In this guest post, Damian Radcliffe highlights some topline developments in the hyper-local space during 2011. He also asks for your suggestions of great hyper-local content from 2011. His more detailed slides looking at the previous year are cross-posted at the bottom of this article.

2011 was a busy year across the hyper-local sphere, with a flurry of activity online as well as more traditional platforms such as TV, Radio and newspapers.

The Government’s plans for Local TV have been considerably developed, following the Shott Review just over a year ago. We now have a clearer indication of the areas which will be first on the list for these new services and how Ofcom might award these licences. What we don’t know is who will apply for these licences, or what their business models will be. But, this should become clear in the second half of the year.

Whilst the Leveson Inquiry hasn’t directly been looking at local media, it has been a part of the debate. Claire Enders outlined some of the challenges facing the regional and local press in a presentation showing declining revenue, jobs and advertising over the past five years. Her research suggests that the impact of “the move to digital” has been greater at a local level than at the nationals.

Across the board, funding remains a challenge for many. But new models are emerging, with Daily Deals starting to form part of the revenue mix alongside money from foundations and franchising.

And on the content front, we saw Jeremy Hunt cite a number of hyper-local examples at the Oxford Media Convention, as well as record coverage for regional press and many hyper-local outlets as a result of the summer riots.

I’ve included more on all of these stories in my personal retrospective for the past year.

One area where I’d really welcome feedback is examples of hyper-local content you produced – or read – in 2011. I’m conscious that a lot of great material may not necessarily reach a wider audience, so do post your suggestions below and hopefully we can begin to redress that.

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In the last year or so there have been a number of new blog / news sites developing which provide commentary for a geographically identified area, covering politics but also giving a more rounded view of life in the area.

The site which has drawn my attention recently is The Lichfield Blog, which I mention on the Wardman Wire or on Twitter (follow me to keep up to date) from time to time. There are examples of sites with a similar ethos established for some time, including some personal blogs, and I’d mention Londonist and Dave Hill’s Clapton Pond Blog (Hackney), but also sites such as Created in Birmingham (Birmingham Arts, mainly) and Curley’s Corner Shop (South Tyneside).

Some areas have a range of local blogs. The tiny Isle of Thanet, for example, has Bignews Margate, Thanet Life and Thanet Online, in addition to the more idiosyncratic Thanet Coast Life, Eastcliff Richard and even Naked in Thanet. It’s worth noting that – once again – this set of blogs are all edited by men.

And if you think that Thanet is small to have all those local blogs, try the Plight of Pleasley Hill, an ultra-local blog specifically created to foster community in an area of 3 or 4 streets in the Nottinghamshire village of Pleasley Hill, near Mansfield. I did a podcast interview with Mark Jones, who has triggered the project, for the Politalks podcast. One interesting point is how the creation of a website has helped “institutionalise” a small group internally, but also how it can help externally in the process of persuading large bureaucracies (e.g., the local council) to engage with the group.

Some of those sites have political stances, and some don’t. The common factor is that they provide coverage of local life and grounded politics, and don’t pay unnecessary attention to the Westminster Punch and Judy show.

Occasionally “ultra-local” has been used to refer to areas the size of a London Borough, or a provincial city. I’d suggest that we need to think in *much* smaller areas. I wonder if the one-horse-town newspaper of settlers’ America, but written by local people for themselves, is where we are going to end up, and then with sites covering larger communities, areas and specialist themes which are able to draw an audience.

I’d suggest that there is also a new opportunity opening up for these independent commentary and reporting sites due to a pair of current trends:

• The drive by national media sites to find new ways of persuading their readers to pay for parts of their web content – pay-walls, charges for special services and anything else they can dream up. As the editor of an independent “politics and life” commentary site with a number of excellent contributors, I can’t wait for the age of “Pay 4 Polly” to arrive.
• The continuing liquidation of our local newspapers and regional media.

Locally focused blogs with a more rounded coverage may provide an answer to consistent criticisms made of “the political blogosphere”:

• Political bloggers only do partisan politics (which is wrong, but it can sometimes look as if it is true).
• There is too much coverage of the Westminster Village (which is right, but someone has to do it, and it is the place where many decisions are made).

I think group blogs with varied teams of contributors may be best placed to provide a decent level of coverage and draw a good readership, while competing effectively with other media outlets. That is a trend we have seen in the political blog niche over several years – the sites which have established themselves and maintain a position as key sites have developed progressively larger teams of editors, and provided a wider range of commentary and services.

A team of contributors allows a site to benefit from the presence of real enthusiasts in each area of reporting, from the minutiae of the Council Meetings to Arts Events at the local galleries.

