Assessing a 10-Year Experiment in Community Journalism Education

Abstract

This study assesses the degree to which graduates of a 10-year-old master’s program in community journalism have been aiding the “process of community” by helping citizens negotiate community structures and processes, by listening to citizens, and by helping lead their communities. Findings from a survey of graduates and from a content analysis of graduates’ news stories reveal that graduates value all three of these community journalism dimensions, particularly listening to citizens. However, there is a gap between graduates’ aspirations on the one hand and the actual work produced and career paths on the other, consistent with harsh workplace realities.

Keywords

community journalism journalism education participatory journalism citizenship

This study examines the consequences of a 10-year experiment in community journalism education at the master’s level. In particular, the study assesses the degree to which graduates of one university’s program have been aiding the “process of community” through their journalism by helping citizens understand and negotiate community structures and processes, by interacting with and listening to citizens in meaningful ways, and by helping to lead their communities (Lowrey, 2011; Lowrey, Brozana, & Mackay, 2008). These three components correspond with the description of news media’s role in a democracy as laid out in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Special Call to help citizens “understand the issues at hand . . . talk with others about what should be done, and work their way through to some judgment about what is important to them.” The study assesses the degree to which program graduates perceive goal dimensions of (a) listening/interacting, (b) leading, and (c) revealing and explaining community structures/processes as important to effective community journalism, and how the changing characteristics of this evolving program correlate with graduates’ behaviors and attitudes.

Findings from a survey of graduates of the community journalism master’s program and a content analysis of their journalistic work since graduation should help us better understand journalism education’s mission in preparing community-level journalists as well as community journalism’s role in a democratic society. Findings should also help us understand community journalism conceptually by shedding light on a process approach to community and to community journalism. According to this approach, community is enacted through residents’ negotiation of shared symbolic meaning, and this negotiation is aided by news content about the community’s structures and processes. Finally, findings help us see how well or how poorly the program’s educational strategies correlate with graduates’ perceptions and with their ongoing journalistic work.

Literature and Theory

Shifting Contexts and Meanings of Community Journalism

Recent scholarly collections have examined the nature and purposes of community journalism in democratic societies and how these have changed amid shifting culture, technologies, and political–economic realities. In Reader and Hatcher’s (2012) Foundations of Community Journalism, community journalism is viewed as still occupying “a prominent place in a community’s life and conversation.” Community is a “place of inquiry” (p. 4) for which “connectedness” is especially important (p. 3). A 2014 Journalism Practice edition on community journalism emphasized the continuing relevance of “nearness to people” and the new ways that both geographical place and digital online structures and processes may work together to foster “human connectivity.” Place and geographic boundaries still matter, but “networked circumstances” and mobile digital media (Robinson, 2014, p. 115) are helping people identify with imagined community (Hess & Waller, 2014). In this new era, community journalists must work more creatively and diligently to provide citizens with local-level meaning about issues. This goal often goes unfulfilled, as community journalists struggle with heavy workloads and constraints on financial and knowledge resources (Culver, 2014).

The digital online era and the erosion of boundaries between “professional journalists” and everyday citizens have led scholars and industry experts to optimistic predictions of increased community-level interaction between journalists and citizens and participation by everyday citizens. Yet, the empirical evidence has been discouraging to those who embrace “participatory journalism” and user-generated journalistic content. Study after study shows that local-level journalists and news outlets are unresponsive to, or skeptical of, direct input by citizens or of Internet use in general (Guth, 2015), and inadequate resources hamper such efforts (Culver, 2014; Nagel, 2015). News outlets are reluctant to publish citizen content (Lowrey, 2012). Journalists tend to maintain control over “hard” news while placing user-generated content in “soft” news categories (Paulussen & D’heer, 2013), and journalists embrace a traditional disseminator role rather than an interactive role when using potentially interactive avenues like social media (Chung & Nah, 2013; Himelboim & McCreery, 2012; Lasorsa, 2012). Research finds that citizens show little enthusiasm for news outlets’ efforts to increase user participation (Ekdale, 2014; St. John, Johnson, & Nah, 2014), and “citizen journalism” outlets have often focused on journaling about personal interests rather than reporting on public issues relevant to democratic governance (Carey, 2014; Karlsson & Holt, 2014).

However, research suggests that citizens attend to local public-issue news and seek local news sources in (geographic or imagined) communities where journalists identify and are identified with the community (Hatcher & Haavik, 2014; Thomson, Bennett, Johnston, & Mason, 2015), and where community outlets provide information that readers find essential in orienting themselves to their community’s structures and processes (Culver, 2014; Fleming, 2014). According to these studies, it is not enough to pursue periodic interactive efforts through digital online tools. Communities benefit most when journalists are authentically embedded within their communities and when citizens believe they themselves play a legitimate role in not just having conversations, but in shaping agendas and communicating pertinent, everyday information about their community’s structures and processes.

