Audience Participation in the Production of Online News. Towards a Typology

Abstract

The potential of audience participation constitutes a most important characteristic of digital journalism. This article presents an inductive study of audience participation in the production of online news in a Danish context, analysing how audiences participate, and what relationships between journalists and audiences accompany this participation. The article discusses the concept of participation, arguing on the basis of sociological theory that it should be understood as those instances where the audience influences the content of the news through their intentional actions. Applying this definition, it proposes four ideal types of audience participation in the production of online news, namely sharing of information, collaboration, conversation and meta-communication.