From time to time, students send me questions about new media, participatory journalism or online journalism, and I post and archive the answers on my blog. Here’s the latest, from Zoe, a college student in the United Kingdom:
Does interactivity affect your journalism, if so how?
Absolutely. First, it leads to better, more careful reporting. A writer is more likely to triple check her facts if she knows she has thousands of fact-checkers in the audience. And a reporter or columnist is less likely to take an unwarranted swipe at a story subject if the person can dash off a testy email.
Second, interactivity leads to more complete news reports. I know of several journalists who ask their readers for input on stories. As Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News likes to say, “My readers know more than I do,” and that’s to be welcomed. Readers can contribute story ideas, news reports, photos and videos to a news organization in an interactive environment — and they are.
Third, it lets journalists tap the pulse of readers to see what they care about. We’re often surprised by the kinds of stories that resonate emotionally with the public.
What are the advantages/disadvantages of interactivity?
Interactivity takes many forms: when readers and editors participate in online chats with readers, when readers in forums are permitted to analyze, deconstruct and stretch a news organization’s reporting in new directions, and when editors and ombudsman engage in a true dialogue with readers through forms such as weblogs, as they’ve now begun to do.
Interactivity also leads to a more accessible news organization. By shining a light into newsrooms, interactivity helps readers realize that journalists have roots in the community, share many of the same concerns and values as the readers, and are simply trying to do the best job they can do. Transparency, credibility, and trust are enhanced. Everyone wins.
The only disadvantage of interactivity is the added time commitment and work burden placed upon journalists. But that’s a small price to pay for remaining relevant in the digital age.
What makes users interact?
The digital age has conditioned us so that people realize we no longer have to be the passive receptacles of content force fed from big media. We have a voice and something to say, and we’ve begun to express that voice on weblogs, in alternative media sources, and in the channels offered by traditional media. Nearly everyone prefers a conversation to a lecture, and the Net has transformed the traditional paradigm of packaged content delivered through one-way pipes into a new arrangement that is still taking shape.
Tossed that off fairly quickly. Readers can add additional comments, or cast aspersions, by clicking on Conversation.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
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