There is much confusion over the hype vs. reality of collaborative news and interactive technology’s impact. What is out there? How should the emergence of these innovations be analyzed? How do they differ from the communication and knowledge offered by traditional news formats? How do they change the engagement of citizens to each other and to societal issues? And following from any resolution to this confusion, how can they be used to improve news media for the future? The scope of this paper cannot fully address all these questions, but it will provide a starting outline on some.

Many in the news industry have been fretting over the emergence of bloggers. Nervous headlines tinted with fear and loathing raised the common question of who qualifies as a legitimate journalist, (the subtext, of course, being would the profession of journalism survive). While some have relegated bloggers to the sidebar, concluding that the old news giants with their resources (and own reporters now blogging too) would continue to reign, bloggers were just the beginning. A scaleable, next generation of We Media has emerged. While traditional news media are finally dipping their toes in the waters and paying attention, most are still far from understanding and adopting what is happening at the edges. In the growing mass of voices, the key players who will organize the clutter and engage the voices (now also the eyeballs) are still being determined. Those who figure out how to best aggregate and distill the cacophony will win a loyal base. Those who also figure out how to create sustained conversations among the distilled sound will win a potentially powerful base.

The news industry is undergoing a period of transformation. Some academics have been looking at recent initiatives by traditional news media that incorporate blogging and other forms of interaction. This study focuses on the other end, at emerging collaborative news organizations where the degree of innovation is most dramatic. Primary examples include (but are not limited to) OhMyNews, Wikinews, Global Voices, Digg, Slashdot, Newsvine, and Now Public. These models offer a basis for interesting comparisons between innovative structures and formats. As predominately online entities, they also offer useful inferences about the entry of Internet goliaths such as Yahoo and Google that are increasingly playing in the space of news content. Moreover, unlike Technorati and other algorithm based news aggregators, these sites offer an interesting view of the human dynamics at play in what is too often seen as a 0s and 1s programmed sphere.

During the past few months, I've been attempting to understand the successes and challenges of these collaborative news sites and their structures. Through the rest of this paper, I attempt to make more concrete the manner and degree to which these emerging models alter the nature of news/information, the creation of community, and the role of individuals beyond that of a spectator. In short, the extent to which any of this hype is true and matters.

Study Components

In Part I, the background context that’s feeding the emergence of these websites is briefly described. Next, conceptual frameworks are introduced to provide one way of analyzing the structure of collaborative news engagement and community. This is followed by a rudimentary format analysis of a few key examples and feedback from real world practitioners on some of the challenges currently faced.

In Part II, discussion of a large-scale survey adds texture to an often un-examined piece of the puzzle -- how and why people value and use these collaborative sites. Mapping those cited behaviors and values against alternative site structures provides useful inferences on the strengths and weaknesses of recent innovations. While time did not allow a detailed dive, an overview is established from which to discuss how the sphere of news and conversation has shifted.

To recap, there are three main pieces to this study on which discussion is based.

I) Establishment of a conceptual framework

II) Format analysis of key examples

III) Large-scale survey of users (3,167 responses), interviews with website executives (8)

The Limitations of Popular Anecdotes

There is much hype in every direction about the potential promises and problems in the next generation of participatory news and interactive technology. While some focus on the prospects for public empowerment, others focus on the veracity of information, and still others focus on the benefits of community. Three short stories exemplify these popular assertions:

Anecdote One: “Every Citizen Is A Reporter”

Oft-credited with balancing the political debate and altering the course of the 2002 presidential election for underdog, Roh Moo-hyun, the website OhmyNews has changed the news media ecology in South Korea. [1] Since its humble, but ambitious beginnings in 2000, OhmyNews now mobilizes 41,000 citizen contributors.[2] Capturing the enthusiasm of 20 to 30 year olds, OhmyNews registered 20 million hits a day in a country of 42 million during that rough and tumble election period. [3] Aside from its political and journalistic accolades (ranked 6^th most influential news organization by Sisa Journal), this year OhmyNews also heard a loud “cha-ching” from investors -- a note sounding to the tune of $11 million from Softbank, which will contribute to the enterprise’s international expansion.[4] Aptly the poster child for citizen journalism, excitement is brewing as its founder Oh Yeon Ho proclaims, “The traditional paper says ‘I produce, you read’ but we say ‘we produce and we read and we change the world together.’”[5]

Anecdote Two: “Who Killed J.F. Kennedy?”

