The Ultimate Reading List for Community-Centered Storytelling

18 recommended books and reports to guide and inspire more community-driven journalism and reporting

Damian Radcliffe
Commonplace Forum

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Photo by Seven Shooter on Unsplash

This list initially appeared as an Appendix in my September 2024 report on Advancing Community-Centered Journalism. Read Chapter 1 on the principles that underpin this practice here. In Chapter 2, I outline the challenges facing this practice and how to overcome them, while Chapter 3 explores how to grow community-centered journalism and broaden its adoption in newsrooms.

For journalists interested in adopting a more community-centered approach to their work, there is a growing list of case studies, and examples, to learn from.

This model of storytelling and journalistic practice lies at the heart of the work undertaken by the Agora Journalism Center. Below we outline several key Agora reports for those interested in digging deeper, as well as work produced by others across the journalism industry, that we believe are particularly accessible and valuable. (We also couldn’t include everything!)

Whether you are new to community-centered journalism, or looking to expand your mastery of this approach, these sources will provide inspiration, affirmation, and validation which we hope you find useful.

Original Agora Research Reports

Heyamoto, L., Milbourn, T. (October 2018). The 32 Percent Project: How Citizens Define Trust and How Journalists Can Earn It. Agora Journalism Center.

Lawrence, R.G., Tabor, C., Nicolosi, M., and DeVigal, A. (October 2022). Assessing Oregon’s Local News & Information Ecosystem Connecting news, information, and civic health. Agora Journalism Center.

Lawrence, R.G., Gordon, E., DeVigal, A., Mellor, C., & Elbaz, J. (April 2019). Building engagement: Supporting the practice of relational journalism. Agora Journalism Center.

Lawrence, R.G., Schmidt, T. (November 2018). Putting Engagement to Work: How News Organizations are Pursuing “Public-Powered Journalism”. Agora Journalism Center.

Radcliffe, D. (September 2017). Local Journalism in the Pacific Northwest: Why It Matters, How It’s Evolving and Who Pays For It. Agora Journalism Center.

Radcliffe, D. Alvarez, D. (November 2019). Shifting Practices for a Stronger Tomorrow: Local Journalism in the Pacific Northwest. Agora Journalism Center.

Radcliffe, D. Lawrence, R. DeVigal, A. (September 2023). Redefining News: A Manifesto for Community-Centered Journalism. Agora Journalism Center.

Robinson, S. (November 2023). Engaging Emergence Advancing the Future of Journalism for All. Agora Journalism Center.

Other Research Reports and Reading

Brown, C., & Groves, J. (2020). Transforming newsrooms: connecting organizational culture, strategy, and innovation. Routledge.

Ferrier, M., Sinha, G., & Outrich, M. (2016). Media deserts: Monitoring the changing media ecosystem. In The communication crisis in America, and how to fix it (pp. 215–232). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

Holman, P., Susskind, Y., Ferrier, M., Fancher, M., & Silha, S. (2017). Journalism for democracy and communities: A new framework. Journalism That Matters.

Mensing, D. (2013). Rethinking [again] the future of journalism education. In The Future of Journalism (pp. 94–106). Routledge.

Nelson, J. L. (2021). The next media regime: The pursuit of ‘audience engagement’ in journalism. Journalism, 22(9), 2350–2367.

Nelson, J. L. (2021). Imagined audiences: How journalists perceive and pursue the public. Journalism and Pol Communication Unbound).

Posetti, J., Simon, F., & Shabbir, N. (2019). What if scale breaks community? Rebooting audience engagement when journalism is under fire. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Robinson, S. (2023). How journalists engage: A theory of trust building, identities, and care. Oxford University Press.

Wenzel, A. (2020). Community-Centered Journalism: Engaging people, exploring solutions, and building trust. University of Illinois Press.

Wenzel, A. D., & Crittenden, L. (2021). Reimagining Local Journalism: A Community-centered Intervention. Journalism Studies, 22(15), 2023–2041.

About the Author

Damian Radcliffe is a journalist, researcher, and professor based at the University of Oregon. He holds the Chambers Chair in Journalism and is a Professor of Practice, an affiliate faculty member of the Department for Middle East and North Africa Studies (MENA) and the Agora Journalism Center, and a Research Associate of the Center for Science Communication Research (SCR).

He is an expert on digital trends, social media, technology, the business of media, the evolution of present-day journalistic practice, and the role played by media and technology in the Middle East.

Damian is always a three-time Knight News Innovation Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, an Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture Studies (JOMEC), and a Life Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). In Spring and Summer 2023, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.

With nearly 30 years of experience in the media industry, Damian has worked in editorial, strategic, research, policy, and teaching roles in the USA, Middle East, and UK. This includes roles in all media sectors (commercial, public, government, regulatory, academic, and nonprofit/civil society) and all platforms (print, digital, TV and radio).

He continues to be an active journalist, writing regular features for Digital Content Next, the International Journalists’ Network (IJNet), journalism.co.uk, and other outlets. His work focuses on digital trends, social media, technology, the business of media, and the evolution — and practice — of journalism.

Read his full report on Advancing Community-Centered Journalism via the Agora Journalism Center website: https://agorajournalism.center/research/advancing-community-centered-journalism/

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