Of course conversations are important too. The notion of community as a “place of inquiry” (Reader, 2012, p. 16) evokes the hope inherent in Habermas’ concept of the public sphere: a space for wide-ranging discussion that is open to all, that is not subsumed by traditional political-economic power, and that informs important decisions. While “inquiry” and conversation provide ideas that inform democratic governance, they also help the community maintain itself, informing the community’s normative boundaries, helping people decide what’s OK and what’s not OK. Meaningful community journalism can aid this maintenance and interpretation, helping to create and re-create the community and influence shifts in its boundaries. This study’s model proposes a journalism that engages in an ongoing process of interactive listening—but also leading. The model also suggests citizens need help negotiating the structures and processes of daily community life, as these are often rooted in the institutional level (government, business) and can be difficult for everyday people to access (e.g., Pollock, 2014; Tichenor, Donohue, & Olien, 1980).

Conceptual Model: The Process of Community

The community journalism master’s program’s mission of teaching young journalists to help communities know themselves and give voice to citizens is consistent with this “process model” of community journalism. This is a normative model that portrays news media as potentially oriented toward their communities along three dimensions: (a) the degree to which media reveal and explain community structures and processes to citizens, (b) the degree to which media listen to the community’s citizens, and (c) the degree to which media lead the community (Lowrey, 2011; Lowrey et al., 2008). According to this view, community is a process by which citizens, media and institutions negotiate the shared symbolic meaning of the community—that is, what the community is about, what it values or rejects, what is in bounds or out of bounds, and what is important or irrelevant. Journalists aid this ongoing interpretation. They provide representations of the community (in articles, front-page and homepage content choices, etc.), they listen to feedback, and then they adjust (or do not adjust) their representations. Citizens’ understanding of a community’s structural facilities, institutions, spaces, and processes is critical too. This understanding helps citizens find and communicate with one another and with their local institutions—and then participate more meaningfully in the negotiation of the community’s norms and values. It follows that for community journalism to be effective, it must help the community’s process of “meaning-making” by listening and leading and by providing thorough, honest accounts of the community’s structure and processes.

The development of this community process approach was informed by a systematic study of past literature on the community–media relationship (Lowrey et al., 2008), including prior conceptual frameworks that emphasized the relationship among citizenship, communication, and community structures. Research by Park (1922), Janowitz (1967) and others in the Chicago School suggested community-level journalism helped citizens re-imagine their community and aided consensus building. Stamm (1985) proposed that individuals’ “ties” to their community could be strengthened via an interactive relationship between citizens and news, and vice versa. McLeod and colleagues have suggested that macro-level factors such as community stability and media markets encourage or discourage networks for public discussion; in turn, discussion shapes citizens’ cognitive sophistication and civic involvement (Friedland & Shah, 2005). Kim and Ball-Rokeach (2006) have proposed that community structure can facilitate and encourage meaningful “storytelling” about community through safe, open interpersonal avenues and media channels, helping individuals to “imagine” community and realize community connectedness.

The Community Journalism Master’s Program

This study assesses a novel, shifting curricular approach to preparing community journalists to aid the process of community. This study seeks to learn more about graduates’ experiences as community journalists—how they have conducted, and how they perceive, their work. The study also explores how variability in the program across time—for example, in coursework, master’s project formats, and environment—corresponds with graduates’ behaviors and ideas about the role of journalism in community and democratic governance. Particularly, the study assesses the impact of the program on perceptions and behaviors related to the three dimensions of the process of community.

Some background on the program and its changes over the years is provided below, as well as how curricular changes are informed by the “process” framework.

2006-2008: The program was established with foundation support, a venture in which students enrolled in a 1-year MA degree program, received full tuition and equipment to produce multimedia community journalism content, and were immersed within a professional community newspaper newsroom and within the community. The first 2 years, 2006-2008, students spent the entire year in taking classes and doing journalism at the program’s partnering newspaper in a town approximately 100 miles away from the home university. A “teaching hospital” perspective informed the program, as students followed professionals in the newsroom and were intentionally immersed in the community, exploring institutions and everyday life, and interacting with community leaders. Students took courses in ethics, theory, history, methods, writing, production, and management, while daily experiences were oriented toward small community journalism. Master’s projects were largely journalistic in nature, involving in-depth reporting on topics relevant to the newspaper’s community. The listening, leadership, and community structure dimensions were baked into the program, through both daily immersive experiences and the formal curriculum. Students learned about the community’s structures and processes through an early practicum class, they met with local leaders in editorial meetings, and they familiarized themselves with citizens through “shoe leather” reporting. The program also emphasized “listening” via digital online media, as students were given laptops and other digital equipment. Theory and ethics courses emphasized concepts of participatory and interactive journalism (listening) as well as traditional communication theories such as agenda setting and framing, which shed light on journalists’ leadership responsibilities.

