Beyond city limits: Regional journalism and social capital

Introduction

In her 2002 BBC Reith lectures, British philosopher Onora O’Neill argued that much reporting in the news media ‘smears, sneers and jeers, names, shames and blames’ and that, as a result, ‘the wells of public discourse and public life are poisoned’ (O’Neill, 2002).

This assessment has been echoed by others (e.g. Holmwood, 2009; Newton, 2006) including many who have argued that the news media are so negative in their reportage that they undermine public debate and erode community values. For example, Uslaner has stated that:

The news highlights crime, war, disease, and other plagues. A viewer might reasonably think that the real world is cruel as well. Your local community might not be like Bosnia, but it is not Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood either. (1999: 137)

Although he acknowledges the difficulty of establishing a causal relationship, Cappella has argued that the news media ‘circulate stories of mistrust, cynicism and disengagement in forms that maximize their selection and retention’ (Cappella, 2002: 239) and that the oft-repeated themes in these stories – ‘strategy, artifice, scandal, conflict, mistrust, and self-interest in news and public affairs’ (2002: 240) – are implicated in declining trust and community values.

Claims such as these have generally been precipitated by the content of tabloid newspapers and current affairs television and derive from such contentious aspects as sensationalism, distorted reporting and the questionable ethical standards of some journalists. However, such claims are frequently levelled in ways which suggest they apply across the board to all sections of the news media. This tendency to generalisation reflects a situation not unknown in journalism scholarship which, as Zelizer has pointed out, has failed to produce a body of work reflecting all journalism but has instead produced work which ‘reflects only a portion of that which constitutes journalism and allows it to stand in for the whole’ (2004: 6).

One of the casualties of this tendency to generalise has been journalism conducted outside major metropolitan centres. This is often described as rural or regional journalism, meaning journalism conducted beyond the major metropolitan fringes and published or broadcast via smaller media outlets. In much of the literature such journalism is presented as ‘merely a “smaller” version of the journalism practised in major cities with few, if any, distinguishing characteristics beyond the size and scope of its audience’ (Bowd, 2010: 2). In much of the literature, too, there is a lack of clarity around concepts such as ‘local’ and ‘community’ which are central to understanding rural and regional journalism. Yet the importance of such journalism has been apparent for years. Almost two decades ago, Kanniss’s US study concluded that local news is anything but inconsequential and that the news media ‘produce local identity as much as they produce news’ (1991: 4). And in the UK, Franklin found that, increasingly, local newspapers are local in name only and that there has been a movement away:

… from the perception of local newspapers as central to the local political life of communities and a vital ingredient in local democracy to an understanding of local newspapers as businesses in which the achievement of profit and a preoccupation with the bottom line too readily trumps any journalistic ambition. (1998: xxi–xxii)

Studies such as these have raised some significant issues. One is what Kanniss described as ‘cheer-leading boosterism’ (1991), meaning the tendency of some media outlets to display excessive enthusiasm for their local community while underplaying or ignoring its faults. Other issues include pressures on journalists and editors to ‘cosy-up’ to local power-brokers and businesses; the potential for local advertisers to unduly influence media content because offending them could lead to the withdrawal of advertising; the increasing corporatisation of regional media; and the competitive and sometimes destructive relationships which can develop between local media outlets.

The paucity of research into rural and regional journalism in Australia and Canada means that the extent to which such issues arise in those countries remains largely unknown. Yet the forces which shaped such journalism in the two countries are very similar. Both nations are federal systems formed by the union of former British colonies; both have been shaped by their vast size and the inhospitable nature of much of their territory; both have fraught relationships with their indigenous populations; both have legal and political institutions and traditions inherited from the UK; and both are multicultural societies built on substantial immigration from elsewhere (for fuller discussion see, e.g. Meadows and Avison, 2000). These forces influenced the development of local newspapers and, later, television and radio, all of which had to contend with a pattern of dispersed, sparse settlement with huge distances between centres of population. In both countries, the establishment of a local newspaper was commonly part of the process by which infant townships demonstrated that they were becoming ‘civilised’, and, from early on, the role of these newspapers was closely intertwined with the fate of their local communities (for fuller discussion see e.g. Kirkpatrick, 2002, 2000).