Last year, John Siegenthaler Sr., found himself on the pages of Wikipedia (the world’s biggest encyclopedia written and edited by the public), implicated in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. The former special assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and founder of the First Amendment Center, was put in the awkward position of tracking down the prankster who posted the false entry.[6] Around the same time Digg.com, a website also open to public posting, experienced a similar incident. Someone calling himself 'KoolAidGuy' gamed their system. Using multiple accounts, he succeeded in promoting false stories, such as “Google acquiring Sun Microsystems” onto the front page.[7] Both incidents were eventually identified and flagged, however critics sounded the alarm bells, predicting that scammers would manipulate stock prices and spread misinformation. As Digg and Wikipedia offshoot, Wikinews, seek to establish themselves among a larger public, the shadow of these stories continue to cast a cloud on their credibility.

Anecdote Three: “Who Wants to Know about Life as a Rubber Man?”

On October 28, 2005 a seventeen year old from Indiana wrote a 565 word post on CurrentTV’s discussion board about his life with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. “Long story short I have joint hypermobility and skin-hyperplasticity. Long words meaning that my body is about as flexible as rubber.” Wanting to reach collaborators for producing a story about living with this condition, he asked “Any rubber men or women out there in cyberspace right now?”[8] Based on the post, someone emailed Current TV, an online and cable channel started by former Vice President Al Gore that airs viewer created content, asking for an introduction. CurrentTV connected the two through email, and they are now working together on a pod about the disease.[9]

Which anecdote is the relevant beginning to the larger narrative about the future of the public’s relationship with news and information? The future usually defies prediction, but we can be fairly certain that these anecdotes are only parts of the story. The current reality is that these storylines are still being drafted. A review of current collaborative websites makes evident the inaccuracy of characterizing these spaces as forums where all voices necessarily have the chance to become equals. Also premature is the presumption that participation when offered is readily taken. On the more promising side of the coin, rampant misinformation without the watchful filtering of professional reporters and editors is far from the status quo. In the eyes of current users, differentiated, accurate, and valued news is being shared and discussed. In the process, a sense of loyalty and community within these sites is taking shape. Parts I and II detail this more nuanced reality.

Part I:

What’s Out There? Mapping A Corner of The Landscape

Writing this section is like stepping onto a shifting floor of landmines. Opinions and passions run strong. Little consensus exists, even among the website creators as to whether what has emerged can be defined as journalism, news, or merely opinionated conversation. Equally challenging is the fact that this infant space is a moving spectrum rather than static spot. Sites continue to evolve as a growing number of new sites enter the field. However, it is also exactly because of this complex seeding that making sense of what is out there proves useful for both those trying to evolve the wheel and those trying to create new wheels from recycling broken ones.

Focusing on a few key examples, the following section briefly outlines some basic models.

Backing Up: Understanding The Context

Onto the Pages of Traditional News Media

A quick Lexis search on the term “blog” over a month long period yields a sizable number of articles mentioned in traditional news media: 81 in the New York Times, 75 in the Washington Post, 123 in The Guardian, 57 in the LA Times, 21 in USA Today, and 16 in Newsweek.[a]

A Blogosphere that’s Big and Getting Bigger

Technorati currently tracks 27.2 million weblogs. According to them the blogosphere doubles about every 5.5 months and is over 60 times bigger than it was only 3 years ago.[10] On the consuming side, Pew Research found that 27% of Internet users (32 million Americans) say they read blogs. That represents a 58% jump from earlier in 2004.[11]

[12]

Thus, one can cut the data several ways, and take it with a grain of salt, but across the board, evidence points to a world where blogs (and interactive tools) are growing and attracting the attention of both the public and mainstream media.

A Lesson in Economics: “The Long Tail”

Several trends work to temper the revolutionary rhetoric about these burgeoning numbers. In particular media experts note the existence of a “long tail.” While a few superstar blogs (colored red on the graph) such as Boing Boing, Engadget, and Daily Kos have risen above the crowd, most blogs remain in relative obscurity.

[13]

Slept Through/ Never Took Econ101

Regardless of economics, perhaps people don’t care about being in that long tail. The number of posts keeps rising – creating a noisy but interesting and potentially powerful dynamic of occasional group attention, engagement, and information exchange across a wide scope of topics.

[14]

Social Networking and Tagging: the Rise of MySpace, Flickr, RSS, and del.icio.us

Controversial in its own right, MySpace has been characterized[b] as rivaling Google in page hits, helping some unknown bands make a few fans along the way.[15] Increasingly relevant in the future are the growing set of tools taking hold to broadcast and better organize those at that far end of the tail to at least a few people they care about (and a few new “friends”.)

So where does this context leave collaborative news models? The quick answer: with a growing opportunity to highlight and connect in new ways.

Circling Back: Some Definitions

The ubiquity of blog publishing software, especially with their adoption into popular social networking sites such as MySpace, makes blogs the obvious first thought in connection with We Media. Despite their growing ubiquity, this study is not examining blogs (at least not directly).

