Community Journalism and Civic Engagement in Mediated Sports

Abstract

In a nascent attempt at providing citizen-produced news content, volunteers produce quality telecasts of local high school sports via a state-of-the-art multimedia production facility that opened in 2011 in Greensburg, Kansas. This study reports the results of structured interviews with Kiowa County (KS) Media Center volunteers that reveal high levels of civic engagement, strong community-oriented motivations, and enthusiastic support for producing other communityjournalism projects. The need for strong leadership emerged as a central theme.

Friendships sustain volunteer newspaper for 21 years

“…Volunteers' comments supported previous findings that leadership is critical when a project relies on the recruitment and retention of a volunteer workforce. 28 Most volunteers said they joined the effort because of a prior friendship with the editor. When asked what keeps the newspaper going, the volunteers responded as one: "Laura."…”

“…20 Bressers, Smethers and Mwangi found very high levels of civic engagement among volunteers who produce sports programming at a multimedia center in Greensburg, Kansas. 21 Brodie found that such participation brought satisfaction to volunteers, who listed "helping others, developing relationships, exercising values and beliefs, having influence, benefitting personally and being part of something." 22 VanVuuren wrote that volunteers at an Australian public radio station are motivated by a desire to help others and contribute to the community, along with social interaction and the need to fill time.…”

“…Bressers, Smethers and Mwangi, in studying an all-volunteer video production project in Greensburg, Kansas, found that staff members felt an affinity for the project's leader and that few people could imagine their organization's future without him. 36 Volunteers here cited editor Craig's dedication to the newspaper as key to its longevity. Many report that Craig recruited them and cite her guidance as vital factors in their training.…”

Should There Be an App for That? An Analysis of Interactive Applications within Longform News Stories

“…53 Previous research into media products and processes has relied on semi-structured interviews for data collection, incorporating as few as seven to as many as 36 participants. 54 These "conversations with a purpose" are then coded and grouped into categories so that researchers may identify themes and patterns of experiences and behavior and then expound upon them. 55 While the combination of the think-aloud protocol and semi-structured interviews may give researchers an impression of the participants' thought processes about and evaluations of the longform news packages they viewed, it is important to point out that the sample size of this project is small, and the stimuli consisted of packages pre-selected by the researchers, not chosen willfully by the participants themselves.…”