Community building is one of the central values of journalism (Elliott and Ozar, 2010: 15). By publishing material which elicits empathy, admiration or pride in others’ achievements, journalists can enhance the bond that joins people together as a society (2010: 16). At the same time, journalism has:

… the rare ability to promote civic participation in ways that are timely (unlike most scholarship), independent (unlike political parties or special-interest groups), and contemporaneously available to nearly all segments of society (unlike classroom discussions or even blogs, which are available only to those with a computer). (Borden, 2010: 61)

Thus, journalism in regional and rural areas would appear to be well positioned to assist the development of social capital, the ‘features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit’ (Putnam, 2000: 67). Yet the relationship between this journalism and regional social capital remains largely unexplored. This article focuses on a regional community study which attempted to go a little way towards rectifying this situation.

The study aimed to explore the role of local media in facilitating community communication and understanding, and through this, to shed light on their possible contribution to regional social capital. It is important to acknowledge from the outset that, although it has been taken up with enthusiasm across the social sciences and humanities, social capital remains a hotly contested notion. Despite this, most definitions of social capital can be categorized into one of three broad groupings (Van Deth, 2008: 557). The first of these covers those definitions which focus on the resources provided when connected to a social network, such as information, personal support, and capacity for cooperation. The second broad grouping covers those interpretations of social capital which are concerned with the ways in which being part of a social group or being socially connected fosters attitudes and behaviours of social cooperation and the internalisation of social norms such as trust and generalised reciprocity. The third definitional grouping includes those which focus on the capacity to relate to others, care for their needs, and internalise a sense of the common good (Van Deth, 2008: 557). Drawing on these three broad groupings, Nan Lin has identified three principal sources of social capital: structural position, meaning an actor’s position in the hierarchical structure of social stratification; network location, meaning an actor’s position in the networks that exhibit particular features; and the purpose of particular actions, meaning whether an action is intended to maintain social cohesion and solidarity, or is instead motivated by a desire to acquire wealth and power (Lin, 2008: 51). The news media are capable of playing a role in each of these interpretations. They are well positioned to provide a communication link between those positioned at different levels of the social strata; they hold a central position in communication networks within and between local communities; and they have the capacity to communicate messages and foster social positives such as cohesion and solidarity. Given that being socially connected is central to each of these groupings, and that communication is central to being socially connected, the news media appear to have an important part to play in developing social capital.

The study

The pilot study reported here set out to shed light on the relationship between local journalism and regional social capital. The project investigated the part played by local media in facilitating communication and connectivity in three regional communities – the far north and south-east regions of the Australian state of South Australia, and southern Vancouver Island in the Canadian province of British Columbia. One small, one medium and one large regional centre were selected for the project, in part to ensure that the research accommodated variations in regional size. The three sites also represented a diverse cross-section of communities. Each had its own unique features. One Australian location was a new and strategically planned desert community, the second an established farming community facing major social and economic challenges, and the third a networked and engaged Canadian community that had been identified in previous research as a model or benchmark for community engagement (for fuller discussion see, e.g. Chia and Peters, 2008, 2009).

Victoria is the main population centre on Vancouver Island. Known for its natural beauty and temperate (by Canadian standards) climate, the city is the political capital of the province of British Columbia, and a popular destination for tourists and retirees. The area has a population of about 400,000, spread through Victoria and the neighbouring centres of Saanich, Esquimalt, Colwood, Metchosin, and Sooke (Vancouver Island and Victoria, 2010). While much larger than the Australian research sites, Victoria is still a regional centre. Although it is the provincial capital, it is over-shadowed in almost all respects by the city of Vancouver, its much larger neighbour on the mainland. Although – in common with the Australian sites – it attracts tourists and new residents from elsewhere, it provides a regional focus for economic, administrative and cultural activity in southern Vancouver Island. As responses received from participants in this project indicated, many Victoria residents share a sense of regionalism which derives in part from their location on an island several hours’ ferry ride from the mainland. Founded as a Hudson’s Bay Company fort in 1843, Victoria has long been over-shadowed by the larger and – as viewed from Vancouver Island – brasher, over-crowded and more polluted city of Vancouver. Located in the extreme south-western corner of the nation, Victoria is, as one participant remarked, ‘just about as far west as anyone can go in this country’ (personal interview, 20 July10). Several participants suggested that this physical distance from the rest of Canada induced a form of psychological distancing among residents. While psychological aspects were beyond the scope of this study, many residents of Victoria appear to consider themselves distant from major western Canadian cities such as Edmonton and Winnipeg, and quite remote from the eastern centres of political and economic power in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal.