Think of Google as an Analogy

What made Google rise to power was its ability to make sense out of the vast information pit on the Web. Similarly, individual blogs can be viewed as the beta version of Web 2.0 We Media. The next generation is stepping up to pick out the relevant gems and organize the growing clutter of voices. Harnessing the voices of bloggers (and others netizens) along with new technologies, emerging collaborative news websites are moving beyond the beta version and mashing together alternative sources of content. In various degrees they are allowing the public to define and create what is news while simultaneously establishing a mechanism to organize, interact with, and sort through the noise.

Defining Participatory Media

Outside of blogs, in the new media ecology there are numerous ways for citizen’s to engage in the production, distribution, and discussion of news and information. Bowman and Willis provide a useful taxonomy of platforms for participatory media including discussion groups, user-generated content (via web-based forms, emails, feedback systems), peer-to-peer applications, weblogs, XML syndication, and collaborative publishing.[16] This paper narrows in on this last group (which increasingly encapsulates the others).

Defining Collaborative News Models

Axel Bruns provides a short and sweet definition of collaborative news websites as “news sites which largely rely on their users as information gatherers, editors, or commenters.”[17] He further notices that collaborative online news production falls on a continuum including meta-blogs, blog network channels, group blogs, and individual blogs.

All of this terminology is dizzying, however to avoid confusion, I will further specify. The collaborative news sites I follow in this study have the following characteristics:

Allows the public to contribute in content sourcing, production, distribution, and/or discussion (this includes writing/posting, commenting, flag/tag/rating, and/or editing).
Is a central place where content is aggregated, managed, published, and/or supplemented (regardless of whether all content is hosted on the site server or not.)
As opposed to algorithm based meta-blogs and aggregators, the filtering is driven by human decisions (perhaps aided by programming.)

This is a narrowed yet still broad sub-category. More significantly, this corner of the news media ecology has implications for both offline and online, purely human and purely technology-driven models. These websites create what Howard Rheingold called virtual communities and provide rich material for discussion on the implications of group engagement with the news.

Reassessing What is “News”

One last housekeeping note: I remain hesitant to apply any labels, but it is hard to talk about a subject without giving it a name. Thus, a final caveat to the word choice of news rather than journalism. Bowman and Willis define “participatory journalism” as “the act of a citizen or group of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.”[18] J.D. Lasica notes the very slippery, contentious, and multi-faceted nature of any definition of that phrase.[19]

While some of the websites this study examines characterize their efforts as citizen journalism, others do not. In fact, the landmines are largely over this debate of roles and definitions. For the purposes of this work, whether the information exchanged and engaged with through these collaborative sites possesses all those qualities of participatory journalism as outlined by Bowman and Willis is open to examination and evolution. The idea that the end result is information that a democracy requires to be free and self-governed is one of the hopes some enthusiasts envision for these new media platforms. In my working definition, news is fresh information (whether social, political, or cultural). Part of delving into an examination of these collaborative communities is to better understand their own sense of what if anything that information and interaction means in relationship to journalism and society.

Developing a Conceptual Framework

Some Ideas Borrowed

In analyzing participatory journalism models, Bowman and Willis note that one key factor impacting the nature of participation is the degree of openness.[20]

Axel Bruns uses a slightly different set of categories, also loosely based on the idea of openness, in classifying collaborative online news production. He identifies seven criteria:

Participation at Input Stage (ability to contribute material)
Participation at Output Stage (ability to edit “to be published” material)
Participation at Response Stage (ability to comment, extend, filter, or edit published content)
Centrality of Gatewatching[c] (focus on original news vs. commentary of gatewatched news)
Fixed roles (extent of specific roles in the production process)
Mobility of Peers (the ability for participants to rise or fall in status depending on their contribution behavior on the site)
Centrality of the Organization (centralized vs. decentralized technological and institutional setup supporting the site)

Using these criteria he points out a continuum between approaches on collaborative news websites: Closed Gatewatching, Supervised Gatewatching, Editor-assisted Gatewatching, and Open News.[21]

An Expanded Framework

Adapting these ideas, collaborative news websites can be analyzed on two broad dimensions:

(1) The features structuring participation & production, and

(2) The features structuring community

Framework

Features Structuring Participation and Production

Aside from the presence or absence of staff editors, other features that determine the structure of participation and production (aka. openness) are the submission system, the ratings system, and the commenting & feedback system. Not every site has these feature systems/interfaces and those that do vary in design. As the diagram illustrates, with the added overlay of these website features, the structures of participation and production fit fairly neatly into the continuum of categories that Axel Bruns outlines.

Editor-Based Models

Sites such as Global Voices, OhmyNews, Slashdot, and Greensboro101 rely on editors to filter and publish both original and gatewatched content. The definition of editing varies. While OhmyNews works to fact and style check, especially in the case of Global Voices, the definition of editing focuses on picking out the important stories[d] whose content remains in the hands of the source.

