Tag Archives: Sutton Coldfield Local

A simple hyperlocal experiment which shows how publishers can engage with different audiences

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liveblog engagement

Civic engagement? Most readers spent more than 30 minutes on the liveblog

On Monday I was involved in a fascinating experiment in civic engagement: 10 hyperlocal blogs all agreed to embed a liveblog of a hustings which would give inhabitants of the largest local authority in Europe an insight into the next council leader.

The liveblog itself was to be maintained by student contributors to the Birmingham Eastside news site. The decision to offer it out to hyperlocal sites across the city seemed obvious – so why aren’t publishers doing this regularly? Continue reading →

Hyperlocal media and engagement with political parties: what’s been your experience?

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One of my abiding memories of the 1997 General Election involves bumping into a candidate from one of the major parties in a beer cellar. The candidate was supposed to have been on air at the time, participating in a live hustings for the small local radio station I was working for.

During a short conversation with them it quickly became clear that they felt an informal meet and greet with a bunch of bemused students was a better use of their time.

That was until I gently nudged him in the direction of the nearest cab…

A decade and a half later I hoped this sort of incident was a thing of the past. But is that the case? Continue reading →