ABSTRACT

Drawing on the empirical research literature as well as on my own investigations, this article discusses whether some of the most significant, citizen-based media of communication--hyper-local community websites, the South Korean online newspaper OhmyNews, the collaborative online news site Wikinews, and the global Indymedia network--are advancing public journalism's ideals. It is argued, first, that while community websites and OhmyNews feature original, citizen-based news reporting, they suffer from a problematic, journalistic division of labor whereby the site staff takes on responsibility for reporting on public issues and events while citizens report on their private interests and concerns. Second, it is shown that, while Wikinews offers citizens opportunities to contribute their own news reporting on public issues and events, most of the articles consist of rewritten stories from mainstream news media and that contributors are encouraged to format those articles in conformity with mainstream news reporting conventions. Indymedia, by contrast, features original, citizen-based news reporting and commentary which counteracts that found in mainstream news media, inspires respectful interaction among citizens of different political persuasions, and promotes political activism on behalf of progressive social, political, and economic change. The article concludes by briefly summarizing the most important findings of the empirical research literature on citizen-based media of communication.

**********

During the past couple of years, many scholarly and journalistic observers have speculated that the proliferation of newer, citizen-based media of communication heralds the dawn of an era in which the ideals that have animated and continue to animate the public journalism movement can be advanced by citizens themselves. In contrast to public journalism's mediation of the public interest by professional journalists, observers anticipate the emergence of what Schudson (1999: 122) refers to as a "fourth model of journalism;" that is, a model of journalism "in which authority is vested not in the market, not in a party, and not in the journalist but in the public." This supposed shift from "public journalism" to the "public's journalism" (see, for example, Friedland 2003; Heinonen & Luostarinen 2005; Witt 2004) has also been referred to as "the second phase of public journalism" (see Nip 2006).

Drawing on the empirical research literature as well as on my own investigations, this article discusses whether some of the most significant, citizen-based media of communication--hyper-local community websites, the South Korean online newspaper OhmyNews, the collaborative online news site Wikinews, and the global Indymedia network--are indeed advancing public journalism's ideals. I examine, first, the modes of operation and content of so-called hyper-local community websites. I show that, while such community websites feature original, citizen-based news reporting, they suffer from a journalistic division of labor whereby the site staff takes on responsibility for reporting on local public issues and events while citizens report on their private interests and concerns. More generally, I argue, such community websites promote a problematic vision of community as a unified site bounded by shared values and goals, thereby failing to acknowledge that most contemporary communities are fragmented into multiple social groups with different, if not conflicting,...