Submission systems: While Global Voices has its 10 trusted regional editors scouring the blogosphere to find and point to the best and brightest voices, OhmyNews, Slashdot, and Greensboro101 have submission bins for individuals to propose particular stories.[e] Greensboro101 also allows direct RSS feeds into its local blogs section.
Rating/Feedback systems: On the response end, all have basic commenting features. Greensboro101 also allows community ratings of articles, where those ranked below 6 are hidden. Slashdot, perhaps the benchmark of the industry, has a very elaborate ratings system tied to comments (versus articles) and a member reputation system in which individuals are granted “Karma.”[f] These moderation systems influence the prominence of comments published. In this respect, especially for Slashdot, the moderation system extends the editor role (for comments) beyond the small staff and to the community.

Community-Based Models

While administrators (usually the site creators) still exist to address website issues (such as problematic accounts that may require blocking), community-based models devolve the editor role more completely from the staff to the user community.

Submission systems: Moving down the continuum, sites like Digg, Newsvine, CurrentTV, NowPublic, and Metafilter allow submissions direct to publishing (for those who register with a login/account).[g] Wikinews is the exception in also allowing for anonymous posting.

Rating/Feedback systems: On Digg, Newsvine, and CurrentTV there are multiple views to allow users to see the latest stories, however in general stories rise to prominent placement based on user votes. These sites, similar to Slashdot, offer various systems for rating articles and comments (indirectly authors). In fact Newsvine is even sporting a new term “newsonomy” to describe its vote-based system of classifying and promoting content.

Taking a less electoral approach, NowPublic, Metafilter and Wikinews leave off the explicit rating/ranking system. Especially on Wikinews, individuals are offered greater initial leeway to post where they please. This is not to say however that feedback mechanisms are absent. All of these sites provide mechanisms for user comments, and even discussion. Wikinews, in particular, also invites users to tag/flag problematic articles. Similarly, while not based on direct voting, tagging an article’s “meaning” on NowPublic indirectly enables public expression of community preferences.[h]

Tradeoffs

Depending on the size of the community, editors can be a bottleneck, slowing down the pace and overall volume of coverage. A quick look at the number of articles published per day on Digg compared to Global Voices can testify to that scale dynamic. Close to traditional media models, editor-based structures of production also face similar criticisms of more censorship (limited perspective unavoidable in being individuals rather than a diverse mass). Some of these editor-based models are becoming hybrids (perhaps in recognition and response to these criticisms). For example Greensboro101 has a newswire section on the right hand bar that side steps the editor filtering. Similarly, Slashdot introduced Journals where the community members’ postings are automatically listed.

Interestingly, aside from OhmyNews, the editors on these websites do not provide an additional fact-checking mechanism, the major criticism levied against open community-based models. The editor-based sites rely on the same theory that multiple eyeballs will catch and fix the mistakes, and that greater perspectives increase, rather than decrease, the awareness of bias and misinformation. Again more will be discussed later, but as a starting thought, in part how prone a site is to misinformation and how fast inaccuracies are identified and corrected goes back to the conceptual framework, the features of the moderation system and the activeness of the community.

Features Structuring Community

This brings us to the second dimension raised, the structure of community. The features that influence the sense of community on the website is worthy of further dissection, especially as “social news websites” becomes yet another buzzword.

Robert Putnam provides several ways of thinking about social capital and its formation. In general the idea is that social capital is a public and private good that encourages reciprocation and trust.[22] While reputation systems (akin to Ebay) are one way of conveying and establishing trust, there are multiple ways to build a community.

Applied to this online world, stronger bonds between certain individuals can lead to the suppression of smaller dissident voices or a narrowing of what news is viewed / shared / discussed despite the presence of a larger community. More generally the extent to which people are tied to the site can have various implications on continued growth and sustainability.

Given the implications of community, two social dimensions on which to examine website features is the extent to which they contribute to People-based versus Site-based community.

Site-Based features

Part of what differentiates collaborative news models from traditional news media are features that create transparency and conversation with the website. For example, Digg and Wikinews have blog and/or wiki sections (digg theblog and wiki Watercooler) where administrators fairly openly discuss development problems and progress. On Wikinews, the Watercooler allows community members to join (or start new) discussions about policies and technical issues. In some circumstances, community members can even vote on new directions the site should take.[23] Some of this exchange may also happen offline. Greensboro101 board meetings are held before monthly MeetUp sessions, where members of the hyper local site can go and speak to each other in person.[24]

While the laundry list of platforms will not be discussed in detail, aside from creating transparency, these features enable the entire community to “meet” each other as a group. As will be elaborated on in the survey discussion, far from the whole user community participates in and/or even views these features, however these mechanisms are known and available options for members to feel a sense of group ownership and belonging.

