The Meso News-Space: Engaging with the News between the Public and Private Domains

Abstract

In the context of increasing dissatisfaction with the role of publicfacing social media in democratic life, recent years show a growing number of non-public digital spaces in which people can produce, discuss, and share news. This article focuses on what we term a meso news-space: an online space, located between the private and public realms, where a group of people are involved in news-related processes. This space combines aspects that have long drawn participants to online communities-sociability, a sense of intimacy, and creative expression-with news engagement, an aspect considered important in democratic life. Potentially, meso news-spaces can facilitate greater reciprocitymutual exchanges-between news workers and audience members, thereby promoting shared benefits. In this article, we explicate the concept of a meso news-space by considering its four key dimensions: platforms, topics, actors, and rules/guidelines, and discuss its value for journalism studies and practice.

Online Political Comments: Americans Talk About the Election Through a “Horse-Race” Lens

“…The problem of people commenting without reading a story is so prominent that one news organization is requiring that users pass a quiz about the story before they can comment [30] to help ensure commenters are discussing the story. Thus, we urge there is great merit in considering comments as their own entity, separate from the story they are posted on, as comments are a "meso news-space," a user-generated entity that is related to but distinct from news processes [31]. As a result, we focused only on comments, not the stories.…”

News loopholing: Telegram news as portable alternative media

“…Of greatest relevance to the current study is the meso level, as it specifically deals with the distribution process [ 32 , p. 864]. In this respect, Tenenboim and Kligler-Vilenchik introduced the concept of meso news-space which is defined as an “online space, occurring between the private and public realms, where participants are involved in news-related processes” [ 68 , p. 577]. The activities on this meso space are dependent on the platform, topic of discussion, participants, and participation guidelines [ 68 ].…”

“…In this respect, Tenenboim and Kligler-Vilenchik introduced the concept of meso news-space which is defined as an “online space, occurring between the private and public realms, where participants are involved in news-related processes” [ 68 , p. 577]. The activities on this meso space are dependent on the platform, topic of discussion, participants, and participation guidelines [ 68 ]. Indeed, the discussion of the meso-space is relevant to this study which focuses on Telegram as a news platform and how audiences engage with news.…”

Youth Political Talk in the Changing Media Environment: A Cross-National Typology

“…Also, across different cultural contexts, different digital platforms are adopted, whose affordances have implications for the ability to discuss politics (see Matassi and Boczkowski 2021). For instance, chat groups on instant messaging platforms, which are extremely popular globally (Vaccari and Valeriani 2018) offer a more intimate environment to discuss news and politics (Tenenboim and Kligler-Vilenchik 2020).…”

“…Mainstream social media can also afford private-facing forums for news discussion, such as Facebook groups (see Tenenboim and Kligler-Vilenchik, 2020). Kaarina, a 28-year-old historian from Finland, has a Facebook group with her former co-workers for discussing the news: “ It's a bit of a feminist group.…”