2008-2010: In 2008-2009, to expose students to broader course offerings and foster meaningful interaction with thesis-track students, community journalism students began spending two semesters at the university, followed by 3 months in the partnering newspaper’s town, rather than spending the entire year in this town. Students began to take more classes designed for general journalism/communication rather than specifically for community journalism, and so the program generally had less of a specified focus on the “process of community journalism.” The curriculum included general theory, research methods, journalism history, and journalism ethics/issues, and these classes included thesis-track students. In general, social science received a stronger emphasis. Between 2008 and 2010, students produced individual projects with a statewide scope, on conceptual issues in the journalism field (diversity, credibility, use of emerging media, etc.).

2010-2014: A new curriculum for the program was created and approved for 2010-2011. The new curriculum was grounded more fully in both journalistic practice and scholarly knowledge on community and media and had an increased emphasis on digital innovation. In a new master’s project approach, students spent fall and spring at the university producing individual multimedia, interactive projects. Each student reported in-depth on a particular community issue/problem and then produced an online digital project intended to inform or help resolve the issue/problem. Each student adopted a theoretical approach to inform how the digital product could best address her community issue/problem. A new theory /research course focused on the community–media relationship included classic theory on the sociology of community and communication (e.g., Tonnies, Durkheim, Simmel, Dewey, Park) and more recent research (e.g., Friedland & Shah, 2005; Janowitz, 1967; Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006; Lowrey et al., 2008; Stamm, 1985; Tichenor et al., 1980). Instruction also included traditional mass communication theories and basic scientific methods. Students also learned applied methods such as web analytics and usability studies in a new “Assessing” course, and they conducted community-level analyses of their projects, which bolstered the listening and leading dimensions.

2014-2016: In 2014-2015, a systematic effort was made to reconnect students with professional community journalists throughout the year, as journalists at the partnering paper and at also a state public radio organization helped mentor the students as they worked on master’s projects. Also in 2015-2016, a new master’s project format was implemented. Students now pursued subtopics within a broad “umbrella” issue, selected in conjunction with professional partners, in hopes that a single issue would encourage teamwork and deeper, comprehensive reporting. Students were given more time to report on project stories and become familiar with the contexts and key players and agencies, strengthening the community structure dimension. Also, students were required to use specific multimedia methods. Public radio journalists mentored students in their multimedia work, and journalists from the partnering paper provided feedback on reporting and writing. Professional partners published and aired project components at the year’s end, which helped students see journalists’ leadership role. Finally, social media analytics and instruction in entrepreneurialism and sustainability were added to the Assessing course, strengthening the “listening” dimension.

Research Questions

The first three research questions ask how graduates perceive their role in the “process of community” and how their published work corresponds with this process:

RQ1: How consistent has graduates’ journalistic work since graduation been with the process of community journalism and its three dimensions: the degree to which journalism (a) reveals community structure and processes to citizens, (b) leads the community, and (c) listens to the community’s citizens?

RQ2: To what degree do graduates perceive these three dimensions as important to effective community journalism?

RQ3: How do the characteristics of the program at the time students were enrolled correspond with their later attitudes and behaviors related to community journalism, after graduation?

The fourth research question asks about the types of work that graduates have pursued. Pursuit of community journalism work indicates correspondence between the program’s mission and graduates’ goal orientations.

RQ4: What is the nature of the career tracks of the program’s graduates?

Method

To answer these questions, researchers emailed an online survey to graduates of the Community Journalism Program, and researchers conducted a content analysis of randomly selected news stories produced by graduates since graduation.

Survey

Institutional review board (IRB) approval was obtained, and researchers sent an initial email linked to an online questionnaire, and two follow-up emails to 57 of the 60 graduates. Researchers were unable to locate two graduates, and one graduate is deceased. A total of 41 completed and usable surveys were received, for a response rate of 71.93%. Survey responses informed all research questions.

Content Analysis

A content analysis of news articles written by graduates was also conducted as an additional measure of consistency with the three dimensions of the process of community. Researchers analyzed stories produced by 32 graduates—that is, all the graduates from which at least 10 news stories were accessible online. This analysis provided a validity check on graduates’ survey responses about their journalism (RQ1 and RQ3). Two graduate students coded the articles. After protocol training, an intercoder reliability test was conducted in which nine articles (~10% of the total sample of 96 articles) were randomly selected and coded. Across the 30 variables, Cohen’s kappa coefficients fell between .81 and 1.0 for 15 variables, .72 for six variables, and less than .72 for nine variables. The protocol was revised, and coders were retrained. Nine more articles were randomly selected and coded for the nine variables that had kappas of less than .72. Upon recoding, kappas were .72 or higher for seven of the nine variables, and kappas were .55 for two variables assessing story type, news features, and lifestyle stories. Student coders were given refined instructions for these two variables, and it was decided to proceed with the full coding, as these two variables were not central to the study’s purpose. Sampling for the full coding involved selecting the 10 most recent news stories for each of the 32 graduates (a) who have produced written stories for news media outlets since graduating and (b) for which at least 10 stories were accessible online. For each graduate, three stories were chosen randomly from the list of 10, for a total of 96 stories. Only story content and headlines were coded for each article.¹

Measures

RQ1 asks about the three goal dimensions of community journalism. Three to four “goal” items from the survey, each describing a specific journalistic goal, assessed the perceived consistency of graduates’ journalistic work with each of the three dimensions. For each goal item, survey respondents were given the statement “I think the work I’ve done since graduating from the program has been consistent with this goal” (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). In addition, stories were coded for specific evidence of the goal item in graduates’ news story content (“Does the article contain at least one complete sentence that . . .” [0 = no, 1 = yes]). Coders also assessed the news stories overall, judging the degree to which each story reflected the goal item (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree; see Table 1).

