Reimagining Newsroom Collaboration: How Two European News Nonprofits Are Inviting Citizens In

ABSTRACT

News nonprofits in the U.S. have been proliferating over 15 years as a way of addressing troubles in the business model for news. For these newsrooms, collaboration, with each other and with mainstream news, has emerged as a key way to build readership and attain relevance in a crowded media space. Still, past research has told us that the strong connection to mainstream news has constrained these organizations’ critique of journalism. In Europe, nonprofit news remains nascent and represents a response to declining trust in and engagement with journalism, and rising populism across the continent. Against this very different context, this study examines two players at the forefront of the European news nonprofit movement. It demonstrates the path dependency inherent in the origins of these organizations: In Europe, they are a response to a different societal change, and thus developed rather differently than did their peers in the United States, with a focus on redefining the idea of collaboration and the role of their audiences by seeing citizens as collaborators, both in the creation and in the dissemination of news. By seeing citizens as collaborators, not just readers, they work to empower and build news audiences as well as participants.     

Proclaiming Library Worth in a Program Prioritization Process at a Mid-Sized Public University

Abstract

In an economic climate when colleges can no longer presume that legislators see institutions of higher learning as tacit public goods, institutions around the country are facing budget cuts. This article presents a case study of the experience of a mid-sized public state university and its Library in a budget crisis undergoing a university-wide program prioritization process. The authors review the process of writing three reports on the Library’s value, along with the approach to engaging staff in the process including a retreat. This article raises questions about what every library should consider assessing and provide tools for libraries navigating similar terrain.     

英、美、中三国公民权利比较研究

权利是历史地形成并向前发展的。同样,历史也形成了英国、美国和中国等国的宪法规定的公民权利的内容和特点,也决定了他们不同的公民权利实现途径。对不同国家的公民权利进行比较,可以从比较中发现不足,取人所长,为我所用。这对发展我国的公民权利,完善我国的公民权利实现的机制具有重要的意义。     

厦门市18～60 岁城市居民几个健身活动指标的影响因素分析

基于对厦门市18～60岁居民的问卷调查,应用社会科学统计方法,探讨了居民“文化程度“、所在“单位性质“和单位“领导重视“等因素对健身活动指标的影响,并提出开展全民健身的相应建议.     

实现和维护我国公民图书馆权利的思考与分析

从我国人民民主专政的国家性质和依法治国的理念出发，根据法律权利的实质概念，对图书馆权利的概念进行合理定位和清晰定义，多方位地阐述图书馆权利的内涵，提出我国公民图书馆权利的实现离不开有效的社会维护，最后指出我国公民图书馆权利的真正实现取决于民主政治的进程和法制化建设程度。     

Turning a Service Learning Experience into a Model of Student Engagement: The Lighthouse Heritage Research Connections (LHRC) Project in Hong Kong

The digital shift has provided easy access to academic library users, and yet, the usage of archival collections continues to be low. At the same time, the need for innovation in library services for cultural heritage scholarship and its advancement is emerging. This paper outlines a library-led service-learning program that connects students with lighthouse artifacts, archival collections, scholars in global academia, and wider communities. Student engagement cases are provided to illustrate the way in which the librarian utilizes the Framework of Information Literacy for Higher Education by ACRL to work closely with students. These cases also demonstrate how students can contribute to knowledge creation and preservation efforts for a specific cultural heritage topic that is not static, but which keeps receiving new contributions or additions to the depository. Thus, this paper is an answer to the ACRL's call for pilot projects to be assessed and shared with the wider community of academic librarians and support staff. It also builds on emerging roles for academic libraries like engaged learning. Librarians must move beyond simply seeing themselves as partners. Instead, librarians should see themselves as prime facilitators that co-create and co-develop cultural heritage research and historical projects by connecting actors and resources more effectively than any single actor can do alone.     

A pillar of the Youngstown community: The Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County engages in the Harwood practice

ABSTRACT

The Harwood Institute arrived in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1999; and today, over 18 years later, its teachings have made a profound effect upon the city. The Youngstown Public Library, through the leadership of Carlton Sears and Heidi Daniel, has wholeheartedly embraced the methods and ideology of the Harwood Institute, helping to reinvigorate and power a city working its way back to prosperity.     

Investigating the quality of interactions and public engagement around scientific papers on Twitter

This study explores science communication on Twitter by investigating a sample of tweets referring to academic papers in five different scientific fields. The specifications of science communicators on Twitter, the characteristics of those who initiate actions (by tweeting), the extent and quality of reactions (retweeting), individual and group interactions, and the distribution of tweets across types of engagement in the process of science communication (i.e., dissemination, consultation, and evaluation) were explored. A broad array of actors is involved in the communication of science on Twitter, with individual citizens and individual researchers playing an important role. In principle, this is promising for creating direct interaction, which can be difficult through more traditional mass media. The vast majority of communication activities regarding academic papers is undigested dissemination with almost no sign of debate, contestation, or collective reflection. Another general finding of this study is that bot accounts play a major role in the science communication landscape on Twitter.     

Citizen-Centered Journalism and Contested Boundaries

This article explores the existence of a “citizen-centered journalism” that sees citizens as crucial participants in the construction of news and as co-creators of their own worlds. Through qualitative case studies of three news organizations, the article examines the motivation for using a citizen-centered approach, the news routines that are required to do so, the categories of content produced, and the perceived impact of this approach. The results suggest these news organizations are working in partnership with communities and striving to give a voice to historically marginalized communities. The journalists, however, see citizen participation as complementary to professional journalistic routines that favor verifiable information, rather than assigning inherent value to it for its own sake.