This study comparing citizen journalism and traditional newspaper reporting has drawn lots of discussion on Twitter, but is not readily available online. Below is a copy posted to Scribd by Goran Rizaov.
UPDATE: After first just putting this up to make it available, I’ve looked through it and have some thoughts.
This study is disappointing on a few levels. It’s not a study of citizen journalism and newspaper journalism. It’s a study of citizen journalism sites and newspaper sites. So that’s a bit limiting and doesn’t approach some more interesting issues of what kind of coverage they produce.
Also, the study asks the wrong question: “Can A citizen journalism site replace A newspaper site” (emphasis mine). Well that’s just not what’s happening in the real world, and not what we should be studying. The right question is, can an open, amateur system with endless capacity for growth and specialization, as a whole, replace or complement the one newspaper site in town.
For example, the study records whether each individual citizen site or blog was updated that day, and then notes that the newspaper site is updated every day. Well, fine. But take them as a whole, and you’ll see that of all the citizen sites and blogs, a lot of them are posting updates on any given day, and possibly in much larger volume, diversity and relevance than the one newspaper site.
The study identified only 86 newsish blogs and 53 citizen journalism sites in 46 markets. It studied 63 newspaper sites in those 46 markets. That ratio: 139 citizen sites to 63 newspaper sites, suggests the citizen sites are undercounted to begin with. Here in Washington, D.C., where we are building a network of citizen blogs to collaborate with our TBD.com news startup, there are several newspaper sites, but several hundred local blogs covering topics and communities. We have more than 90 signed up as partners. A proper study of 46 markets across the country should be looking at thousands of citizen sites, not 139.
Newspaper Research Journal Study
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