Participatory journalism in Malta : policies adopted and editors’ attitudes

Abstract

Participatory journalism enables the audience to play an active role in the news by contributing to news websites. Some of the formats that encourage participation from the readers are commenting on news stories, sending in photos and story tips, taking part in discussion forums, writing news articles and other interactive formats. Maltese news websites are also integrating participatory journalism as they are adopting quiet a good number of participation formats. This study discovers policies on participatory journalism adopted by news websites and the attitudes of Maltese news editors towards participatory journalism. This study was conducted through eight in-depth interviews with persons occupying editorial positions. The findings indicate that most of the websites studied include several formats that enable users’ participation, while a minority have just a few. There is also interest from most of the participants to integrate newer formats of participation on their news websites. Moreover, some participants showed the interest of creating a section on their news website dedicated solely to contributions from the public. This study also shows that from users’ participation, journalists get many benefits, like ideas for news stories. The study identified the use of moderation of comments, which is of concern to the participants especially due to legal liabilities and negative content. Furthermore, there is a balanced attitude towards participatory journalism, some participants agree completely with it while others have different beliefs. This is mostly felt when asked about the future of journalism, and if they ever imagine a future were citizens occupy the role of journalists.