Citizen participation. On the way from the audience to the community in European news media

Kurzfassung/Abstract

“Citizen participation” is a multi-layered innovation field challenging editorial teams, as it includes aspects like audience interaction, professional journalistic work routines, technology knowledge, data protection, or media literacy. In the JoIn-DemoS project, citizen participation was identified as one of the 20 most relevant innovations in journalism in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. International participation initiatives in journalistic media are not only implemented to make more voices heard but also mainly as a strategic tool for – e.g., community building. Furthermore, citizen participation is seen as an opportunity to reverse the widespread loss of status of local journalism in the long term.