Call for Papers
Engaged Journalism: Connecting research, journalism, & community
AEJMC preconference, August 5, 2020 (online)
Organizers: Andrea Wenzel, Jacob Nelson
As a growing number of journalists attempt to build relationships of trust with communities, a growing number of researchers are studying their efforts. This one-day AEJMC preconference will connect researchers, journalists, and community members to explore ways to improve collaboration between these three groups, as well as ways to more effectively share lessons learned.
This preconference builds off of a preconference held at ICA 2019. It is co-sponsored by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon, the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University, and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. The practitioners attending come from initiatives and outlets such as Capital Public Radio, El Timpano, Free Press, Journalism + Design, KALW, Spaceship Media, and more.
What to expect?
The day will feature lightning talks where researchers will introduce journalists to their work and journalists and community members will describe their own efforts in the field.
The day will also feature an engagement clinic that will include three “tracks” in an effort to offer researchers, practitioners, and community members the opportunity to get feedback and to troubleshoot issues they face. The researcher track will focus on making academic work focused on engaged journalism accessible to practitioners and community members. The practitioners track will provide mentoring on how to design basic research studies, information needs assessments, or evaluations. Finally, community members participating will get mentoring on how to more effectively connect with local media on issues of concern.
The clinic will conclude with a joint session on designing research-based projects with communities. We will also use the clinic portion of the day to gain feedback on a possible resource to assist collaborations between researchers and practitioners by highlighting best practices and facilitating connections and communication between scholars and journalists.
The preconference will conclude with a plenary panel featuring a combination of researchers, practitioners, and community members, who will discuss their own efforts to work with one another, and identify areas for improvement. Because of the event’s location, there will be a special focus on initiatives within the Bay Area. Throughout the preconference we will orchestrate opportunities for participants to build relationships through small group discussions and informal networking opportunities.
How to submit papers?
Those interested in presenting their research should submit papers to the Participatory Journalism Interest Group (PJIG) of AEJMC. Topics can include, but are not limited to (1) The relationship between journalists and communities/audiences (i.e., audience engagement, trust building initiatives, membership and crowd-sourced revenue models, etc.); (2) participatory journalism, public-powered journalism, citizen journalism; and (3) efforts to increase representation of diverse race, gender, class, and ideological perspectives in news production. Papers must clearly state ‘pre-conference’ on the title page, and students should clearly identify their papers as “student papers.” Paper length is limited to 25 pages, not including references, tables, figures or appendices. Font size should be 12 pt. with margins at least 1 inch on all sides. We accept papers in any academic formatting style. Papers should not have been published. Authors should ensure that their papers do not contain identifying references (for more details on submission guidelines see “submitting a clean paper” under the uniform paper call on the AEJMC website). Manuscripts not accepted for the preconference may be considered as part of general PJIG submissions.