The far north region of South Australia is centred on the remote desert mining township of Roxby Downs. Located in the state’s ‘Outback’ desert region, Roxby Downs (pop. 4500) was purpose built in 1987–1988 to service Olympic Dam, the world’s largest uranium deposit, fourth-largest copper deposit and fifth-largest gold deposit (BHP Billiton, 2010). About 33 per cent of the town’s population is aged 19 years or under, and there are many recent immigrants from other Australian states and overseas; indeed, 34 nationalities are represented in this small population and 51 per cent of the population arrived within the last five years (interview, 2010, Roxby Downs community board representative). The city of Mount Gambier (pop. 24,000) is the main population centre in South Australia’s south-east region, which focuses on farming, timber and tourism. The area is well known for its natural geological formations, including many extinct volcanoes and a crater lake which changes naturally from grey to a distinctive blue colour each year (City of Mt Gambier, 2010). The Mount Gambier community is experiencing considerable stress as its manufacturing, forestry and agriculture industries encounter difficult times. Local manufacturing has come under intense pressure from Chinese imports, and the local pine forests which have been state-owned since they were first planted early last century are being prepared for sale to private enterprise. Such developments pose major challenges for the local community.

The context

In Australia and Canada, non-metropolitan media have in recent times had to contend with the effects of the global financial crisis, competition from the rise of social media, and the concentration and consolidation of media ownership. They have also faced many additional challenges to their continued existence, including the drift of young people to the cities leading to declining circulation and ratings, increased networking of news and information and the withdrawal of local news services, and the impact of natural disasters such as extended drought followed by extensive flooding as occurred recently in parts of rural Australia. But despite these pressures, local media survive in most regional areas. Various reasons have been put forward to explain their survival, but one of them is that local media have in many cases been a key factor in connecting people within a region, empowering communities and building trust and mutuality (Alston, 2002: 101–102). Bowd’s study of Australian country newspapers found that ‘they are a localising influence and help to provide a sense of local identity and to develop and maintain social capital’ (2010: 58), while Van Vuuren’s study of community radio in Australia found that community radio can make a genuine contribution to social capital, concluding that station programming is of less significance to achieving a successful community radio station than broad participation from the community (2001: 18–19). Ewart et al. found that local media can make a significant contribution to culture, communication and life in small towns and regions by helping individuals and communities to make sense of themselves, their world and their place in it (2005: 92) and research by Chia and Peters (2009) on social capital investment in Australian and Canadian credit unions found that local media played a key role in the promotion of community programs and, through them, contributed to community sustainability.

Each of the regions involved in the study has a range of locally based, locally focused media, as well as broader state or province-based and national media (journalist interviews, 2010). In Roxby Downs, there are two local newspapers and a community radio station, and in Mount Gambier, a local newspaper, television station, commercial radio station and community radio station. Both towns have access to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s national television channel and to ABC rural radio, as well as to the daily metropolitan newspaper the Adelaide Advertiser and the national broadsheet The Australian, both of which are owned by News Limited. Victoria is served by a range of television channels located in Vancouver, and is the only Canadian provincial capital without a local Canadian Broadcasting Corporation station. Originally owned by the Winnipeg-based Canwest Corporation, local station CHEK-TV was bought by employees and local investors in 2009. According to one staff member interviewed, the station then adopted a strategy of focusing news coverage primarily on Vancouver Island and presenting a ‘non-agendaed news cast’. Victoria also has a daily newspaper, The Victoria Times-Colonist, owned by the Toronto-based Postmedia Network, and several small weeklies, as well as commercial and community radio.

The study reported here was guided by questions which focused on the implications of media reporting when communities are moving through challenging times. Key questions sought to clarify the most effective communication for communities facing complex issues, and the role of local media in this communication and in the promotion of social capital investment. The wider communication context framed the discussion and analysis.