Table 1.

Survey and Content Analysis Measures of Three Goal Dimensions of the Community Journalism Process.

Goal dimension: Journalists help reveal community structure and processes to citizens
Journalists help community members understand how local government operates.
Journalists help community members understand what community services are available to them.
Journalists help community members understand the roles and responsibilities of local leaders.
Journalists help community members connect with community leaders.

Goal dimension: Journalists help lead the community
Journalists help the community understand what its most important agenda items are.
Journalists provide community members background and context on community issues.
Journalists provide information that helps community members come to solutions about local problems.

Goal dimension: Journalists listen to the community
Journalists help community members voice their opinions about community issues
Journalists make themselves accessible to everyday people in a community
Journalists give voice to stories of marginalized populations in communities.
Journalists help community members understand conflict within the community.

To answer RQ2, graduates were asked their attitudes about the importance of each goal item (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree), and they were asked to provide year of graduation, so that program changes could be matched with graduates’ responses (RQ3). They were also asked for a list of work places and roles, types of jobs and positions worked, and types of news content produced, since graduation (RQ4). Graduates’ stories were also coded for type of news content. Finally, respondents were asked open-ended questions about the use of knowledge areas and skills taught in the program and about how the program has shaped the ways they do their jobs as journalists. Open-ended questions shed light on perceptions of goals.

Findings

Some descriptive data are offered before assessing research questions. Survey respondents were asked to estimate the percentage of content they had produced since graduation that focused on local, state, or national news. Mean percentages were 72.5% local (city/town) news, 53.2% neighborhood news, 42.8% national, and 48.8% state. Respondents were also asked to estimate percentage by topic. Mean percentages were 64.8% crime, 55.5% politics, and 49.8% government—therefore, 56.7% hard news, on average. Other percentages included 43.1% sports, 43.1% entertainment/culture, and 55.8% lifestyle—therefore, 47.3% soft news, on average. Percentages do not add to 100% because each news story may be placed in more than one category.

These surveyed perceptions of content track fairly closely with content analysis results. Among the 96 randomly selected news stories, 83.2% focused on the local level, 17.9% state, and 23.2% national. In all, 62.6% focused on government, politics, or crime (hard news), while 43.1% focused on sports, entertainment/culture, or lifestyle (soft news). Stories may focus on multiple categories, accounting for summing to more than 100%. Overall, news produced by graduates has had a strong focus on community-level public issues and events. Graduates’ perceived breakdown of their published work generally tracks with content analysis results, though graduates overestimate the proportion of national- and state-level content produced in comparison with community-level content.

RQ1 asked about the degree to which the work of the program’s graduates reflects the three goal dimensions of the process of community: revealing community structure/processes, leading the community, and listening to the community. Both survey responses and content analysis shed light on these questions. Survey respondents were asked to judge how consistent their post-graduation journalism work has been with each goal item (strongly disagree = 1, strongly agree = 5). Data for measures of each goal item are shown in Table 2. The multiple measures of goal items (strongly disagree = 1, strongly agree = 5) were summed and averaged for each goal dimension. Cronbach’s α reliability coefficients were .70 or above for all scaled variables except for consistency with community structure (α = .67; Table 2).

Table 2.

Results of Survey of Graduates.

	Work since graduating consistent with goal (N = 41) (strongly disagree = 1, strongly agree = 5)		I think this is an important goal for community journalism (N = 41) (strongly disagree = 1, strongly agree = 5)
	M	SD	M	SD
Goal dimension: Journalists help reveal community structure and processes to citizens Consistent (α = .67); Important (α = .86)	3.78	0.63	4.51	0.51
Journalists help community members understand how local government operates.	3.56	0.95	4.63	0.58
Journalists help community members understand what community services are available to them.	3.98	0.79	4.61	0.54
Journalists help community members understand the roles and responsibilities of local leaders.	3.98	0.85	4.39	0.67
Journalists help community members connect with community leaders.	3.61	0.89	4.41	0.59
Goal dimension: Journalists help lead the community Consistent (α = .86); Important (α = .70)	3.71	0.86	4.41	0.61
Journalists help the community understand what its most important agenda items are.	3.59	0.95	4.15	0.88
Journalists provide community members background and context on community issues.	4.12	0.95	4.68	0.57
Journalists provide information that helps community members come to solutions about local problems.	3.43	0.93	4.39	0.77
Goal dimension: Journalists listen to the community Consistent (α = .74); Important (α = .87)	3.95	0.71	4.53	0.50
Journalists help community members voice their opinions about community issues	3.90	0.94	4.46	0.60
Journalists make themselves accessible to everyday people in a community	3.88	0.98	4.41	0.67
Journalists help tell the stories of marginalized populations in communities.	3.85	0.94	4.73	0.50
Journalists help community members understand conflict within the community.	4.15	0.85	4.51	0.55