People-Based features

A related dynamic is the degree to which these sites allow users to establish an identity (and others to find it). Personal profiles make visible particular individuals and their track histories (success or sheer number of articles read, submitted, commented on, and even tagged). These profiles create the potential for peer-to-peer connections. On Digg, if members chose to leave personal details, others can contact them or visit their website. More commonly, the profiles play into the nature of news dissemination and conversation.[i]

Although, not quite analogous to Kristof, Koppel, and other traditional star reporters, these profiles can shape air time and draw attention to the most prolific and popular individuals. Case in point, Digg provides a ranked list of its top users. Observation over a month long period suggests that certain profiles such as “Albertpacino” consistently appear among the top.[j] In a similar fashion, association features such as Slashdot’s “Friends” and “Foes” narrows the larger public forum by enabling people to choose and pay particular attention to a smaller set of key people.

These features serve important functions of reputation building that benefit the entire community. Moreover, beyond the collaborative filtering, they provide a secondary mechanism (borrowing from the viral “Amazon recommends” concept) for finding the crème of relevance. However, it is important to note the inaccuracy of characterizing these spaces as forums where all voices necessarily have the chance to become equals.

Strategies From the Real World: A Bit More on Why Communities Matter

For all the enthusiasm over the success of OhmyNews, and the explosive growth of sites such as Digg, signs of sputtering also exist. Kuro5hin.org, a collaborative site that broke off from Slashdot never sustained the degree of traction that its predecessor enjoys.[25] Dan Gillmor’s experience with Bayosphere also hinted that attracting a community is far from guaranteed.[26]

Getting a Critical Mass

When asked if a critical mass was required for a site to be sustainable, most executives agreed that a base of dedicated members was crucial, but need not be a large percent of the underlying community.[k] In the view of Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of Global Voices, “The simple math is however much to have at least one interesting piece of content per day... It’s also pretty rare in group blogs that all people are hitting equally. The truth is the critical mass is smaller than you think.”

However something must help spark their coming. As Mark Potts, Executive Director of Backfence, a network of hyperlocal sites notes:

“You HAVE to be in the community, every day. This is not a "build it and they will come" situation... We have part-timers and advisory boards in every community helping us do outreach, and other members of our staff are talking to member/contributors every day to get them to post about what they know is going on around town--I call it being a virtual city editor.”

Most other sites are not taking the same active recruitment approach (using primarily awareness marketing instead), however some are trying a different strategy, easing the barriers to entry. CurrentTV has focused on detailed online training in its “Survival Guide” as a means to widen the set of contributors beyond the film-trained. As their Online Studio Director shares, “Current is predicated on the idea that equipment and editing software costs have come down, however the skill level to produce a fully edited, flushed out piece is still not something that everyone can do yet.” Similarly, Newsvine CEO, Michael Davidson notices,

“For as much talk as there is about participation and the new web, consumption of media will always outweigh production of it.... The brain activity required to quickly scan a blog or post a news article is orders of magnitude less than coming up with a thoughtful, accretive response. For this reason, it's important to allow and foster levels of interaction that fall far below that of leaving a comment or writing an article. The act of voting, for instance, requires a simple click… The key to Newsvine's success, moving forward, is allowing the full spectrum of interaction to occur…”

In short, when thinking about these websites, even if a community is attracted, site features influence how many and who’s voices get raised.

Involvement in Baby Steps

Debate exists about whether the mass-scaled, group-based collaborative news efforts of Digg and Slashdot will translate into the non-techie world and other news subjects. The broader public and later adopters may not be as eager to take on cumbersome tasks with unfamiliar names like “meta-moderation”. As Davidson implied, newer sites such as Newsvine and NowPublic address this challenge by offering a range of tools such as the Newsvine’s “Seed Button,” which makes it literally a push of a button to add one’s perspective. Users drag a button onto their browser toolbar and, when they see something that they like, can “point to” the article which then gets pulled back to the website for the community to supplement with their own comments and links. Another strategy has been to provide a starting point. Rather than launching with a blank slate, Newsvine opened its doors to the Associated Press and ESPN content feeds.

“It is very important, however, to fill your site up with great content before you have this critical mass... I think this is one of the most common mistakes citizen media sites make: the thought that the average news consumer will be satisfied by a purely user-generated body of content... especially at such an early stage. As the quality and quantity of our user- contributed content increases, you will likely see the overall news mix on the site adjust to reflect this.”