Methodology

The underlying aim of much qualitative research is ‘to describe in detail what is happening in a group, in a conversation or in a community’ (Bouma, 2001: 173). For this reason, and because the focus of qualitative research is on ‘participants’ perceptions and experiences, and the way they make sense of their lives’ (Creswell, 2003: 199), a qualitative study was considered well suited to understanding the relationship between media and social capital in the three selected sites. Given the differences between these sites, it was considered important for the approach taken in each location to be responsive to context and situation. Semi-structured interviews enable researchers ‘to find out what someone thinks or feels, and how they react to various issues and situations’ and a ‘well-run focus group provides a window on an interacting community’ (Bouma, 2001: 180–182). For these reasons, semi-structured interviews and focus groups were the primary methods employed to facilitate probing of participants’ views on the role of local media, as well as their understanding of social capital and what it means individually and to their communities.

Purposive sampling, which Creswell says can ‘best help the researcher understand the problem and the research question’ (2003: 185), suggested that it was important to include in this study participants who were central to established community groups and developments in the nominated regions. Selection criteria for participants were determined only after briefings from representatives of the relevant regional community boards and regional universities. Initial qualitative, exploratory studies in each of the communities indicated that it was also necessary to include key community leaders who were active in community and civic engagement and development, and journalists who had extensively reported such engagement and development.

While one focus group was run at Roxby Downs and two at Mount Gambier, for reasons beyond the control of the research team planned focus groups did not eventuate at the Canadian site. For this reason, prior to the start of semi-structured interviews in Canada, members of the research team conducted preliminary discussions in an informal group setting at the local university campus. While acknowledging that this is a limitation of the study, the research team considered that the data obtained in this way in regard to social capital and local media were relevant and insightful, and provided a sufficient foundation for the later stages of the project.

The focus groups and preliminary discussions were augmented by one-to-one interviews with a range of informants. As Litoselliti has pointed out, such interviews can be extremely useful ‘as it is often during these that people disclose personal or sensitive information’ (2003: 24). Several semi-structured interviews were also conducted by telephone because participants were unable to be physically present at the relevant time. The interviews and focus groups involved eight Roxby Downs participants, 11 Mount Gambier participants and 12 Canadian participants. The focus groups and preliminary discussions provided a general overview of participants’ understanding of social capital and their local media, while the in-depth interviews provided a fuller understanding of communication and its role. Members of the research team also visited community centres and community projects, as well as media outlets and newsrooms. At least one local journalist participated in each of the focus groups, and all journalists were questioned in follow-up interviews. While the research team acknowledged that the presence of journalists in the focus groups might in some ways inhibit discussion, it was considered that this risk was outweighed by the likelihood that their presence would stimulate a deeper conversation about the media’s relationships with the community. The one-on-one interviews allowed in-depth exploration of the specifics of the research questions and facilitated understanding of the way local community members, including journalists, understood social capital, and the media’s relationship with social capital.

In Australia, the Roxby Downs focus group participants included journalists from the local newspaper and community radio station as well as representatives of local business, the local community board and the regional development authority. Telephone interviews were conducted with representatives of the mining company BHP Billiton Olympic Dam and with one local journalist. Two focus groups were conducted in Mount Gambier, and these included representatives of the two local councils which govern the city and its immediate environs, including those with responsibilities in the areas of communications, community and sustainability, and representatives of local media. Separate interviews were conducted with senior council staff, local journalists and community representatives. In Canada, those interviewed included members of the Office of Community Based Research at the University of Victoria, as well as individuals with community relationship responsibilities in corporate organisations, credit unions, community councils, local media and communication, and a micro-lending society. Among those interviewed were a social media specialist, university communications and community radio personnel, and a community activist. The in-depth interviews focused on individuals directing community activities and involved in supporting community programs, as well as journalists working for local media. The research team also visited a community project centre and interviews took place in organisations where community programs were developed.

