and upload content without formal editorial moderation or filtering processes, while the boundaries between professional journalists and their audience begin to blur as audiences actively increase their control and involvement over their news consumption, becoming both consumers and creators of media content. Citizens are no longer passive receivers but rather are actively engaged in (re)creating, challenging, questioning, correcting, and personalizing news media. As a means of combating revenue loss and reconnecting with their audiences, mainstream news media throughout Western democracies have begun tapping into this digital media culture by increasingly adopting participatory forms of journalism. However, these new forms have yet to be study in any great detail. The empirical research that does exist focuses mostly on gauging the opinions, motives and perceptions of editors/journalists, mapping the current trends and forms, and ethnographic studies on newsroom practices. What is needed to take this body of research further is an analysis of the content. This chapter moves in this direction by addressing the question of whether user-generated content within mainstream news media today is improving the quality journalism, i.e. enhancing the public sphere. One of the most popular forms of user-generated content within mainstream news media is comment fields attached to news articles. Such spaces provide citizens the opportunity to react, debate, and comment on articles (or blogs) written by journalists. The focus of this chapter is on how people are engaging in these spaces. The aim is two fold. First, it is to see to what extent such spaces are facilitating deliberative communicative practices crucial to the public sphere. Are comment fields opening up spaces for citizen deliberation? Second, it is to see whether this type of user-generated content is improving the quality of journalism. Are citizens bringing new ideas, perspectives, facts, and sources to journalistic content? In order to address these questions, postings from comment fields were examined and assessed within the British online newspaper the Guardian. The sample consisted of 3,169 postings (comments) taken from all those articles/blogs (by Guardian journalists) on the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen during a two week period in December 2009. A case study design with normative and descriptive characteristics was utilized. A content analysis was employed as the primary instrument for examination. The coding scheme focused first on gauging the type and level of interaction. Are participants engaging with the content, journalist, or fellow participants, and are such spaces hosting critical-reciprocal exchange between participants? Second, the analysis identified the purpose of the postings; i.e. are participants providing an opinion/argument, posing a question, providing information, calling for action, and/or degrading or acknowledging another? Finally, the analysis focused on the level to which such spaces bring new and alternative opinions, arguments, facts, and sources to the article, to journalism.

In this article we describe from which sources science writers who write about medicines in daily newspapers get their ideas and information. This study was undertaken because mass media, and therefore newspapers, can play an important role in the diffusion of information about medicines. Two approaches, interviews and a content analysis, were used to answer the research questions. Both methods show the importance of professional medical journals and information from universities and their hospitals as sources of ideas and information. Although the pharmaceutical industry did not seem to play a role as source of ideas and information according to the journalists, it is the third most frequently cited source of information in the newspaper articles. To gain a better insight in the role of the pharmaceutical industry as source of ideas and information for newspaper journalists further research is necessary.

In this article we describe from which sources science writers who write about medicines in daily newspapers get their ideas and information. This study was undertaken because mass media, and therefore newspapers, can play an important role in the diffusion of information about medicines. Two approaches, interviews and a content analysis, were used to answer the research questions. Both methods show the importance of professional medical journals and information from universities and their hospitals as sources of ideas and information. Although the pharmaceutical industry did not seem to play a role as source of ideas and information according to the journalists, it is the third most frequently cited source of information in the newspaper articles. To gain a better insight in the role of the pharmaceutical industry as source of ideas and information for newspaper journalists further research is necessary.

In this article we describe from which sources science writers who write about medicines in daily newspapers get their ideas and information. This study was undertaken because mass media, and therefore newspapers, can play an important role in the diffusion of information about medicines. Two approaches, interviews and a content analysis, were used to answer the research questions. Both methods show the importance of professional medical journals and information from universities and their hospitals as sources of ideas and information. Although the pharmaceutical industry did not seem to play a role as source of ideas and information according to the journalists, it is the third most frequently cited source of information in the newspaper articles. To gain a better insight in the role of the pharmaceutical industry as source of ideas and information for newspaper journalists further research is necessary.