Differences were not great: The mean score for the listening dimension (M = 3.95, SD = 0.71) ranked highest, followed by revealing community structure/processes (M = 3.78, SD = 0.63), while the dimension of leadership ranked lowest (M = 3.71, SD = 0.86). Looking at individual goal items, journalists reported that the goal of providing context was highly consistent with the work they have produced since graduation (M = 4.12, SD = 0.95). The listening goals of helping citizens understand conflict (M = 4.15, SD = 0.85) and helping citizens voice opinions (M = 3.90, SD = 0.94) were also ranked as being highly consistent with their work as were the goals of helping communities understand services and leaders’ roles.

In the content analysis, stories were coded “yes” when they contained at least one full-sentence “mention” that provided evidence of adherence to the goal (0 = no, 1 = yes). Coders also rated stories (strongly disagree = 1, strongly agree = 5) for the degree to which story content overall is consistent with the goal item. Data for measures of each goal item are shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

Results of Content Analysis of Graduates’ News Stories.

	Mean percent of stories with evidence of goal dimension (N = 96 stories)	Mean of judged consistency with goal dimension (N = 96 stories, strongly disagree = 1, strongly agree = 5)
		M	SD
Goal dimension: Journalists help reveal community structure/processes to citizens	—	1.20	0.70
Journalists help community members understand how local government operates.	7.4	1.17	0.61
Journalists help community members understand what community services are available to them.	7.4	1.17	0.65
Journalists help community members understand the roles and responsibilities of local leaders.	12.6	1.33	0.90
Journalists help community members connect with community leaders.	4.2	1.12	0.62
Goal dimension: Journalists help lead the community	—	1.58	1.07
Journalists help the community understand what its most important agenda items are.	—^a	—^a	—^a
Journalists provide community members background and context on community issues.	31.6	2.01	1.56
Journalists provide information that helps community members come to solutions about local problems.	6.3	1.15	0.58
Goal dimension: Journalists listen to the community	—	1.22	0.75
Journalists help community members voice their opinions about community issues	89.5	—^b	—^b
Journalists make themselves accessible to everyday people in a community	75.5	—^b	—^b
Journalists help tell the stories of marginalized populations in communities.	8.4	1.20	0.68
Journalists help community members understand conflict within the community.	8.4	1.24	0.82

It was decided that analysis of an entire publication over a period of time would be needed to assess this item, and so it was omitted from this analysis of individual stories.

These measures involved noting the existence of social media links and comment forums, a dichotomous measure that makes interval-level judgment about goal consistency impractical.

The percentage of stories that provided evidence (at least one full-sentence mention) of each goal item within each of the three goal dimensions was calculated (Table 3). Other than evidence of responsive features in the websites of the graduates’ news outlets, there is little evidence from the stories that graduates are adhering to the three goal dimensions in their daily work. Results show that the revealing community structure/processes function is uncommon. Relatively little explanation of government services and functions, or of community leaders’ roles, is offered. Journalists also rarely seek to connect readers with leaders. Two measures of listening are highly common—social media or forum features that allow audiences to voice opinions and connect with journalists. However, these are hard-wired online tools rather than a result of individual journalists’ decisions. The other two items, report on marginalized populations and report conflict, are low. The leadership items are also low, with the exception of providing background for local issues, which is evident in nearly a third of the stories.

Coders also judged each story for overall consistency with each goal item (strongly disagree = 1, strongly agree = 5). Any story containing no specific sentence mentions of goals were assigned a 1, indicating strongest disagreement that the story is consistent with the goal item. These story scores were summed and averaged for each goal item, and then goal items were summed and averaged for each of the three goal dimensions. Cronbach’s α reliability coefficients were .72 for revealing community structure/process items, .63 for leadership items, and .88 for listening items. Overall, the mean for the leadership dimension was the highest (M = 1.58, SD = 1.07), followed by the listening dimension (M = 1.22, SD = 0.75), and then Community Structure (M = 1.20, SD = 0.70). However, means for all three measures are very low. Also, reliability for the leadership items scale is marginal, and so the mean comparison for this dimension should be assessed with some caution. Table 3 provides means for individual goal items.

Finally, to gain a more valid comparison between the survey and content analysis results, an analysis was conducted for only those survey respondents whose stories were available for the content analysis. For this smaller sample (n = 29), the means for perceived consistency of goal items with respondents’ published work generally increased over the larger sample (N = 41). The change in revealing community structure/processes was most substantial: The mean for this goal dimension for the smaller sample was 3.95, compared with 3.78 for the original entire sample. For the leadership dimension, the smaller sample mean was 3.82, compared with 3.71 for the entire sample, and for the listening dimension, the smaller sample mean was 4.05, compared with 3.95 for the entire sample.