Questions raised in the focus groups and discussions sought to investigate how participants understood the role of their local media; how this role differed from the role of large mainstream metropolitan media; what forms of communication were most effective between community members; what participants understood about the notion of social capital; and how they viewed the relationship between their local media and social capital. Analysis of the data gathered made it clear that it was important to explore the role of social media in developing social capital, and this was done through follow-up interviews with participants. Responses from the interviews and focus groups were transcribed and coded according to the dominant themes that emerged. Open coding of the data then moved into the second stage of analysis, identifying and clarifying relationships between categories. Manual coding was conducted and responses clustered according to:

Findings and discussion

It became clear early on in the project that residents of all three regions shared a high degree of enthusiasm for their respective communities and generally felt optimistic about the future of those communities. While some community representatives expressed reservations about some aspects of local life, none was pessimistic about their long-term situation. This attitude extended to the local media and the journalists who worked there. In contrast to the critical, or at least ambivalent, attitudes towards the media held by many residents of large cities, regional community members spoke well of what they perceived to be ‘their’ media. Overall, their responses not only suggested a sense of ownership of these media, but also that the part played by those media was different from the part played by metropolitan media. This difference related especially to the image of the local community as presented in local media reportage. A view widely shared in both Canada and Australia was that local journalists could be relied on to report ‘responsibly’, generally understood to mean supporting their community by publishing positive views and attitudes about that community. This did not mean that community participants expected journalists to suppress negative news about their area but, rather, that they considered they could rely on local journalists to ‘do their professional best’ to report negative news in ways which did not harm the social fabric of the community.

The local journalists who were interviewed appeared to understand and endorse this attitude to the extent that they felt an obligation to be supportive of their community in what they wrote and published. For example, a Canadian television journalist stated that her overarching philosophy was that ‘my role in this community is to cultivate community’, and a Canadian print journalist said she saw herself as ‘supporting this community rather than trying to dig up muck’. Similarly, in the Australian context, a print journalist in Roxby Downs said his organisation was ‘about promoting the community, building pride in the community, connection in the community’, while his Mount Gambier equivalent stated ‘We talk about what’s happening within our communities and therefore the other members of the communities, other communities hear what’s going on, so then all of a sudden you’ve got this big melting pot.’ This supportive and ‘community-sensitive’ view of their role extended to coverage of negative news stories. While all of the journalists interviewed denied that they would suppress news which was critical of their community, they acknowledged the need to accommodate local sensitivities in reporting such news:

I mean, I’m here to build a community but I have to put my reporter hat on and I have to ask some tough questions, and I do that. But then when it’s time to support people I do that too. (Canadian print journalist)

We want to tell the people stories, people-driven stories and I think once you start building that people start coming forward and saying ‘Well, we want to tell our story too’. So I think that’s a different take on it but that’s where you build a community. I think that’s really key. (Canadian television journalist)

Such responses raise further questions. To what extent does a journalistic commitment to ‘build a community’ mean tensions and problems within the community go unreported and remain hidden or disguised? How enthusiastic should journalists be in their support for developments considered by local power-brokers to be positive for the community? Given that there is seldom unanimity on any issue, to what extent should they report opposing views? From the responses received during the study, it seems clear that Kanniss’s ‘cheer-leading boosterism’ is an occupational hazard. While all practitioners insisted that it was not difficult to balance positive and negative stories, it was difficult for them to provide examples of their work to support their argument. For example, one Australian print journalist who pointed to the ‘grass-roots’ content of much of his published material stated that most of it would be unlikely to appear in large metropolitan newspapers. However, the sources quoted in this material were primarily power-brokers in his local community – mayors and councillors, police, courts, business leaders and so on – with no reference to those who might be described as ordinary citizens. At the same time, this participant was not able – or not prepared – to specify whether he had refrained from writing any stories for fear of offending any individuals in the community. Clearly, the issue of just how practitioners balance material published or broadcast under their name with journalism’s traditional fourth estate role requires further investigation.

The limitations of this study meant that the role of media management in determining media content could not be pursued. Although all of the journalist participants denied they had been pressured by management to report any particular individuals or events, several said they were aware of such pressure being exerted at rival media outlets. For their part, none of the non-journalist participants at any of the sites considered that local journalists would be in any way compromised if they engaged in ‘positive’ journalism. Rather, some of these participants seemed more concerned about the geographic origins of any journalists reporting in their territory. In both Canada and Australia, there was a clear preference among non-journalist participants for ‘home-grown’ practitioners, meaning reporters who had local origins, even if they had spent time away to further their education and professional careers. The reason given was that, in the words of one Canadian community participant, ‘local people understand local issues’ and are thus able to produce a better standard of reporting. An alternative explanation is that locally raised journalists are preferred because they are more likely to appreciate the nuances of relationships at the local level and hence less likely to step on sensitive local toes.

