oa Participatie in en via de journalistiek

Participation in and through journalism. The relevance of public journalism in the digital age

About twenty-five years ago a journalistic reform movement emerged in the US, which was referred to as ‘public journalism’. The main goal of this movement was twofold; to reconnect journalism with its public and to reconnect the public with civic life. After more than a decade of flourishing, the interest in public journalism waned. Maybe because the time was not yet right for a paradigm shift toward a radical public orientation, maybe because the concept was believed to have been overtaken by the arrival of new media by which the same ends can be achieved. Due to technological and social developments journalism is in the process of redefining itself and it is evolving in the direction of networked journalism. Against this background the principles of public journalism are more promising than those of traditional journalism, corresponding far better with the fundamentally changing relation between the profession and its public.