I’m developing a list of sites aiming to rounded provide coverage of a defined local area, town, or community. If you run a good one, or know of one, please could you drop me a line via the Contact Form on the Wardman Wire. Alternatively, use the form below:

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(Note: if you want to know more about local news blogs in general rather than what I think can be done with them, the go-to place is Talk About Local.)

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The following is the fifth of a series of responses to the government inquiry into the future of local and regional media. Andy Price looks at the opportunities for ultra-local media services. Blog comments will be submitted to the inquiry as well. If you wish to add a blog post to the submission please add a link to one of the OJB posts – a linkback will be added at the end.

Opportunities for “ultra-local” media services

Over the last few years one of the few, if not the only positive development in the regional press has been the dramatic growth of “ultra-local” or hyper local news. Often this is in the form of online participatory journalism, mixing traditional professionally produced news with a wide range of user generated content.

This has two major benefits. It grows significant traffic to newspaper websites, offering vital opportunities for revenue generation and develops the civic and democratic role of the media by allowing new avenues for discussion and debate, enhancing the local public sphere and maintaining a plurality of perspectives. It also widens and flattens the ‘market’ of news production, creating a new environment that integrates citizens as news producers in an entirely original and empowering way.

Looking at the existing geographical franchises of most regional publishers it is often the case that the local newspaper website is the only local digital platform that offers both participation and discussion of issues of civic interest. As well as the independent coverage of issues of relevance and significance to the citizen.

By and large regional newspapers have successfully extended their brands onto the web and created viable arenas of news, comment and discussion. While in no way perfect, they do represent a relative success in relation to other possible local participants such as other traditional media producers or major local institutions. While social websites such as Facebook and Myspace offer significant community development around areas of ‘interest’ and ‘self’ this is rarely configured in geographical terms at the scale of activity seen in local newspaper websites.

This is even more pronounced when it is considered in terms of the neighbourhood, post-code or ‘ultra-local’ area. Many regional newspapers are now creating new, vibrant and popular micro-editions that cover previously impossible to represent communities, communities that were simply too small to serve in an analogue print economy. While much has been made of the ‘global’ in terms of the impact of digital technology and the internet on people, it is quite clear that by looking down the other end of the technological telescope it is possible to see the empowerment and growth of ‘local’ identity in an entirely new and significant way.

For most people in their daily lives, ‘life is local’ and the importance of news and information at a highly granular level should not be underestimated. The re-engagement of people with their communities may to some degree be based on the notion of the vibrant imagined ‘local’ identity. One that is far smaller than the region, the city, the town or the borough.

The growth of the ‘locavore’ movement around sustainable living suggested that the needs for local information and knowledge may in fact be increasing as people try to live more low carbon lifestyles. An important part of such sustainability may be based on well informed, well connected local communities who can make efficient decisions based on their digital access to a wide variety of local knowledge and opinion.

It would be naïve to say that this immediately compensates for the overall decline of important civic news coverage by professional local journalists that is presently occurring. But it does suggest a possible way forward that could represent a new ‘turn’ in local media production and consumption. One that recognises the structural need for both independent high quality journalism and citizen engagement in a win-win situation. As such a development of this sort could be seen in the public interest and a growth in public service that should be both protected and nurtured.

The regional press is the only institution with enough professional journalists to really cover civic Britain successfully. They are also the only group who has successfully developed digital platforms that have any real meaning in most people’s geographical consciousness. The possible demise of any regional newspapers will create a massive hole in the democratic fabric of the country. A hole that would presently be impossible to fill by other media organizations and which would represent a dangerous loss of plurality. Citizen engagement in news production, discussion and debate is a wholly good phenomenon which should be encouraged and supported.

The question is how to model local arrangements that satisfy public service and business aim, whilst successfully stimulating and embedding engagement by local communities in news production? As such, there are two issues that should be considered;

1. Support for the regional press in this role.

Can local newspapers be recognised for providing a public service and if so, how can this be reconciled with their revenue generating status and the position of the BBC as the existing major public service provider? Can a partnership of differing missions be developed?

2. Empowerment and encouragement of participatory journalism.

Can the same partners work together to develop the skills of citizen journalists at such a scale as to become a sustainable model of participatory journalism that genuinely builds on the potential of digital media and technology to enhance local democracy and citizenship.

The Digital Britain report is presently being critisised for its emphasis on technology over content. Government support for the development of a national response to the challenges to local participatory news production could be one way to answer this criticism. If the regional press, the BBC, educators and the public could be brought together as partners to look at this challenge the idea of a Digital Britain of active participants rather than simply consumers may be possible.

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