The contribution of communication to community cohesion was a common theme running through responses at each of the study sites. In particular, the local media’s contribution to facilitating communication between and among local people was underlined in the discussions. Different participants explained this role in different ways. To a Canadian community representative, the role was primarily ‘telling people their local stories in ways which mean something to them’. In South Australia, a Mount Gambier community participant stated that the media ‘play a connecting role in the sense that they enable us to know who is doing what and who to contact to find out more and to follow-up’. It was also clear that different media were perceived to perform the role differently. Participants at all three sites were regular – and in some cases very committed – readers, listeners and viewers who relied on their local media to provide important information about the community. They indicated that they used this information as required, meaning that they applied it to their own lives as relevant and drew on published or broadcast material to link with other members of the community. The communication role of newspapers was seen by several community participants in both Australia and Canada to be more effective because, as a Roxby Downs participant said, ‘newspapers contain more information and cover a wider range of subjects than other media’. Several community representatives in both countries also criticised what they considered to be the media’s tendency to sensationalise, and one of the Canadian community participants expressed concern at what she saw as the media’s tendency to simplify issues, observing that ‘The media tends to be a black and white vehicle, like, they like a hero and a villain right, and if there isn’t a hero and a villain, they’ve got to have a conflict.’ Having said that, non-journalist participants at the three sites agreed that the media’s communication role was especially important in times of crisis when local people might feel threatened or insecure. Radio was seen as providing the most immediate means of finding out what was happening, and for this reason was the medium most people would turn to in times of crisis.

Participants’ responses indicated that over the past decade or so social media have emerged as a major contributor to the communication process. Responses consistently suggested that social media have become an important tool for residents for communicating locally, and for communicating with former residents who had moved to geographically distant locations. Although reliance on social media was greatest among participants aged less than 30, all participants regardless of age considered social media had a vital role to play in strengthening the local sense of community by engagingcommunity members with each other and informing them about community issues. The journalists endorsed these claims. The Canadian journalists reported that their news-gathering incorporated stories provided by local residents via social media, while in South Australia Roxby Downs interviewees reported that ‘many, many’ former residents of their town – which has a high turn-over of population – continue to communicate via Facebook, YouTube and Twitter with those who remain in the town. The responses received suggest that, increasingly, social media are playing a role that is very similar to the communication role traditionally played by the ‘old’ media. One of the Canadian journalists expressed strong support for incorporating social media within her journalism because ‘it means more interaction’:

You know, people may not pick up a pen, write a letter, pick up the phone or even email but they’re willing to write a 140 character tweet saying ‘Hey guys, there’s a car crash in Courteney that you guys need to get to – it’s really important’.

In the opinion of this interviewee, Twitter is particularly valuable because it helps her find out about ‘community events we didn’t know about, things that we can help out, causes we can help out with’. In Australia, a Mount Gambier radio journalist indicated that, through Facebook, ‘we are connecting more with our younger audience … the stories that we are producing, the stories that we’re telling about different community members, all of a sudden they’re being exposed to that’. One of the key reasons for the success of social media was said to be the ‘authenticity’ of direct communication. In the words of a Canadian community participant: ‘Just hearing it straight from the person themselves right, instead of filtered by the media, whoever might be gathering information, you remove the middle man, and suddenly you just have somebody there, saying the things that need to be said.’ Taken together, the responses suggest that social media are providing a form of communication which is helping community members maintain personal relationships as well as encouraging them to participate in community dialogue which extends to local media. In this way, social media have become important contributors to communication at the level of the individual and at the level of the community.

Inclusivity – meaning the need for communication to be inclusive of community diversity – was raised as an issue by non-journalist participants at each site. A third of these participants at some stage referred to the need to make a special effort to include in community engagement those who have been largely excluded. Specific groups mentioned were the poor, the homeless and the unemployed, as well as members of indigenous and ethnic minorities. Congolese refugees who had recently settled in Mount Gambier were put forward as an example of a group which had as yet had little input into community dialogue, and this was seen to be partly due to inadequate local media coverage. The only media considered to be doing an adequate job at all sites in regard to inclusivity were local community radio stations and free community newspapers. A Canadian interviewee said that reflecting diversity was a feature of programming at a campus radio station where ‘third language’ (non-English and non-French) programming was highlighted. In addition to First Nations content, there was also ‘Chinese programming, in Cantonese and in Mandarin. We have Japanese programming, Polish, Spanish, … Portuguese …, Italian and … Swedish.’ In the Australian context, an example was provided by the community radio station in Roxby Downs which provides culturally focused programs run by volunteers, described as ‘people who come in and want to share their particular culture on the radio’.

