The value of hyperlocal news in the UK: A new analysis of content

Andy Williams (Cardiff University) Jerome Turner (Birmingham City University) Scott Dewey (Cardiff University) Dave Harte (Birmingham City University)
Friday, 18 January 2013

Context: The Value of Local

The value of news often viewed through prism of its relationship to democracy (McNair 2009). Key to this is idea that democracy enables good government most effectively if citizens decisions are based on reliable information (Habermas, 1989; Chambers and Costain, 2001) Numerous studies have found the crisis in the UK news industry is endangering the local-ness, quality and independence of local news (Franklin 2006, Williams and Franklin 2007, ONeill and OConnor 2009) But the web has enabled a new generation of community-oriented news outlets producing hyperlocal news (Bruns 2009, Metzgar et al 2011),
Friday, 18 January 2013

Context: Consumption of Local News in the UK

Source: Communications Market Review,

Friday, 18 January 2013

What we did:
This content analysis of hyperlocal news in the UK pays particular attention to: sources (who gets to dene hyperlocal news and in what ways); topics (what news is covered?); the local-ness of this news; the civic value of the news (in relation to coverage of politics and local institutions, but also the role of this developing cultural form in fostering different forms of community activity) Sample: Posts published on the sites of members of the UKs Openly Local hyperlocal news network during 11 days at the beginning of May 2012 (http://
openlylocal.com/hyperlocal_sites)

3819 posts were published on 313 active websites, and we coded every other story (odd numbers) in each site: in total, 1941 posts
Friday, 18 January 2013

The value of hyperlocal: What gets covered?

Top topics Community Politics (Government) Sport Crime/Legal (Individual) Business/ Industry Environment/ Nature Entertainment/ Leisure
Freq. %

252 227 224 134 133 109 98

13.0 11.7 11.5 6.9 6.9 5.6 5.0

n=1941

Geographicallyfocused, community-oriented form of local news local clubs, societies, leisure time activities covered regularly Lots of coverage of local politics which is declining in mainstream press Very little coverage of local political activism

Friday, 18 January 2013

The value of hyperlocal: Who gets to

Top Sources Fre % q Local Politics 392 20. 9 Business/ 14. 268 Commercial 3 Member of 12. 233 Public 4 Community 133 7.1 Group Police 114 6.1 Sportsperso 106 5.7 n Culture/ 102 5.4 Arts n=187
Friday, 18 January 2013

Some similarities with,

and some differences from, the commercial local press Official sources in local politics, business, the police are still very important source groups But theres much more of a voice for local people (members of the public, members of groups, clubs, and

The value of hyperlocal: Local news for local

Local-ness of source utterances,

Friday, 18 January 2013

Local-ness of the story, n=1941

The value of hyperlocal: a

The number of sources cited was quite low (only around half of posts rely on sources, & only around a fth cite more than one source) When secondary sources were cited, it was mostly to convey agreement, or to add context Disagreement between sources was only found in 3% of posts Could have implications for:
Friday, 18 January 2013

http://alittlebitofstone.com/ 2012/05/10/ducklings-rescued-

The Value of Hyperlocal: Fostering community activity

Calls to different kinds of community activity

Friday, 18 January 2013

The value of hyperlocal: Fostering collaborative citizen

Calls to different kinds of citizen

Friday, 18 January 2013

The value of UK hyperlocal news:

Where do we go next with the research? Weve looked at the value of hyperlocal content. Next comes research on the production and reception of hyperlocal news. The next steps of the project involve researching value: Qualitative work with hyperlocal audiences In-depth semi-structured interviews with, and an online survey of, hyperlocal
Friday, 18 January 2013