Local information ecosystems as a new journalistic paradigm
(English version of a Portuguese original using Google Translator and Grammarly)
Local journalism is no longer the “poor cousin” of the press in a change that has not yet been swallowed by most professionals, still under the influence of the dominant news agenda of the mainstream newspapers. It may seem like a kind of “wishful thinking” by someone who lives in a small town but the most recent academic research already treats a greater presence of local journalism in the press as inevitable.
There are structural reasons for this phenomenon. The end of the Cold War extinguished the polarization between the Americans and the Soviets in the agenda of the world press. Afterwards, there was a thematic fragmentation aggravated by economic and political globalization, in a process that increased the complexity of the themes addressed by the press and contributed to distancing people from newspapers and television news.
At the same time, public distrust about the reliability of news in the press has grown due to increased pressure from advertisers on the selection and content of published news.
The situation has become even worse for the big media conglomerates with the meteoric expansion of new digital communication and information technologies (ICTs). In addition to ordinary people being able to publish news, breaking the monopoly of the press, the internet has generated yet another devastating phenomenon for the major national newspapers: the information glut that allowed the emergence of dozens and even hundreds of different versions of the same data, fact or event. This process increased the confusion and disorientation of ordinary people about the prevailing agenda in the mainstream media.
News orphanhood
It was in this social and information context that local and hyperlocal journalism began to be viewed as a strategic tool in the efforts to reduce tensions at the grassroots social level. It is easy to see that opinions are divided and antagonized when the news agenda addresses national issues such as macroeconomic issues, party clashes or military corporatism, but social proximity in small towns makes understanding and conciliation predominate when what is at stake the solution of a water supply problem, basic sanitation, urban transport or public safety. Even the complaints are less angry because it is possible to make them directly to the mayor, councillor or businessman, in the vast majority of cases.
The crisis in the business model of the traditional press due to the migration of advertisers to the large virtual networks has further aggravated people’s information orphanage, just at a time when the signs of the formation of social ghettos have increased as a result of the polarization generated by social and economic inequality.
For this reason, several researchers in social issues, such as the UK-born sociologist Nick Couldry and the Egyptian-American Umair Haque, are beginning to explore the possibility of journalism based on local themes becoming the starting point for a minimal recomposition of the urban and rural social fabric, after the fragmentation caused by polarization between right and left.
Atlas of the News
The rediscovery of common interests when they are discussed in blogs, web pages, newspapers and local networks of Internet users generate greater participation of people in municipal issues, as shown by research in the United States by the Knight Foundation (Informing Communities, Sustaining Democracy in Digital Age) and books such as the one published by journalist Margareth Sullivan (Ghosting the News — Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy) and by Professor Archon Fung, from Harvard University (Empowered Participation, Reinventing Urban Democracy).
Here in Brazil, the most detailed study available on local journalism in the country is the one organized by the Atlas da Notícia project, now in its sixth stage of monitoring the evolution of the so-called “information deserts”, a jargon that defines municipalities and cities where there is no media outlet. According to the fifth edition of the census organized by Atlas, around 30 million Brazilians (13.8% of the national population) live in cities considered information deserts, a lower total than that recorded in the fourth edition of the survey, but still very worrying in terms of public information.
Five out of 10 small towns in Brazil don’t have any press at all, a situation that is partially compensated by the growing capillarity of virtual social networks that function as the primary source of information for the local population. The reach of networks and the internet is not restricted to municipal borders, which led researchers from Montclair State University, in New Jersey, United States, to use the concept of information ecosystems to study how news circulates within regions without newspapers.
The increase in the volume of studies and research on local journalism has already begun to change the very position of politicians in the United States and several European countries. The influential GAO (Government Accountability Office — legislative body) produced a report on the state of local journalism in the country and suggested official support for the sector, which has lost more than 2,000 newspapers since the beginning of the century. In December 2021, the US Congress presented the bill H.R. 3169 which provides federal financial aid for journalism in small towns and rural communities.
