Abstract
In this article we present a research project that experimentally develops a local news platform based on empirical research (interviews, group discussions, a survey) and a co-creation approach. What is presented here is not a typical empirical social science research study but the culmination of an entire approach that is oriented toward software development. This article’s aim is to present the project’s conceptual ideas, its interdisciplinary character, its research-based development approach and the concept for a local news platform that grew out of our preliminary work. At each level we focus on the <em>relationality</em> which arises in the figurations of the actors involved and their various perspectives. First, we illustrate how relationality already shaped the objective of our project and how this results in its interdisciplinary structure and research design. We then discuss this idea with reference to our empirical findings, that is, the paradox of the local public sphere: While all the actors we interviewed—those who (professionally) produce content and those who use it—have a high appreciation for the idea of a local public sphere, the mediated connection to this sphere is diminishing at the same time. We understand this as the real challenge for local journalism and the local public sphere at large, and not just for individual media organizations. This is also the reason why we argue for a fundamentally relational approach: from a theoretical point of view, it can be used to grasp the crisis of the local public; from a practical point of view, relationality represents the core characteristic of the platform in development. On this basis, we will then show how the concept of the experimental local news platform evolved through the use of a prototype as a relational boundary object. This development lead to the conceptualization of the platform <em>molo.news</em> which itself is characterized by a fourfold relationality. Our concluding argument is that approaching relationality in a more rigorous way could be the key to exploring the future of local journalism.
Highlights
The quote above comes from a composer from the German ‘New Music’ scene during the 1920s
Keeping in mind our search for a relational answer to the paradox of the local public sphere, we understand our software development of a local news platform as ‘experimental’ because our aim is to sound out the ‘scope of possibilities’ in a way that local newspapers or local news providers are unable to owing to the path dependency of their organizations
The connective notion across the project has been that of relationality: The relationality of each stakeholder’s figurations that were involved in the development process, the role the prototype plays as a relational boundary object, and the relational concept of the platform itself. This focus on relationality was an important step in the process of developing our experimental local news platform—a step that was certainly carried in part by our theoretical starting point of the figurational approach
Summary
The quote above comes from a composer from the German ‘New Music’ scene during the 1920s. Just as with the city and its public sphere, we can understand the relationship between journalism and its audiences as a communicative figuration that transforms with the media ensemble and the communicative practices on which it is based (Kramp & Loosen, 2017) This development is, ambiguous: On the one hand, over the past few years news organizations have offered a growing number of participatory spaces and features; on the other, journalists are often reluctant to engage with audiences while users differ to a large extent with respect to participatory practices and motives (Costera Meijer & Groot Kormelink, 2017; Loosen & Schmidt, 2017). We will argue why, in our view, relationality might offer an opportunity to explore the future of local journalism
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