It is worth noting that many of the models looked at in this study do not use these strategies to attract audience and encourage participation, yet a community has still emerged.[l]

A Rough Map: Identifying what is Distinct about a Given Model

Thus with these real world perspectives and the conceptual framework in mind, the identification of certain features help to differentiate and broadly group the growing number of collaborative news websites dotting the digital landscape. More practically relevant, whether and how features (indirectly the structures of participation, production, and community) correlate to site activity and user values can have implications for where to direct innovation and improvement.[m]

Part II:

What Do They Think? Surveying the Community

A good deal of guesswork surrounds media accounts of who this community is and why it is growing. In the debate over the merits vs. dangers and importance vs. insignificance of participatory media, ironically, a deeper look into what the community itself thinks about the websites and what they seek from that involvement is often glossed over. While VCs and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley (and elsewhere) are rushing to Web 2.0 conferences, and, to their forward-thinking credit, brainstorming Web 3.0 (MySpace + Del.icio.us + Ebay + Wikipedia +…), for who and what purpose are they investing?

In part, the survey findings serve to put some concreteness around the merits of characterizing these communities as wanna-be-journalists trying to springboard from their pajamas or anarchists seeking to overthrow all order. (Sneak preview: they are not.) More importantly, the surveys’ intent is to provide an initial sweep at understanding how users value these collaborative news sites and the current motivations and barriers to involvement. Indirectly, it perhaps also sheds some light on what is missing but valued about news and associated public discourse.

Methodology

Online surveys were conducted in two waves. In the first wave[n], after obtaining agreement from website operators, tailored surveys were posted as sustained links on the websites’ front pages or distributed once through community listserves. In the second wave, links to a general survey[o] were posted on several prominent/popular websites. (See Appendix, Exhibit A for survey questions and design details.) Cumulatively, 3,167 responses were collected. Depending on the question, responses were pulled from the analysis set due to sampling issues, duplication, or entry error.[p]

Several notable weaknesses to the survey limit the ability to conclusively generalize from the results:

The largest methodological issue is its non-random sampling. Given the lack of any existing, comprehensive name/email lists, convenience samples were taken. This self-selection raises concern that the sample does not reflect the underlying population. Indeed, the respondents were high-involvement, over 89% visited the website at least daily. On a broader level, there is also the question of how applicable early adopters are to later adopters (the general population). Despite these issues, given the developing stage of many of these websites, the sample population still reflects a highly relevant group with a developed opinion on the central research questions.

A second area of concern is the broad nature of the questions. Given time and resource constraints, I was limited in question design and the ability to pre-test concepts and wording. The survey was designed to provide a cursory glance in identifying any large patterns for how and why users value collaborative news sites (and in particular differences between websites). Further research is needed to dig in and qualify the general responses (e.g. the detail of what it means that a respondent “joined an online or offline group to learn more or take further action on an issue” based on his/her experience on the website). For now, I can only supplement with individual anecdotes. In hindsight, there are also relevant, interesting considerations that I missed (e.g. asking about country of origin, who already had an external blog, or who interacted with the website solely via their RSS readers). The open-ended responses filled in some of those blanks, but point to room for deeper exploration.

A related issue was the requirement to pick a particular site. As noted earlier, the rationale was for subsequent cross-comparisons between websites. However, some users visit more than one site, and the survey did not provide a neat avenue for people to convey that behavior. That data would have been useful in evaluating responses, especially on the general survey, for those who may have had difficulty limiting their answers solely around the site they specified.

Finally, one last issue worthy of note was the uneven response volume across websites. Partially that was expected and inherent to the differing community traffic sizes. However, it did make statistically significant comparisons across sites (required margins of error) hard to meet. For most of the analysis and discussion, the websites are aggregated into groups: ALL, Just_Tech, Just_News, ALL_exceptTech, and Hyper-local.

Those caveats given, the survey offers some revealing data on how and why some of the most active members of these communities participate in and value these collaborative news sites. From a practical vantage point, to match the rhetoric of any revolution, for the construction of virtual spaces that can attract, empower, and sustain community, these opinions matter.

Summary of Survey Results

Is it about the soapbox? the toolbox? the information? or the company? Rarely are desires black and white, but the series of survey questions attempted to pinpoint the shade out of that spectrum of gray, the primary benefits these websites provide.

Even online, these attributes exist on other platforms. What is it about these particular soapboxes? toolboxes? information? and company? In what ways are they perceived as different from alternative platforms to provide added-value? In particular, with regard to information, whether these websites are primary vs. supplemental and didactic vs. discursive sources of information have implications on how they fall into the current news media ecology.

Who Are We Talking About: Some Demographics

Heavily male, especially for tech-related news. 87% of the respondents were male. However there was a significant difference[q] between the tech-news sites and other news sites in that ratio, an average of 94% compared to 74%.

