Participatory Journalism

There are five types of participatory journalism. They are: sources, user feedback, user-generated content, crowdsourcing, and citizen journalism.

             Sources are the people that you talk to for your story. There are two main types of sources: experts and those who have a close connection with the story. An example of this would be if I was writing a story about Bob Uecker. I would consult “experts”, like those he worked with and those that work in the radio/broadcast industry. I would also talk to the fans, as they are some of the people who he had a great impact on. 

             User feedback is when readers will comment on stories. One place I see this is on social media. Social media is a great place for journalists to post their stories and increase engagement. Users on social media can comment under that post or even on the website that the story is on, usually with their opinions (and frankly, what they disagree with).

             User generated content is anything created by a user to a journalistic site. This could be YouTube videos, tutorials, etc. For journalism, this would be videos that contribute and give a view of an event currently going on that is being covered on the news. 

             Crowdsourcing is essentially a more global and coordinated form of user generated content. An example of crowdsourcing would be when Bob Uecker passed away, one of the Brewers’ beat reporters gathered personal stories from the community to put together one big story.

             Citizen journalism is the average citizen taking on a journalist role. This has become very popular on social media, particularly in the sports industry, and those who are good at it can develop that into something bigger. Sports fans often write articles or make videos about their thoughts on something going on in the sports world.