The Social and Economic Value of Hyperlocal News

Andy Williams (Cardiff University, @llantwit)Jerome Turner (Birmingham City University)

Dave Harte (Birmingham City University)Survey collaborators: Judith Townend, City University; Steve

Barnett, Westminster University

What we did: methods • Content analysis of UK hyperlocal news. Sample: Posts published

on the UK’s “Openly Local” hyperlocal news network blogs, 11 days, May 2012. 3819 posts were published on 313 active websites, we coded every other story: in total, 1941 posts. More info on the sample: http://creativecitizens.co.uk/publications/

• Online Survey with UK hyperlocal publishers. We surveyed publishers on the “Openly Local” network (using the Talk About Local email list, and with personal follow-up emails). 183 responses. Response rate: 1/3 of current best estimate of active HL sites in the network (Harte 2013).

• Semi-structured telephone interviews with 36 HL producers (from a range of different outlets, geographies, approaches). Covering motivations, workloads, production practices, principal challenges, and economics/sustainability. Average length: 1hr 14mins

Who produces UK hyperlocal news?• The sector is now reasonably well

established (73% of survey respondents have been doing it for more than 3 years).

• Most (70%) see what they do as a form of active participation in community life, with 57% describing what they do as “local journalism”, and 55% as “active citizenship”.

• Almost half of participants have some form of journalistic training/experience, which suggests an even split between amateurs and pros (or semi-pros).

What gets covered?

n=1941

Top topics Freq. %

Community 252 13.0

Politics (Government) 227 11.7

Sport 224 11.5

Crime/Legal (Individual) 134 6.9

Business/ Industry 133 6.9

Environment/ Nature 109 5.6

Entertainment/ Leisure 98 5.0

• Geographically-focused, community-oriented form of local news… local clubs, societies, leisure time activities covered regularly• Lots of coverage of local politics – which is declining in mainstream press (mentioned in 27% of posts)• Very little coverage of local political activism

Hyperlocals Investigate and Campaign• 44% of respondents have “carried

out an investigation which has helped uncover controversial new information about local civic issues or events” in last 2 years

• 42% have started their own campaigns, and 72% have publicized the campaigns of others in the same period

• Issued varied, but many examples of serious public interest investigations and campaigns were found. They were often effective, helping change things locally.

How is hyperlocal funded?•Around 1/3 participants make money,

mostly quite modest amounts: 12% make less than £100 per month (but 13% generate more than £500 per month)•Most producers self-fund the running costs

of their sites, but around 1 in 4 raise enough cash to at least cover their costs.•Advertising is the dominant form of

income generation, but a number of other methods are employed. •Despite the low proportion of

economically successful hyperlocals, 9 out of 10 think they can sustain, or increase, output in the coming year.

Alongside the celebration, some notes of caution…

A sector based primarily on the volunteer labour of individuals is potentially precarious for (at least) 2 reasons:

1. Many community news ventures are run by individuals or very small teams, and are not guaranteed to survive should key contributors move on; and

2. Their informal nature, & consequent lack of institutional support (e.g. legal, professional, etc) for news producers, means hyperlocals may struggle to maintain independence and produce critical watchdog news in a sustained way.

And a little perspective…• From the start we sought to

test hyperlocal news’ ability to plug holes left by the retreating local newspaper industry.

• It clearly has the potential to do so in many cases, but we need to retain some perspective.

• In terms of the numbers of news producers, and the amount of time they can spend on news production, hyperlocal has only very partially plugged growing local news holes.