The Case for Shared Community Stories

Abstract

This introductory chapter offers an overview of key concepts and the book’s argument for a model of community-centered journalism to build trust between local news media and communities. It outlines how the book conceptualizes trust (looking at factors including perceived representation and motives), solutions journalism (reporting focused on responses to social problems), and engaged journalism (practices that involve community members in journalistic production). It then sets out key questions tackled by other portions of the book, including how place-based interventions using engaged and solutions journalism practices can present boundary challenges to journalism norms and influence what communication infrastructure theory (CIT) calls community “storytelling networks”—the links between residents, community groups, and local media which can be indicators of an area’s communication health and predictors of civic participation. Finally, it offers an outline of the chapters that follow.