Community Journalism

Abstract

Community journalism is far more prevalent than its national or regional counterparts. As of 2018, nearly 7,200 publications existed in the United States with a circulation under 50,000 daily, compared to just four with a circulation of more than 500,000. Any annotated bibliography of community journalism, therefore, must go beyond examining this form of media simply as smaller entities performing the same work as larger national organizations. Research on community journalism largely defines it, in addition to circulation size, by its overall focus on everyday life and the more intimate connection journalists have with the audiences they serve. Community journalism seeks to build and support relationships between audience members within a clearly defined community, whether geographic, virtual, or nestled in a specific topic or interest. As a concept, community journalism cannot be dismissed simply as the province of hyper-local news websites. As what we do on the Internet has expanded and social media has brought us closer together, for good or for ill, community journalism research has examined ways that community forms online through the efforts of connected and concerned journalists sharing facts and making sense of the world for their audiences. To have a community, all one needs is a group of people with something in common and something that differentiates them from other groups. Journalism empowers the group by providing factual information and contextualization of issues in a succinct, easy-to-understand package, while also giving voice to the voiceless and holding the powerful accountable. This annotated bibliography will lay the foundation for understanding how scholarship has applied foundational theories of community to create a new way of understanding the relationship between journalists and audiences. It explores the nuances of how community functions in different media and the ways in which journalists influence it. Finally, it delineates how recent research has expanded this definition to include virtual communities and communities of interest that hold true to the journalistic values of fairness, balance, and verification.