‘Anyone can know’: Citizen journalism and the interpretive community of the mainstream press

TLDR

In Madison, WI, citizen journalists and local reporters form competing interpretive communities with distinct value systems and protocols. The study examined the framing values and role play of these groups within the city’s information‑producing community. Interviews revealed that both traditional journalists and citizen reporters share values of social responsibility, information access, and informal professionalism, yet also differ, leading to an adaptive, interdependent organization that reshapes journalism’s aims, standards, and ideology.

Abstract

In Madison, WI, two news groups – bloggers and local reporters – are squaring off, developing separate value systems and establishing protocols of intergroup activity. This study explored those framing values and documented individual role play within this Midwestern city’s information-producing community. An informal interpretive community of citizen journalists offers ways of knowing distinct from the way the press has traditionally practiced, negotiated and shared news stories. Interviews with citizens and professional journalists revealed convergences between these groups of news writers as well as dichotomies. This evidence showed that both the entrenched community of journalists and the emerging one of citizen news writers are framed by values of socially responsible missions, access to information, entitlement to knowledge and informal notions of professionalism. When ‘anyone can know’ – a quote from these interviews – the result is an adaptive organization of information producers that influence each other and redefine the aims, standards and ideology of journalism.