The broad picture emerging from this study is that in each location, local media facilitate communication between journalists and non-journalists to the benefit of the local community. In each region, local people rely on ‘their’ media for news and information about local happenings and assume that this news and information will be presented in ways which support the common interests of the region. For their part, local journalists rely on local people to let them know of matters which can be published or broadcast, and to inform them of the context in which these matters have developed. What enters the public arena through the local media as a result of this reciprocal relationship was considered by all to be different from the content typically provided by larger metropolitan or national media. In both Canada and Australia, interviewees viewed national and international media as providers of news from a distant, wider world which had little connect to their local situation. There was a widely held view among participants that regional life was happier and healthier, less stressful and closer to the natural environment than big city life. In this setting, informal relationships blossomed and acquired renewed importance, reflected in interactions between and among staff from different media outlets, between and among local community members, and between journalists and citizens. Interviewees regularly expressed comments which reflected the view that ‘everyone knows everyone around here’, and it was apparent that there were many encounters between local people, including journalists, many times each week, if not each day, at such locations as workplaces, shopping centres, service clubs, sporting clubs and church groups. As a result, the boundaries between those working in the media and those whose activities they report are thinner and less clear-cut than is the case in larger metropolitan centres.

As indicated earlier, there is little clarity around the terms ‘local’ and ‘community’. In regard to the media, ‘local’ was said to refer to anything falling within the formal boundaries of each region and local media were interpreted to mean any media outlet based within those boundaries. Two additional elements of localness were raised by participants at the three sites – distance and time. Distance was considered to be relevant in so far as interviewees generally considered that new arrivals were able to ‘feel local’ more quickly in regional areas than in big cities because they were physically removed from metropolitan areas such as Vancouver, Adelaide and Melbourne. The length of time an individual or family had resided in a particular area was also put forward as a significant aspect of being local, although the precise length of time specified varied between sites. In the case of Roxby Downs, the establishment of the township little more than 20 years ago meant that someone who had lived there for a decade could be considered a genuine ‘local’. On the other hand, Victoria and Mount Gambier were both first settled more than 150 years ago, and interviewees in those centres suggested that families needed to have lived in the area for several generations – and individuals to have been born there, at the very least – to be regarded as locals.

Practitioners appeared to have a diverse understanding of community, which was considered to encompass a range of sectors and localities. Community boundaries were least contentious, as these were consistently defined in terms of surrounding physical geography – desert and extinct volcanoes in the Australian locations, island and ocean in the Canadian case. The physical isolation of Roxby Downs, which is more than five hours by road from the nearest city, was considered to be both a positive and a negative – positive in that it encouraged residents to be self-reliant, but negative in the sense that the town attracted people who lived and worked there for only a few years before moving on. The transient nature of the community had presented particular challenges to building community relationships, and these challenges had also affected local journalists because staff turn-over could mean some would never really become part of the community.

The picture in regard to human relationships within each community was more complicated. This was partly because, as one Mount Gambier journalist said, ‘there are communities within communities’. Although this comment was specifically directed at the two most recent immigrant groups to arrive in Mount Gambier – Burmese (Karen) and African (Congolese) refugees – they highlighted the difficulty facing local journalists when they feel obliged to contribute to developing and maintaining a sense of community. Different groups can be disparate and competitive, and these pressures can undermine community cohesion. As a Mount Gambier practitioner indicated, the results can be problematic as journalists can feel trapped between a desire to support such groups to fit in to the local community and the professional need to report any conflict as news.

