Journalism as a Conversation

What is journalism-as-a-conversation, at least in the experience of online audiences? I used my doctorate to figure that out. A search of fields as varied as computer network analysis and political communication revealed a half dozen or so key features, or variables, to conversation:

* Coorientation/homophily: perceived similarity (two types) to journalist.

* Social presence: perceived humanness of journalist.

* Interactivity: perceived smart use of Web tools by journalist to allow collaboration with citizens.

* Friendliness: perceived openness/accessibility of journalist to citizen ideas.

* Informality: perceived casual tone/manner of journalist with audience.

How does conversation work and does it help us with core journalistic values? It’s a pretty complex phenomenon but also a powerful one. And, yes, it can aid credibility and expertise. It confirms what researchers have been wondering about for years: that credibility is not just a rational but a social concept.

I’ll spend the months ahead talking in detail about how each of these features worked in my online news experiments. Briefly, two features, coorientation/homophily and interactivity, are crucial. They often predict whether audiences view news as credible and/or expert. They sometimes predict whether people simply like a story, though friendliness does a better job of that. So does interest in the story topic.

Perhaps the prickliest features of conversation are social presence and informality. In the case of the former, you pretty much need to show a video of a journalist to get people to sense your humanness. That kind of makes sense.

As for informality, you can easily go overboard, often to the detriment of perceived credibility and expertise, so watch out for coming across too casually with your audiences. Informal chit-chat and demeanor can be troublesome.