AUDIENCE - JENKINS

Evaluate the usefulness of Jenkins on participation in understanding audience use of online newspapers such as The Guardian and MailOnline.

Jenkins's work has been instrumental in highlighting the transformative impact of new media on audience participation and engagement. He argues that the proliferation of digital platforms has accelerated the shift towards a participatory culture, where audiences are no longer passive consumers but active and creative participants in the production and dissemination of content.

In the realm of online news, platforms like The Guardian Online and MailOnline have embraced user-generated content to enhance reader engagement.  Both outlets encourage audiences to contribute comments, share articles on social media, and even submit their own stories and multimedia content. By opening their platforms to user participation, these news organisations empower audiences to play a more active role in shaping the news agenda. Jenkins's framework helps us understand how the development of new media technologies has democratised the news-making process, allowing for diverse voices and perspectives to be heard in the digital public sphere.

Jenkin’s work points to the idea of “collective intelligence,” which manifests in online news in the form of citizen journalism. The Guardian online has embraced citizen journalism; its "Comment is Free" section, for instance, allows readers to contribute opinion pieces and commentary on a wide range of topics, amplifying diverse voices and perspectives. By embracing citizen journalism, The Guardian online has reaffirmed its commitment to journalistic values of transparency, accountability, and inclusivity, while remaining at the forefront of digital innovation in the media landscape. Jenkins is therefore useful in identifying the way that some newspapers have embraced participatory culture as a way to enhance content within their liberal agenda of offering a voice to a wider demographic.

Even though both Guardian Online and MailOnline, encourage participatory culture, this makes up only a fraction of their content or it serves as a tool to bring more clicks to what they see as their ‘real’ work. Furthermore, professional journalists adhere to ethical standards, fact-checking procedures, and editorial oversight to ensure the accuracy, credibility, and accountability of news reporting. While citizen journalism and user-generated content have expanded the range of voices and perspectives in online news, they may lack the journalistic rigour and resources to navigate complex issues and provide in-depth analysis. Guardian Online and MailOnline, as reputable news outlets, value journalism as a professional practice, employing trained journalists to investigate stories, and uphold editorial standards. Jenkins’s work is focused primarily on the fandoms that grow up around media phenomena like TV shows, film franchises and the like, so it is limited in its scope to address an industry that is, at least ostensibly, built on truth and rigour.