Across the board younger (than traditional media), but site-specific (rather than content-specific) differences. Overall, 25% were aged 0-21, 52% aged 22-34, 20% aged 35-55 and only 2.5% were 55+. Again, demographics varied by site. Driving up the youthful average was the technology news site Digg, with 37% of respondents under 21. In contrast, the hyper-local sites had the least number of respondents, 1%, under 21. However, it would be hasty to ascribe tech news vs. non-tech news as the determining factor to the variations. The two biggest tech news websites in the sample, Slashdot and Digg, had significantly different age breakdowns.

Older women with younger men. While the 22-34 year olds could roughly pair off, there were significantly less women under 21 and significantly more over 34 than men. However, this difference was largely correlated with the large number of young men on Digg. When males from Digg were taken out of the All_Males set, the age differences were no longer significant.[r]

How Committed Are They: Some Notes in Usage Behavior

An active, high-involvement group of respondents.

- Over 89% visited the websites at least daily. This daily exposure was especially high for tech news websites (89%) compared to hyper-local sites (60%). General news websites showed significant variations, suggesting that site structures can produce sizable differences in the particular stories showcased and how people engage with the same categorical subject matter. For example, in the sample 58.6% were daily visitors at Wikinews vs. 90.5% on a composite of Fark, Reditt, and Newsvine.

- Overall, 100% read articles, 94% read comments, 62% posted comments, 56% flagged/tagged/or rated content or users, 25% wrote content, 8% edited content, and 35% read/posted/commented on discussions concerning the site’s development. While the rates of reading were fairly constant across sites, participation in other areas (notably writing and flag/tag/rating) varied across sites. Again, site design plays a role in facilitating certain kinds of participation, as exemplified by the differences in percentage writing content on Digg (26%) and Slashdot (13%), which have slight variations in posting of submissions.[s]

Again some differences between men and women. While the majority of women surveyed visited daily, women were significantly less likely than men to visit everyday, 79% vs. 90%. Although similar in some forms of participation, they were also less likely to post comments (50% vs. 63%), flag/tag/rate (41% vs. 58%), or edit content[t] (5% vs. 9%).[u]

Largely unprompted viewing. The vast majority, 82%, indicated that they check the website regularly. Roughly 7% specified that they visited when prompted by RSS.[v] While barely statistically significant, it is worthwhile to note that a handful of general news sites (in particular Wikinews, OhMyNews, and Global Voices) seemed to have a greater “touch” outside of its regular community, with more people indicating a visit prompted by web search results, online links, or word of mouth.

How Do They Seek

Still going where directed (even if this time guided by the Crowd). Overall most, 72%, browse around (rather than actively looking for specific information) and largely gravitate towards the featured and latest stories, 67%. While directionally similar, reading the latest and greatest holds less true for non-tech news collaborative sites, 56% compared to 75%. (This could also be because of a less good job at spotlighting).

Pulled by the Story, not that Special Person. Aside from featured articles, more people indicated that they read for a specific issue/topic, 31%, then for particular members’ articles, 6%. While overall, the number reading for a specific geography was small, 3%, a handful of sites, most notably those with international general news coverage, indicated a larger percent, ranging from 17% to 55%, reading for coverage of particular areas.

Multiple potential pointers. Although the number choosing “Other” was small, 3.4%, some additional primary seeking behaviors mentioned included reading RSS highlighted articles, reading others’ latest comments, looking for content related to administrative duties, and checking up on their own written material. A handful mentioned socially based selections such as reading what friends were looking at, checking in the chat areas, or reading what a friend had emailed.

Why Do They Seek Here: Primary Uses

For a fix of unique, informative fun. 84.7% stated that their primary use for the website was “personal interest and entertainment”. A majority, 60.1%, also indicated that the website acted as a “primary source of information/news they can’t get elsewhere”.

- While in most cases personal interest and entertainment was still the most popular reason, the JustNews (71.3%) and hyper-local sites (64.5%) composites had less indicating it as serving that primary purpose. The most significant exception was Global Voices where only 30% indicated that reason and other uses held greater relevance.

Also filling in the blanks. A role as a source of “supplemental information on news first learned elsewhere” was indicated by 26.4%. Notably the role as a primary vs. supplemental source of information was stronger for certain sites, in particular tech news sites (with 64.9% reading for primary news and 23.5% reading for supplement) compared to hyper-local news sites (with a flipped dynamic in which 32.9% read for primary information and 47.4% read for supplement). While less extreme in difference and directionally the same as tech news websites, general news websites also had less indicating it as a source of primary (45.9%) vs. supplemental (39.3%) news information.

- Again, any hasty deduction that it is solely about tech vs. non-tech news is premature.[w] There was a 10-point, significant difference between the two major technology news websites in people indicating it as a supplemental source of information. This falls in line with the now familiar refrain: site features encourage certain types of information exchange.

