SoloJourno

This is a special report which was included in the Pew Project’s The State of the News Media 2009 (previously covered here):

From producing original content and commentary to sharing and ranking news produced by professionals, citizens became an even larger part of the daily news information flow in 2008.

To get a better sense of what citizen journalism sites (both news sites and blogs) offer and how they differ from websites tied to legacy media, a team of researchers from Michigan State University, the University of Missouri and the University of North Carolina embarked on a two-part study, “Tracking and Analyzing Community News Models,” funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Knight Foundation.

One oft-cited appeal of citizen journalism is that it gives voice to average citizens, allowing them to contribute to daily news in a way that was not possible before the Internet. The new study, however, suggests that is far from universal. In particular, citizen-run blogs (traditionally those offering primarily commentary and links) trailed far behind other kinds of sites in every aspect of allowing users to post their own information. Citizen news sites, on the other hand (those producing original reporting), have embraced this more fully, even outpacing legacy sites.

Read the rest of this report.