This slide show describes data generated in a large study of UK hyperlocal news funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council. It accompanied a paper given at the Community Communication section of the International Association of Media and Communication Researchers conference in Dublin, June 2013.

1. UK Hyperlocal News and the
Public Interest
Andy Williams (Cardiff University, @llantwit)
Jerome Turner (Birmingham City University, @jezturner)
Scott Dewey (Cardiff University)
Dave Harte (Birmingham City University)
Glyn Mottershead (Cardiff University)

2. Context: The Value of Local News
• The value of news often viewed through prism of its
relationship to democracy (McNair 2009). Key to this is idea
that democracy enables good government most effectively if
citizens’ decisions are based on reliable information
(Habermas, 1989; Chambers and Costain, 2001)
• Numerous studies have found the crisis in the UK news
industry is endangering the local-ness, quality and
independence of local news (Franklin 2006, Williams and
Franklin 2007, O’Neill and O’Connor 2009)
• But the web has enabled a new generation of community-
oriented news outlets producing hyperlocal news (Bruns
2009, Metzgar et al 2011), which in the UK is under-
researched but attracting sustained interest. We need to
understand it better.

3. Context: Consumption of Local News
in the UK
Source: Communications Market Review, OFCOM 2012

4. What we did:
• This content analysis of hyperlocal news in the UK pays
particular attention to: sources (who gets to define
hyperlocal news and in what ways); topics (what news is
covered?); the “local-ness” of this news; the civic value of the
news (in relation to coverage of politics and local
institutions, but also the role of this developing cultural form
in fostering different forms of community activity)
• Sample: Posts published on the sites of members of the UK’s
“Openly Local” hyperlocal news network during 11 days at
the beginning of May 2012 (http://openlylocal.com/hyperlocal_sites)
• 3819 posts were published on 313 active websites, and we
coded every other story (odd numbers) in each site: in total,
1941 posts
• More info on the sample: http://creativecitizens.co.uk/publications/

5. The value of hyperlocal:
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
• Very little coverage of
local political activism

6. The value of hyperlocal: Who gets to speak?
n=1873
Top Sources Freq %
Local Politics 392 20.9
Business/
Commercial
268 14.3
Member of
Public
233 12.4
Community
Group
133 7.1
Police 114 6.1
Sportsperson 106 5.7
Culture/ Arts 102 5.4
• Some similarities with, and
some differences from, the
commercial local press…
• Official sources in local
politics, business, the police
are still very important
source groups…
• But there’s much more of a
voice for local people
(members of the public,
members of groups, clubs,
and societies, etc).

7. The value of hyperlocal: Local news for local people?
“Local-ness” of the story,
n=1941
“Local-ness” of source
utterances, n=1873
Local
1633,
87%
Not
Local
221, 1
2%
Unclear
19, 1%
1607,
82.8%
224,
11.5%
45,
2.3%
42,
2.2%
18,
0.9%
1,
0.1%
4,
0.2%
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800

8. The value of hyperlocal: a plurality of
perspectives?
• The number of sources cited
was quite low (only around half
of posts rely on sources, & only
around a fifth cite more than
one source)
• When secondary sources were
cited, it was mostly to convey
agreement, or to add context
• Disagreement between sources
was only found in 3% of posts
• Could have implications for:
transparency, plurality, and the
quality of local public debate

9. The Value of Hyperlocal: Fostering
community activity
Calls to different kinds of community activity (n=1941)
216, 11.1%
108, 5.6%
94, 4.8%
56, 2.9%
24, 1.2%
18, 0.9%
17, 0.9%
0 50 100 150 200 250
Non-Political Community
Reporting to the Authorities
Acts of Journalism
Formal Political
Cultural Production
Informal Political
Non-Political Charity

10. Calls to different kinds of citizen journalism (n=1941)
The value of hyperlocal: Fostering
collaborative citizen journalism?
47, 2.4%
34, 1.8%
18, 0.9%
9, 0.5%
1, 0.1%
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Comment
Experiences
Content
Story Ideas
Feedback

11. The value of UK hyperlocal
news: where next?
• What does all this mean?
• We’ve looked at the value of
hyperlocal content. Next comes
research on the production and
reception of hyperlocal news.
• The next steps of the project
involve researching value:
– Qualitative work with
hyperlocal audiences
– In-depth semi-structured
interviews with, and an online
survey of, hyperlocal news
producers