LIVE BLOGGING–DIGITAL JOURNALISM’S PIVOTAL PLATFORM?

TLDR

Live Blogs—timely, simple navigation, bite‑sized units—fit readers’ workplace news consumption. The article analyzes Live Blogs at a UK newspaper, argues they increase readers’ interest in public‑affairs content and participation, and proposes the format uniquely suits at‑work consumption while helping journalists balance elite and mass audiences. The study used qualitative interviews, a reader survey, content analysis, and web metrics to examine production practices, outcomes, and consumption of Live Blogs. Live Blogs are a popular daily feature covering serious breaking news, often using more original sources than hard news, but with cursory verification; nevertheless, attribution practices lead readers to view them as objective, and the study challenges some prior scholarship while confirming that news is increasingly consumed at work.

Abstract

This article describes and analyses the production, consumption, and form of Live Blogs at a popular UK newspaper website and contributes to related debates in journalism studies. Qualitative research interviews with journalists and editors, a reader survey, content analysis, and web metrics were used to obtain data about production practices, product outcomes, and the consumption stage of the product lifecycle. The study finds that Live Blogs are a popular daily component of the news site, used increasingly to cover serious breaking news. Although rarely authored exclusively on location, they may utilise more original sources than traditional online hard news formats. Their frequent updates mean factual verification is cursory, but compensatory factors, including their attribution practices, contribute to a positive evaluation of their objectivity by readers. Live Blogs—with their timeliness, navigational simplicity, and bite-sized content units—suit readers' consumption of news in the workplace. Live Blogs may increase online news readers' interest in public-affairs content, and their inclination to participate. This study contradicts some existing scholarship on sourcing practices, content preferences, and immediacy in online news, while supporting the observation that news is increasingly consumed at work. It makes the novel suggestions that Live Blogging is uniquely suited to readers' at-work news consumption patterns and that the format provides journalists with a means to manage the competing demands of their elite and mass publics.