In sum, across the survey and content analyses, the listening dimension most often ranked highest. Survey evidence for consistency with the leading and revealing community structures/processes dimensions was lower. “Leading” ranked highest in the overall analysis of stories because of the high scores for “provide background and context.” Journalists say they do this frequently, and the content analysis provides moderate support for this perception. However, findings generally indicate reluctance to pursue “leading” in the form of proposing solutions or setting agendas. This ordering of goal dimensions did not change for the smaller sample of respondents whose stories were analyzed in the content analysis, but this group saw their stories as more strongly consistent with goal dimensions than did the larger sample, and this difference was especially large for the revealing community structure/processes dimension.

RQ2 asks to what degree graduates perceive these three dimensions as important to effective community journalism. Survey respondents were asked to rate perceived importance of each goal (strongly disagree = 1, strongly agree = 5). Data for measures of each goal item are shown in Table 2. The multiple measures scoring importance of the goal (strongly disagree = 1, strongly agree = 5) were summed and averaged, and Cronbach’s α reliability coefficients were .70 or higher for all scaled variables (Table 2). The mean score for perceived importance of the listening dimension (M = 4.53, SD = 0.50) ranked highest, followed closely by revealing community structure/processes (M = 4.51, SD = 0.51) and the leading dimension (M = 4.41, SD = 0.61). These findings are consistent with survey responses on perceptions of fit between these three dimensions and graduates’ journalistic work. They are also roughly consistent with the coding of specific evidence from the content analysis of stories. It seems, in general, graduates perceive listening to their communities—interaction online and offline, encouraging citizens’ opinions and marginal voices, and revealing (often hidden) conflict—as important. Respondents’ scores for revealing community structure/processes were nearly as high, while leading was somewhat lower. It may be that traditional journalistic norms of objectivity are contributing to lower scores on leading, which involves making judgments and acting on these judgments (i.e., setting agendas and finding solutions) rather than merely reporting experiences. Among the individual goal items, the goal of determining and providing context is seen as highly desirable (M = 4.68, SD = 0.57). Only “telling stories of marginalized populations” ranked higher in perceived importance. Setting the agenda, finding solutions, and helping communities understand and connect with leaders ranked among the lowest. There was a clear gap for all measures between what respondents perceived as important and their judgment of how their journalistic work actually reflected the goal. Aspirations are high, but reality constrains.

As with the measures of consistency of work with goals, results on the perceived importance questions were analyzed for only the smaller sample of respondents whose stories were assessed in the content analysis. These results were nearly identical to results from the original larger sample, differing by no more than a few hundredths. Comparing both analyses of the two samples, respondents whose news stories were available to code indicated a somewhat smaller gap between judgments of how consistent their work is with the goals and perceived importance of the goals. Likely, this results from the fact that the larger sample included graduates who did not pursue journalism careers and who were therefore less likely to see evidence of the goals in their professional work. The analysis of the smaller sample also gives us a more accurate comparison between survey results and the content analysis, and we see that for this smaller sample, the gap between content analysis results and graduates’ judgment of their stories is greater than for the larger sample—again, likely because the larger sample included non-journalists.

Qualitative responses also shed some light on the perception of goals. Respondents were asked to comment on skills and knowledge areas they wish the program had emphasized more, an indicant of goals, though not a direct measure. Nearly all responses related to skills that would aid job-finding success and career stability. Technology and media platforms were mentioned most frequently, by far: video and sound recording and editing, multimedia, coding, social media, and experience with non-newspaper outlets. Another common response was entrepreneurial skills: “pitch my work as a freelancer,” “reaching an audience,” “how to hustle work in a way that would allow me to survive on a journalism salary alone,” “the business of journalism,” “negotiating salaries,” and “social media and other outreach.” Very few responses related to the more conceptual goals of community journalism, though there were exceptions. A handful of comments reflected concern for everyday citizens: more focus on “street level reporting,” more “people-izing community news stories,” and “more boots on the ground type work.”

Also instructive were comments in response to a question on how the program shaped their work as journalists. More than a third of the comments were highly consistent with goal orientations. Five embraced the listening goal: “gained consideration of my audience,” “the idea of the newspaper being a mirror for the community sticks with me and helps me make decisions,” “appreciation for talking to other people and really listening,” “learned to be compassionate about my community,” and “I stay mindful of ‘lesser’ stories,” and of “small people.” The leading dimension was also evident: “I am conscious of decisions I make and how they have an impact on the community,” “gained deeper understanding . . . that [journalistic] work makes a real impact on community,” “I think about my work and its impact,” and “taught me to take an ACTIVE part in making a difference to bring about positive change.” Revealing community structures/processes was less evident, but respondents did mention gaining an “awareness of place” and “ability to craft stories based on real community leaders.” Approximately seven comments related to practical advantages gained (job finding, writing on tighter deadlines, developing stamina, entrepreneurial skills, multimedia experience, allowed teaching career, etc.). There were also a number of “other” ways respondents said the program shaped their journalism: “thinking deeply about journalism,” “make ethical choices,” “leadership and teamwork,” and “showed me I’m a braver person than I thought.” Two graduates responded with the succinct “Not really.”

