Through the ears of the audience: Emerging definitions of news from community radio audiences

Abstract

In traditional forms of journalism the news value of conflict is typically preferred over other values. Public and civic journalism have tried to address some of the problems associated with this by reinvigorating the media's democratic and public debate functions. However, few forms of journalism have been able to systematically challenge and redefine widely-accepted notions of news values. We argue in this paper that traditional definitions of news and information are being challenged at the everyday level of production in the community broadcasting sector. In part, this is implicit in the sectors' mandate to provide access and participation at the level of “community” for those groups otherwise denied access to media. We suggest that a challenge to traditional news values (and to definitions of journalism) is evident in the type of news and information and the ways in which it is being collected and produced by community media workers.