Teaching and sharing come after learning. 17.5% stated a primary use as a “tool for reporting news and information I learn/discover” and 15% indicated a primary use as a “tool for connecting to people with similar concerns.” Again differences existed between individual websites. As a group, the most notable outlier was hyper-local sites, where 27.6% indicated use as a tool for reporting and 34.2% highlighted the connection to people with similar concerns.

Some practical applications. 13.1% specified a primary use as a “research tool for professional or academic purposes.” Among the 2.4% who indicated “Other”, a handful noted practical uses including sparking story ideas, researching for trends, and utilization as an advocacy tools. Consistent with the most frequently mentioned benefit, a few qualified their responses noting usefulness in quickly finding value-added information (including multiple angles and opinions). “It's a filter. I know I'll get a certain type of news that I won't get anywhere…”(2-S, #75)

Trading Off: What Do Users Most Value

charts

Again about the unique information. When asked to rank 7 attributes, “outside of mainstream or under-covered information” (average rank of 2.27) was valued the most.[x]

Access to multiple perspectives (which create that uniqueness). This was followed by “aggregation of various voices on one site” (3.32), “ summary of what various voices are saying” (3.59), and public/citizen first person perspectives (3.68).[y]

Individual learning over group edification. Confirming the primary use identified in the previous question, “Ability to report information I learn/discover” (4.76) and “A community to facilitate becoming more involved in an issue” (4.68) were ranked further down. [z] [aa]

Little gained from the pros. The least valued attribute was “ability to communicate with reporters and editors. (5.70) It is unclear whether this lowest ranked attribute is because people do not want that type of connection, or whether the collaborative news sites just do not offer that type of exchange (well). If it is the former reason, traditional media might wish to take a second look at any online strategy resting largely on giving their reporters a keyboard.

- While still ranking it as lowest out of the seven attributes, relatively higher valuations for conversing with reporters and editors came from OhmyNews, Global Voices, and Wikinews. Given their structure of production, these are also the sites that likely require more exchange during the writing process and before publishing.

Credibility

Legit. An overwhelming majority judged the websites the same (48.6%) if not better (37.9%) in credibility next to mainstream news media. Only 13.5% ranked the websites as less credible. A few general news sites had particularly high credibility ratings.

Not Just Touting Their Own Horns. Obviously, it’s tempting to argue that this is far from earth shattering. After all, the majority of these respondents are active contributors who would otherwise be calling themselves un-credible. Further analysis suggests this is not the case. Taking a cross section of those who write content[bb] in comparison to those who do not actively contribute in any way (not even in flag/tag/or rating), the credibility rankings remain very similar, with only 12.4% of non-contributors rating these collaborative sites as less credible than MSM and 87.6% rating them the same or more credible. Not completely self-deprecating, writers were more likely to judge these sites as being more credible.

On Aesthetics

More pleasing and convenient to the eye. While nothing was rated as “poor,” when asked to rate each website’s interface (display and organization / ease of finding relevant news) collaborative news sites were rated above both traditional newspapers’ online interface and the news section of search engines (an average score of 1.37 vs. 1.90 and 2.28).

Do They Make Friends: To What Extent A Politicizing Force

Discovering an issue. An overwhelming 90% indicated that based on the experience on the website, they had “taken a further interest in an issue”. (Without comparable studies it is hard to understand if and how that interest differs from any generated by more traditional news platforms).

Socially bold online in new groups, less so with new persons especially in-person. Beyond being more interested, 37% joined an online group and 12% joined an offline group to learn more or take further action on an issue. Unfortunately it is unclear what kinds of groups and issues these are and how sustained those associations are. On a more personal level, 22% emailed or became online acquaintances with other members of the site and 9% engaged offline with members they met on the website.

The Social vs. Less Social

- The locals connect. New personal connections held particularly true of hyper-local sites, where 56% became online acquaintances and 50% became offline acquaintances with members they met on the site.

- Less to say in person on certain sites. In general, non-tech news sites forged more one-on-one connections and to a lesser extent more offline group connections than tech news focused sites. Within that bunch, more conventional news topics were associated with less one-on-one connections than sites with a greater potpourri of subjects such as Metafilter.[cc]

- After all, we work together. Aside from subject matter, it appeared that more active participation as article/content writers was associated with much greater forms of all types of online and offline connections.

Question: Based on your experience on the website have you...
Response Choice	ALL	ALLnoTech	JustTech	Local	NoContri	Nonwriters[dd]	Writers
Joined an online group to learn more or take further action on an issue	37.0%	39.0%	35.0%	24.3%	21.0%	32.0%	*50.0%*
Joined an off-line group to learn more or take further action on an issue	12.0%	*19.0%*	10.0%	*18.8%*	8.0%

Table of Contents

An Introduction