RQ3 asks about the correspondence between the specific year graduates were in the program and the three goal dimensions. Survey results for reported consistency with goal dimensions and perceived importance of goals show little discernible pattern across years, and the differences across years are not significant. However, the reported consistency of news work with the goal dimension of revealing community structures/processes does decline in recent years, with a mean of 4.0 for the first 4 years and a mean of 3.52 for the most recent 5 years. The 2 years that students spent immersed year-round at the partner paper were within the early years: This difference may partly account for this change. This is speculative, but the trend downward in revealing community structures/processes also corresponds with a greater tendency for recent graduates to find jobs that focus on social media and magazines. These positions typically require less reporting on communities’ official structures: government services, organizations, and leaders.

In the content analysis, percentages and mean scores for measures of these dimensions are low, and so caution in interpreting the year-by-year analysis is warranted. However, findings do show an interesting and fairly consistent pattern. Means across nearly all the items for goal dimensions dip for the 2009-2011 classes, which are the 2 years immediately after students stopped taking classes at the partnering newspaper and began taking classes at the university. Mean scores for 2009-2010 (M = 1.01, SD = 0.06) are significantly different from means for all other years (M = 1.45, SD = 0.47); t(70) = 6.82, p < .01.² The N for each year is low, and so random anomalies in individual graduates’ career paths (e.g., the type of outlet for which they worked) could account for the disparity. In fact, for these years, a higher than typical number of students pursued either lifestyle magazine work or audience engagement jobs in digital publishing. One other difference: Both classes were unusually large, with 11 in 2009 and eight in 2010 (average class size for all years = 6.7). Survey responses from 2009 to 2011 graduates, which measure their perceptions of their work and of the goals, do not differ significantly from other years.

Finally, RQ4 asks about graduates’ career paths. Of the 41 respondents, 33 mapped out the requested complete career history. Looking at all organizations that respondents list across their careers, 37 are newspapers, with two-thirds being small community papers (under 50,000 circulation). Three are magazines, seven are digital outlets, and two are broadcast outlets. Thirty-three are organizations outside of journalism, and 16 of these are universities (either public relations [PR] or academic positions). While 24 of the 33 responding graduates worked for news media in their first full-time jobs, only 13 report working full-time in news media today. Among these 13, nine now work in PR media positions. There is a tendency to move away from newspapers: 15 of respondents’ “first jobs” upon graduation were with newspapers, compared with seven of the jobs held presently. These data are consistent with concerns that the news industry is not doing enough to offer viable long-term careers. It also suggests community news reporting is increasingly a young person’s job. This is concerning, as studies indicate that in places where journalists develop a stronger understanding of their community and identity with their community over time, they are more likely to connect with citizens (Culver, 2014; Fleming, 2014; Hatcher & Haavik, 2014; Thomson et al., 2015).

While not all respondents provided detailed career paths, all responded to questions asking generally about types of organizations and positions. In all, 60% of respondents worked for community news publications at some point during their careers after graduation, and just above half worked as reporters/writers for news media companies of some sort (newspapers, magazines, digital). In all, 60.5% worked for newspapers, 33.3% for magazines, 32.4% for online only publications, 5.6% for TV, 5.6% for radio, and 31.6% in PR. Nearly 60% reported working with social media in some way. Four graduates reported pursuing academic careers. Although many have worked in non-news jobs, graduates reported strong agreement that their work has required skills and knowledge gained from the program (M = 4.48 on a 1-5 scale, SD = 0.85).

Comparison in types of jobs across years shows no statistically significant patterns, though social media positions have become more common. A yearly average of 45.5% for those graduating 2007-2011 reported that social media was central to their work, compared with a yearly average of 66.7% for those graduating 2012-2015. Also, community newspaper jobs have become less common over the years as a first job destination.

Discussion

While survey responses indicated that graduates embrace the dimensions of the “process of community,” evidence that graduates have actually been engaged in the process was uneven. The actual work does not quite rise to the level of hopes and goals.

Survey responses showed that among the three dimensions of the community journalism process, graduates value “listening” to citizens most strongly. The goal of listening to citizens, of paying attention to marginalized populations and to “everyday people,” was embraced most clearly. These journalists also thought their work most reflected this goal, and content analysis evidence of their news outlets listening and providing citizens with access to journalists was generally consistent with this.

In contrast, the goal of leading was acknowledged, but not as fully embraced. In open-ended comments, respondents showed an appreciation for the responsibility of leadership, but quantitative responses suggest they are less comfortable with actively leading the community by setting agendas and finding solutions. They do not deny the community journalist’s capacity for leading, but they view this capacity warily, as it can have instrumental consequence, unlike “listening.” The idea of journalists imposing solutions or setting agendas also challenges traditional U.S. journalism’s norms of objectivity, which is a middle-of-the-road, detached ethic (Schudson, 2003) that cuts across political and social group dividing lines (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Setting an agenda and solving a problem often involves taking a position consistent with a particular group. Content analysis of stories demonstrates little evidence of pursuing solutions, though there was frequent evidence of unearthing context for issues. It should be noted that graduates are relatively young, and many are not yet in leadership positions; therefore, the notion of influencing community agendas and solutions may seem foreign to them.

