Making Connections

Abstract

The future of the traditional news media in the changing digital landscape is a topic of much scholarship and debate as newspaper circulations and advertising revenues plummet across the globe and audiences become increasingly spoilt for choice when it comes to accessing news and information. At the same time there has been a flurry of interest in the role and place of small news outlets dubbed local, community and regional publications. This paper aims to theorise the role and place of small newspapers to connect people with each other. In doing so, it reconceptualises the theory of social capital as it relates to small newspapers. It argues that the small-town press is in a particularly powerful position to actively connect people with each other, across physical and digital spaces and public/private domains. It also argues the need to recognise and study the more subtle ways news outlets foster connections between everyday, ordinary people. I draw on the concept of “mediated social capital” and its associated prisms of bonding, bridging and linking as a way of understanding this in regards to small newspapers. “Mediated social capital”, repositions social capital theory to consider the small newspaper's ability to connect people as a resource of advantage which it may utilise to build or maintain its position of power. The concept provides scope to consider the role of local media to consciously and unconsciously connect people within its networks with one another, across digital and physical spaces, to control the information that connects people, and to benefit from that power. It also acknowledges the inequalities that may arise from this. Importantly, mediated social capital extends beyond discussions about the democratic ideal of the press to acknowledge the role of the news media in shaping the everyday interactions and situations in which people might connect with one another.