This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link ABSTRACTThis article is a contribution to the debate on audience participation in online media with a twofold aim: a) making conceptual sense of the phenomenon of participatory journalism in the framework of journalism research, and b) determining the forms that it is taking in eight European countries and the USA. First, participatory journalism is considered in the context of the historical evolution of public communication. A methodological strategy for systematically analysing citizen participation opportunities in the media is then proposed and applied. A sample of 16 online newspapers offers preliminary data that suggest news organisations are interpreting online user participation mainly as an opportunity for their readers to debate current events, while other stages of the news production process are closed to citizen involvement or controlled by professional journalists when participation is allowed. However, different strategies exist among the studied sample, and contextual factors should be considered in further research.

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link

This article re-examines transparency as it is conceptualized in communication, particularly in public relations, and it introduces the concept of pseudo-transparency. Transparency in the public relations literature is rarely examined from a critical perspective. We conclude from our re-examination that transparency is a product of modernism and neoliberalism; as such, we argue that the concept is used by organizations, that is, governments, civil society organizations, and corporations, to reproduce and to maintain a status quo to be accepted without interrogation or critical inquiry. Based on this re-examination, we advocate that public relations practitioners must be at the forefront in resolving ethical issues that are related to transparency and to pseudo-transparency in contemporary global society.

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He has worked professionally in public relations at Lutheran General Hospital, Chicago, and as an extension information specialist in the Agricultural Extension Service of the University of Minnesota. He has published widely in books ('Public relations and community: A reconstructed theory', 'This is PR: The realities of public relations')and in journals and has lectured and consulted in Europe and in the Middle East on topics dealing with public relations education, ethics and professionalism.