The difficulties caused by new arrivals seemed less concerning to Canadian practitioners, perhaps because new arrivals are more likely to be well-off retirees from other parts of Canada than culturally diverse and frequently unskilled refugees who have often been through traumatic experiences. The work of bodies such as the local Community Social Planning Council, which was referred to by all Canadian journalist participants, may also be a factor. The Council’s website states that it is ‘a conduit for connecting the region to quality, reliable information and insightful analysis on topics that can build connections among people and communities’ (Community Social Planning Council, 2011) and responses during the study indicated that the council plays an important role for the less well-off section of the Victoria community. Journalism practitioners reported that they generally supported the aims of the council, and hence were happy to report initiatives taken by it, as well as any news developments associated with the council. However, they also indicated that it was important to ‘keep them at arm’s length so we aren’t compromised’.

Conclusion

The pilot study reported here set out to examine the relationship between local media and regional social capital in two regional locations in the Australian state of South Australia and one in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The study aimed to explore the role of local media in facilitating community communication and understanding, and through this, to shed light on their possible contribution to regional social capital. Despite the limitations of the study, the findings suggest that, to varying degrees, the local media in these sites are contributing to the development of social capital.

This contribution appears to derive in part from the intensely local nature of much of the journalism published or broadcast in regional areas, and in part from the more intimate, personal relationships which often develop between local journalists and citizens in smaller communities. The study indicated that community members often feel a sense of ownership of ‘their’ media and, consequently, expect those media to pursue the best interests of the community, broadly interpreted to mean minimising disharmony and divisiveness, and assisting citizens to face up to challenges from the rest of the world. In return, local journalists appear to feel an obligation to present news and information in ways which support this view and which do not undermine local pride or cohesion. This suggests that, unlike most media in large urban centres, local journalists often develop a world view which they share with those whose activities they report, a world view which revolves around the core aim of promoting the common good of the community. This situation raises some important questions about the role and nature of regional journalism. How does this type of journalism differ from mainstream metropolitan journalism? What are the implications of these differences? And how should practitioners negotiate a range of ethical issues which arise at the boundary between supporting one’s community and becoming a vehicle for Kanniss’s ‘cheer-leading boosterism’?

In regard to the formation of social capital, the results of the study suggest that local media facilitate connectivity in terms of each of the three broad understandings of social capital outlined earlier in this article. Thus the local media in the three regions appear to contribute to social capital interpreted in terms of resources, and especially information which can assist the capacity for cooperation. They also appear to assist social capital as defined in terms of the ways in which being socially connected fosters attitudes (trust, generalised reciprocity) which foster social networks and community dialogue. In particular, this occurs through the close personal relationships of mutual trust and reliability which develop between journalists and community members. Finally, local media also appeared to be capable of assisting the development of social capital defined as the capacity to relate to others and to internalise a sense of the common good of the region. In particular, they achieve this through the ways in which they interpret and communicate notions of the ‘common good’ for their region and, to some degree, by encouraging local people to interact and communicate with each other.

The study found that inclusivity continues to be an issue for local journalists, who often fail to incorporate the views of minority groups into their reportage. While powerful local individuals are key influences in any community, and thus will inevitably be major sources of news and information which warrants publication, the variable extent to which local media seek out the views of the less powerful – immigrants, the poor, homeless, indigenous and so on – means they leave themselves open to the charge that they are mouthpieces for the views of the powerful. The study also found evidence of the growing communication role being played by social media in local communities. While this is especially the case for community members aged younger than about 30, there is evidence that social media are increasingly relevant to most community members and are beginning to assume aspects of the media’s traditional communication role. However, it would be wrong to assume that the rise of social media is sounding the death knell for ‘old’ media in regional areas. Although the study found disparate understandings of the key terms ‘local’ and ‘community’ among participants, local media across the three regions investigated are working hard to understand and adapt social media to their own advantage, in the process retaining their central communicative role in their own communities.

Despite the limitations of this study, its findings support the conclusion of Ewart et al. that local media can make a significant contribution to culture, communication and life in small towns and regions by helping individuals and communities make sense of themselves, their world and their place in it (2005: 92). The study found evidence that, in helping local media make this contribution, local journalists approach their work in ways which differ from their metropolitan counterparts, and that these differences raise a number of professional and ethical issues. The study’s findings also suggest that how individual community members understand and utilise their media at a personal level would be a fruitful avenue for future investigation. However, while further research is required, this study has drawn attention to the positive role that communication is capable of playing in the development of social capital in regional communities, and highlighted the potential for regional media to contribute to the performance of that role.