Online Journalism Blog

Garrett Monaghan and Sean Tunney, editors of the forthcoming book, Web Journalism: A New Form of Citizenship? (Sussex Academic Press) are inviting proposals for additional chapters. Here’s the blurb:

This book will debate the routine claim that the traditional flow of information from media to citizen is being reformed into a democratic dialogue between members of a community. It will provide an analytical account of the implications of interactive participation in the construction of media content. In particular, we wish to examine how interactive participatory media are transforming the relationship between the traditional professional media and their audience. It is intended that some chapters will be devoted to an examination of new Web experiences in the developing world, considering questions such as whether citizen journalists and bloggers will have an impact on decision-making with regard to policy issues, including conflict resolution, trade and environment.

We are open to suggestions, but among the areas we are interested in considering are:
• the democratic influence of the Internet on journalism; whether
cross-border conversation challenges or bridges significant cultural and digital divides
• whether the early democratic promise of participatory journalism is
becoming dominated by the corporate hegemony of market-driven journalism
• whether the public or the market are asserting control, with citizens
being increasingly exploited as a free source of labour
• how participatory forms such as blogs, wikis, etc. have been perceived and
adopted
• questions of veracity and objectivity in web journalism, such as whether
the loyalty of a virtual news community depends on the transparency of the blog’s sources and bias etc.
• the effect of automation and participation on the process of news
selection and editing
• how organisational factors such as organisational culture, professional
backgrounds, paradigms and systems, etc. have played a part in shaping the form that ‘online journalism’ has taken in the past ten years
• how traditional journalists have responded to the process of ‘going
online’, including with regard to their perceptions of their role, newsgathering and the effect of their own blogging etc.
• the impact of participatory comment rejoinders on traditional media columnists
• the pressures for rapid content â€" what the impact is on traditional
journalism if news is streamed directly from news agencies via phones, palm tops and even gaming consoles
• case studies that examine how online journalism technologies are chosen
and implemented.

In the first instance, please email a brief CV and an abstract of no more than 500 words, which can use bullet points, to garrett.monaghan@port.ac.uk.

The final deadline for this is January 18 2008 and the deadline for chapter submissions is July 11 2008.