03 December 2007

Going Local – Really Local

Hyperlocal Web sites serve local needs, filling a void in news coverage

New media technology allows ordinary people in neighborhoods and small villages to create online information that is beneath the radar of traditional media like newspapers, TV, and radio. This micro-level approach to local happenings also enables citizens to organize around local issues. Thus a grass-roots foundation for political participation develops.

The late Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tip O’Neill said, “All politics is local.” Nowadays in the United States the seedbeds for budding politicians of all stripes are called citizen media sites, hyperlocal sites, placeblogs — online spots where residents of small communities write, photograph, and video themselves and the issues that concern them.

A 2007 survey of citizen media sites called them “intensely local,” providing the type of hometown, neighborhood news and views that larger press outlets don’t consider “news” or don’t have the staff resources to cover. The sites’ founders urge neighbors, friends, and associates to provide content that might resemble news, such as accounts of local events or issues, or that might be quite personal, like musings on the local scene, reviews of local services or businesses, or advice on crafts or local gardening techniques.

“They depend for their vitality on citizens sharing their thoughts, observations and experiences,” according to the survey conducted by the Institute for Interactive Journalism (J-Lab) at the University of Maryland. “Subjectivity prevails.”

Objectivity — not allowing one’s personal opinion to influence the reporting — has been a core ethic for American journalists for decades. But citizen media sites owe their existence to people who care about their communities and want to make them better. Their contributors often have no interest in cloaking their personal feelings behind a standard of objectivity.

The sites are as different as the towns and neighborhoods from which they arise. Online discussions might leap from announcement of a local school reunion, to local controversies, to vacation planning advice, to presidential politics.

“Citizen Media: Fad or the Future of News,” the study by the institute also known as J-Lab, reports that these hyperlocal sites really began to explode on the Web scene in 2005, but many experience a long, slow start-up period before community members really join in and start contributing a steady stream of content.

In 2003, two Web designers in the Vermont town of Brattleboro founded ibrattelboro.com. After six months producing most of the content with his partner, cofounder Christopher Grotke says the site gained a following of active community contributors. “For years now it’s been the citizens who are doing the writing and the ‘journalism,’” he said.

Generally speaking, the sites have a devoted readership, but it is frequently small, and their futures may not last far beyond the energies of a core group of founders and volunteers, the J-Lab study found.

How the sites sustain themselves is about as diverse as their content. The J-Lab itself has provided some micro-grants to get sites started, in keeping with its purpose to help news organizations and citizens use innovative technologies to promote discussion of public policy issues. Other citizen media sites are completely funded by their founders; others manage to pick up local advertising revenue.

“I think you’re going to see four or five [hyperlocal] sites per city in a few years and none will be permanent,” said Paul Bass, the founder of NewHavenIndependent.org, in his response to the J-Lab survey. “We’ll never be big operations. I think what will be long-term is the phenomenon” of citizen journalism.

-- Charlene Porter

Shaking up the Neighborhood Almost 200 hyperlocal citizen media sites responded to the J-Lab survey, offering the following responses regarding their effectiveness in influencing their communities: 82 percent provide opportunities for dialogue 61 percent maintain oversight of local government 39 percent help the community solve problems 27 percent increase voter turnout 17 percent increase the number of candidates running for office

 

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)