Hyper-local citizen journalism sites and traditional media sites: Similarities and contrasts in theme, objectivity, and watchdog function

Traditional media landscapes are in flux for journalists today. Media outlets are facing major losses in advertising revenue and intense competition from online products such as citizen journalist sites. These citizen journalists are not always trained in the same conventions and norms as professionals but are now shaping both news and relationships in the journalistic realm. This research views the norms and conventions of the press through democratic press theory and seeks to determine if hyper-local citizen journalists are continuing to use the conventions engrained in the traditional/legacy media. Democratic press theory views journalism as an integral part of democracy--informing citizens of important facts and issues so that they can make governing decisions. Hyperlocal citizen journalism, then, focuses on events in a specific geographic area--a neighborhood, a city or even a state. This study compares the front-page content of 75 hyper-local citizen journalism sites with 75 traditional media sites in the same geographic areas across the United States to determine if the hyper-local sites differ in terms of thematic content, objectivity and watchdog functions. The findings show that thematically, hyper-local sites have higher proportions of political and community content, but lower percentages of sports, entertainment, crime and business news items. The hyper-local citizen journalism sites also offer higher percentages of news items with opinion in every content theme category--especially in political items. Hyper-local citizen journalism sites have substantially more opinion in political news items than do traditional sites. The hyper-local citizen journalism sites also perform a watchdog function and display few incidences of boosterism. In addition, when watchdogging is present, political news items on both hyper-local and traditional sites have almost identical percentages of opinion present. The study shows that hyperlocal journalists, some trained in journalism and some not, continue to take a serious watchdog role in their local geographic areas. They continue to offer information, although not necessarily "objective" information, to the public for its use in the democratic process. The results are encouraging as journalism is evolving but may retain some of the necessary elements connected to the functioning of democracy.