When contemplating engagement and involvement from the audience, many journalists will probably picture reactions AFTER publication: How do we get people to share, react to, and comment on our journalism?
But that is only one side of the coin when talking about dialogue-based journalism. The audience is a huge ressource, which can provide valuable input in all phases of the journalistic process. From idea, research and angle to production and distribution.
Journalists need different tools and methods when asking people to participate in the making of journalism. Most of these tools are neither new nor ground-breaking, but using them in this context adds a new purpose and a different timing to the process.
On this site we have listed some of the most important methods and tools that we provide and that frontrunner news outlets already use in their work in this field. Some go all in and have built entire business models around involving the audience, while others simply just apply some of these working methods into everyday habits. Let the list and the rest of this guide serve as inspiration. It is not an attempt to make a complete guide.
Ask people, what they want to know or what questions and curiosities they have. It can be on a specific topic or in general.
Asking the audience to participate in the research on a topic or a specific story. The audience can provide personal experiences, they can help observe and…
Teaching people from the community to be journalists, and be there as a journalistic backing group, where you help them with ethics, critical questions, research and…
Open editorial meetings are when media open up the editorial process and invite the audience to have a say in how the media should cover a…
A panel of a representative part of your audience or target group, which you can involve in various ways in your journalistic process. You can send…
Let a group from the audience see the journalistic production before publishing to give feedback on how they understand it, and if they are left with…
Follow the reactions in the comment sections on your social media platforms, and show your media’s presence by commenting and answering questions.
Investigating a community on societal issues and follow these over an extended period of time. Organising meet-ups and handing out questionnaires, to bring in a continuous…
Next to the more informal ways of being in dialogue with citizens, from time to time it is worthwhile to research the target audience in a…
Instead of focussing on the audience as one big group in one big conversation, allow the audience to gather in smaller communities based on interests or…
A group of members who follow your editorial process with whom you can discuss how to move forward. They can be a large panel of members…
Political questions, but also social topics and even memes are answered in the form of infographics in two to three slides. In doing so, the topics…
RUMS does local journalism via newsletters that subscribers receive in their inboxes. The newsletter is called Letter and is structured in exactly the same way -…
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