Seen and heard ica presentation 5.22.15

Seen and Heard:A mixed-methods approach to studying

the local news ecosystemJesse HolcombSenior researcher, Pew Research Center@jesseholcomb

April 15, 2023 2www.pewresearch.org

Local News in a Digital Age (March 2015)


Deep, not wide

• The single-lens challenge of past research (nat’l surveys, content analysis)

• Limited methods can render incomplete picture of the ecosystem

• As more journalism happens outside of newsrooms, mixed methods can help capture nuances

• Can also help tease out relationship between behaviors/attitudes/news resources/coverage


Goal: A holistic view of the metropolitan news ecosystem

• Where does news come from?

• How is it consumed?

• How do publics and non-journalistic actors participate?


Case study approach, x3

• Get beyond Eastern Seaboard (Denver (Colo.), Sioux City (Iowa), Macon (Ga.)

• Reflect different-sized markets and population makeup• Methods included: • Mail survey• Content analysis• Groundwork (identifying & categorizing news providers)• Pulled data from Twitter firehose & scraped Facebook API• Direct interviews & site visits

• Resulted in a portrait of the local news ecosystem that better accounts for non-institutional news providers


Three observations

• A heterogeneous news environment ≠ a more news-engaged population

• Social, mobile are now key to local news environment. But old habits perpetuate broadcast flow of news

• Informal news sources play complimentary role, but may be more important than we think


Observation #1

A heterogeneous news environment ≠ a more news-engaged population.


Denver shows richness of big metro news landscape

Denver Macon Sioux City

Total News Providers 143 24 31Providers w/ Weekly Content 52 12 17


Contains diverse & diffuse population


But, in Denver: less interest in local news


Denver: less TV/print usage, but gap not made up elsewhere


Digital groundswell is a supplemental news source

• Communities of interest, but no critical mass• In one week, niche/specialty outlets accounted for 35% of

Denver news content• The 14 digital-native sites accounted for one-tenth of that

Ken Hamel, publisher, DenverArts.org:

“It’s weird. I know I have a bunch of passionate followers and I know a bunch of people…but when you look at the core numbers, I have about 1,200 or 1,500 people on Facebook, which is more than average, but it’s not a lot. And I have only 900 people who sign up for the newsletter, which has been the same for six years.”


Mixed methods yielded new insights

• Survey/content analysis/direct interviews allowed us to measure output and reach of small, hyperlocal news providers.

• Raises question: is there less of a “civic information commons” in a large metro area than in a small one?


Observation #2

Social, mobile are now key to local news environment. But old habits perpetuate broadcast flow of news.


Few comment; conversation dissipates rapidly

• Scraped public Facebook API to study news providers in each community. Found little evidence of the public extending the life of a local news story there.


On Twitter, local news is needle in a haystack

• Little discussion of local news among users studied

• When news was discussed, it was mostly national or otherwise distant affairs (mostly politics)

• Denver: the top local story URL (a sports item) appeared just 237 times out of 3.2 million tweets.

• Sioux City: the local content w/ most shares on Twitter was weather (a link to the local weather cam appeared 24 times).

• Macon: the data show what CAN happen when a local story gets big (local band competes in VH1 contest). But the next-most shared local story was shared just 22 times during our 5-day analysis period.


Outbound linking is still rare among publishers

We measured frequency of linking in digital news stories over the course of a week.

• DENVER: 31% contained links

• MACON: 3% contained links

• SIOUX CITY: 1% contained links


Structural barriers still impede flow of information

• Obstacle #1) Broadband access and adoption

• Obstacle #2) Device ownership

• Obstacle #3) Language and community segregation


Social media for news measurable, but modest


Observation #3

Informal news sources play supplementary role, but may be more important than we know.


Danger of systematic error

• Easier to identify institutional journalism organizations than it is to identify informal, nascent or out-of-category ones (especially in local).

• Can skew the narrative about how local journalism is changing.


Key spaces for local news conversation hard to access

• Listservs

• Private Facebook networks

• E-mail

• Face-to-face and other word of mouth


How we captured

• Self-report (open-ends)

• Blog crawls and snowballing

• Aggregation of lists/databases cataloguing local, digital news efforts

• Search engine

• Direct interview


Civic groups play modest role, but neighbors important


News Organizations & Journalists Most Followed on Social Networks


Informal news sources that quant research might not have captured

• Alex Habersham (Macon Black Pages)

• Paul Lopez (Denver City Councilman)

• Lockup: Sioux City

Seen and Heard:A mixed-methods approach to studying

the local news ecosystemJesse HolcombSenior researcher, Pew Research Center@jesseholcomb

News & Politics

Seen and heard ica presentation 5.22.15