The Media Day, Revisited: Rhythm, Place and Hyperlocal Information Environments

Abstract

Studies of hyperlocal journalism and news have not adequately taken into account audience members’ everyday experiences of their own hyperlocal communities and the ways in which audiences’ everyday information environments are integrated with their social and affective community environments. In this focus group study (six groups, 5–7 participants/group, total N = 38) of neighbourhoods in Rivertown, Sweden (a mid-sized Swedish municipality) we combine Henri Lefebvre’s theory of rhythmanalysis and his idea of “the media day” with Ray Oldenburg’s concept of third places to analyse the spatiotemporal aspects of hyperlocal information environments. The focus group participants created individual “media day” timelines and then discussed them, and their neighbourhoods, in the groups. Our findings are in line with other recent studies on digital and local news and information consumption, but also highlight how the media context has changed since Lefebvre’s and Oldenburg’s studies. In particular, we found that their juxtapositions of “authentic” interpersonal communication and “inauthentic” mediated communication still have some relevance in the contemporary media landscapes (particularly as related to the existence of neighbourhood third places) and that some hyperlocal digital information sources (Facebook groups) appear to contribute to dressage in Lefebvre’s sense.