Needed research
From Banyan Project
To create a well-grounded publishing plan and the most effective publishing and 2.0 civic networking software, one of Banyan's highest priorities must be to conduct research that will lead to a deep understanding of the specific public it seeks to serve and of the nature, distribution and use of skills and inclinations required to participate in the Banyan community and other forms of participatory journalism.
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Crucial Questions
Who is included in the minority who engages in participatory journalism now? What are its subsets, based on different levels of involvement? What are the demographic and psychographic characteristics of these subsets, starting with age, educational attainment and household income? What other ways does this minority engage with the Web? How many hours a day do they spend in front of a computer screen? What Web experiences make people adept enough to confidently use the tools that participatory journalism sites offer? How does participants’ confidence in their writing skills differ from that of the population at large? What is their tolerance for dealing with large sets of choices? How many people who are equipped with the needed skills have an inclination to participate in Web journalism sites? What will it take to draw as many people as possible into participation?
Unfortunately, many of these questions have only sketchy answers at best, and existing research provides very few dots to follow in trying to create a picture of the participatory Webcentric subculture or measure how fast it is expanding. Here are a few tantalizing dots: A comparison of MRI surveys conducted in the fall of 2007 and 2008 shows across-the-board growth in the various categories of Internet use, but while an encouraging 46 percent of 2008 respondents reported going to the Web to "obtain the latest news/current events," only 11 percent reported reading blogs of any kind and only 4.3 percent reported writing them. Participation appears to have a long way to go. But there is so much we don't know.
The research Banyan is planning will yield data to help design and act on ways to maximize participation. To accomplish this, Banyan will create a 2.0 Quotient -- a graded measurement of the skills and inclinations that correlate with participation in a Web community and/or as citizen journalists. Using this quotient, we would analyze why some people at any given capacity grade participate and others don't, hoping to find ways to bring more and more people into Banyan's online community, into organizing to advance issues they care about, and to participating as citizens in Banyan's journalism.
This research is crucial not only to Banyan but also to any researcher or entrepreneur who wants to advance journalism's future on a scale larger than blogging. Dominant voices among bloggers have strongly flavored the future-of-journalism discourse with rosy assumptions about participatory journalism's trajectory, but these assumptions have never been tested by research. Until they are, people working on new models for journalism will be flying blind. As a public-spirited not-for-profit, Banyan intends to raise money for needed comprehensive research, qualitative as well as quantitative, and then to share the results widely.
This research will address not only questions relating to participation but also where people turn first for news, allowing Banyan and creators of other new models to understand and address their reader/users in the context of their existing habits.
Understanding Banyan's Public
The Project needs to develop five clear understandings of the Banyan Public, as a demographic segment unto itself, in relation to the public at large and in relation to the top two quintiles, for whom national and metro newspaper publishers now tailor their content and thus establish the dominant norm for journalism. The needed understandings:
1) Its reading habits and its needs, preferences, habits and appetites for news and service journalism at the hyperlocal, local, national and global levels.
2) Its assessment of the relevance, respectfulness and trustworthiness of various sources of news, and about about how deep the yearning for integrity runs.
3) The particular ways that cultural, political and economic currents impact it as well as its anxiety level and its comfort with authority, ambiguity, social differences, and making choices.
4) Its habits and skills in use of the Web with a special focus on comfort with getting news and information online and comfort with participatory engagement, not just in journalism sites but also in social networking sites, online shopping, political engagement, dating sites, and a wide array of other online engagement.
5) Last but hardly least, what Banyan can offer its public, in addition to the journalism available at no charge, that it will value enough to become paying members of the co-operative that will make Banyan possible.
Some Questions to Explore
The first step will be collecting and analyzing existing data from many sources, which will help inform the design of an extensive survey research effort. The surveys will require using a sample large enough to allow statistically meaningful comparisons of the Banyan Public against the overall population and against the top two quintiles. Creating the questionnaires will require care and expertise; here are some of the topics that obviously need to be explored:
Attitudes about journalism
• What makes it relevant for you
• What makes it accessible for you
• What makes journalism trustworthy for you
• What is your inclination to participate in journalism
• Where do you turn first for news
• How do you rate this primary news source in relevance and trustworthiness
• Degree of preference for a single source for all news, if trustworthy
Identity
• What makes you feel respected
• What makes you feel disrespected
• How comfortable are you writing your thoughts for public consumption
Trust
• Of various institutions in the culture
• Of material from anonymous sources
• From people who give only a first name or nickname
• From people who give a credible full name in an environment that makes no effort to verify names
• From people who give a full name in an environment that verifies names
Web use basics
• Hours per day online
• Volume of email
• Email links to friends, or forward them material through websites
• Top search topic
• How changed in last year
Types of sites used
• News site
• Political blogs
• Parental, religious, or other topic site
• MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn or other social networking sites
• Shopping review site
• Product review site
• Music site
• eBay
• craigslist
• Angie’s List
• Dating site
Actions taken on Web
• Bid
• Buy
• Donate
• Rate
• Post a comment
• Write a review
• Offer feedback
• Join
Use of other technology
• Cell phone use
• Smart phone use
