Madsen, Lizette

The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether public journalism can characterized as “actual” journalism. To do so the project focus on TV ØST, which is a Danish, regional television station and which formed “ØSTHOLDET” in 2015. This team of viewers has about 500 members, who on a voluntarily basis submit pictures and video clips from their everyday lives. Clips like these, interviews with the viewers’ editor and material gathered from three focus groups consisting of members from ØSTHOLDET make up the empirical data of this project, whereas the theoretical part is composed of various journalistic concepts (such as genres, content and parts), public journalism and news criteria. The analysis uses TV ØST as case and it is based on three elements: 1) the distribution of parts among the members (citizens) and the journalists, 2) examples of pieces, which are produced by members, and journalists in cooperation with each other and 3) what the members of ØSTHOLDET define as a good, local story. The analysis reveals that the form of public journalism used by TV ØST falls into the categories of participatory journalism and partial/limited citizen journalism. The analysis also shows how the items from ØSTHOLDET primarily document minor incidents of everyday life and often resemble notices in the papers. Furthermore, the analysis concludes that the members of ØSTHOLDET characterize the good, local story as one, which is positive (life-affirming, entertaining and useful), but also critical (essential/useful). It is these three studies and the theoretical part about journalism in general which lie at the root of the discussion. From the discussion, it is evident that public journalism in many ways differs from traditional journalism in terms of parts, genres and content. Therefore public journalism cannot be considered journalism.The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether public journalism can characterized as “actual” journalism. To do so the project focus on TV ØST, which is a Danish, regional television station and which formed “ØSTHOLDET” in 2015. This team of viewers has about 500 members, who on a voluntarily basis submit pictures and video clips from their everyday lives. Clips like these, interviews with the viewers’ editor and material gathered from three focus groups consisting of members from ØSTHOLDET make up the empirical data of this project, whereas the theoretical part is composed of various journalistic concepts (such as genres, content and parts), public journalism and news criteria. The analysis uses TV ØST as case and it is based on three elements: 1) the distribution of parts among the members (citizens) and the journalists, 2) examples of pieces, which are produced by members, and journalists in cooperation with each other and 3) what the members of ØSTHOLDET define as a good, local story. The analysis reveals that the form of public journalism used by TV ØST falls into the categories of participatory journalism and partial/limited citizen journalism. The analysis also shows how the items from ØSTHOLDET primarily document minor incidents of everyday life and often resemble notices in the papers. Furthermore, the analysis concludes that the members of ØSTHOLDET characterize the good, local story as one, which is positive (life-affirming, entertaining and useful), but also critical (essential/useful). It is these three studies and the theoretical part about journalism in general which lie at the root of the discussion. From the discussion, it is evident that public journalism in many ways differs from traditional journalism in terms of parts, genres and content. Therefore public journalism cannot be considered journalism

Indimellem skal det være lidt hyggeligt - Om borgerjournalistik, ØSTHOLDET og den gode, lokale historie

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Roskilde Universitet