The goal of revealing community structure/processes was embraced a bit more strongly than the goal of leading, but less than listening. Respondents saw their work as moderately reflective of this dimension, and for the smaller sample of only those graduates whose stories were analyzed, this perceived level of consistency grew relative to the other dimensions. However, there was relatively little evidence of it in respondents’ open-ended comments or content analysis findings. To some degree, this goal may fly under many respondents’ radar. Clarity about community structures—how to negotiate the bureaucracy, who the leaders are, how to get around—is important for citizens, but journalists may take it for granted that their stories will provide such information.

In general, these journalists were willing to “listen” and give voice to the community through storytelling, but they were much less eager to do the work of connecting citizens with journalists and leaders, or to suggest actual solutions or agendas. They are more comfortable empowering citizens by giving them voice through their storytelling than by engaging with citizens, with the machinery of the community, or with democratic governance, in a hands-on way.

In sum then, these journalists both recognize and embrace the goal of listening to citizens; they recognize the goal of leading but are hesitant to embrace it, and they may not be as consciously aware of the goal of revealing community structure. This is not an alarming result, but it is problematic. Negotiating what a community means—what is OK or not OK, what a communities’ norms and values should be—requires an ongoing give and take of listening and leading. And prior literature clearly shows that citizens’ ability to negotiate the “stuff” of community—geography, space, institutions, officials, and processes—enhances their community involvement. Previous studies of community and news show that journalists and outlets that are engaged in helping citizens with these processes will be more relevant and helpful to citizens, community, and democratic governance. Acts of listening and giving voice are a first step, but are not sufficient.

Furthermore, the common career path from journalism to PR that these respondents revealed is also concerning, aside from any virtues or vices of PR. When journalists exit the profession, communities may be deprived of knowledgeable, self-confident journalists who are familiar with community structures and processes, and who help lead communities. This finding is also consistent with concerns about instability in the journalism field. Open-ended comments indicate graduates are focused on survival. A focus on citizens and democratic governance may be a high-minded luxury. Many of the open-ended comments allude to job hunting, to a need for entrepreneurial and technical skills, and to everyday stress and uncertainty.

Tying these results to the changing characteristics of the Community Journalism Program is difficult. Differences in survey scores, open-ended comments, and career patterns are not obviously distinguishable by graduating year. There is some evidence that enrollment during the early years when the program was immersed in the partnering paper’s town corresponded with a stronger embrace of community process goal dimensions. There was also some evidence, though weaker, of a correspondence with recent years. This makes sense, given that students have been more thoroughly immersed in the working world of community journalism during the program’s earliest and most recent years. This tentative finding is consistent with both the community process model and the literature on participatory journalism, which suggest shallow, fleeting engagement between journalists and their community will be less successful than deeper, long-term engagement and an understanding of community structures and processes. However, it is questionably valid to draw these conclusions from the data, given the low ns and lack of controls.

Little information was gathered on workplace situations, but it seems likely that everyday hardship in the industry is working against the socialization and education gained in the master’s program. The master’s program offers ideas and knowledge relevant to the three goal dimensions across a variety of courses, and findings on graduates’ perceived goals show evidence of this. But content analysis evidence of goal enactment falls short of normative perceptions of goals from the survey. Actually listening, leading, and gaining knowledge of the community require time and money, scarce in today’s news outlets. Respondents’ age, as mentioned above, may be another constraint. Even seasoned journalists struggle to gain clout and autonomous space in small communities, relative to the community’s entrenched elite (e.g., Janowitz, 1967; Tichenor et al., 1980). Finally, the journalism profession’s norms of objectivity may curb efforts to listen and lead.

This study has limitations, most notably the small population. Findings and conclusions about community journalism can be applied only to these graduates and their work. In addition, there were limitations in the content analysis sampling, as older news stories were unavailable for some graduates. However, the relative consistency in results across multiple methods strengthens the validity of conclusions. Overall, results suggest this program, focused on community journalism ideals and skills, enhances a graduate’s mind set, but good intentions meet harsh realities in the workplace. Also, return on investment may dwindle over time, as seen in some of the findings on graduates’ career patterns. Results also suggest graduates want to be storytellers, and they want to inform through storytelling. This is how they want to help. They are not as comfortable involving themselves instrumentally in community problems and with community players. However, those who continue in the field will mature and gain confidence, knowledge, skills, and connections, and may be more willing to act on learned principles and engage more purposefully with the stuff of community, citizenship, and governance.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Wilson Lowrey is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at the University of Alabama. His research focuses on the sociology of media institutions, organizations, and work.

George L. Daniels is assistant dean for administration and an associate professor of journalism in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama. His research focuses on diversity in the media workspace and community engagement.

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