Teste

STEPPING BACK FROM THE GATE: ONLINE NEWSPAPER EDITORS AND THE CO-PRODUCTION OF CONTENT IN CAMPAIGN 2004
By Jane B. Singer
In their coverage of the 2004 political campaign, editors of Web sites affiliated with major U.S. newspapers continued to emphasize their role as providers of credible information. But they moved toward seeing that information less as an end product than as a basis for userengagement, participation, and personalization. This study, which builds on a similar study conducted after the 2000 election, suggests journalists may be taking steps toward reshaping their gatekeeping role to accommodate the interactive nature of the Internet.

Journalists see themselves as central to the democratic process. In the journalist's view of democracy, the notion of citizensovereignty rests on the quality of information that those citizens possess—and it is up to journalists to provide it,' Giving citizens the information they need to be free and self-governing has been defined as the primary purpose of journalism,^ Editors have contributed to this process primarily through their role as gatekeepers, ensuring through their selection of content that "the community shall hearas a fact" only what the editor determines is suitable.^ Yet the power of such gatekeepers seems to diminish in a modern information society.** The Internet defies the whole notion of a "gate" and challenges the idea that journalists (or anyone else) can or should limit what passes through it. At the same time, the sheer quantity of information online, along with its wildly varying quality,reinforces the need for someone to sort it out as well as to lend it credibility and, ideally, utility. This article explores editors' reconceptualization of their gatekeeping role in the democratic process. It suggests that as they continue to "normalize" the Internet^ as a vehicle for journalism, journalists still see themselves as a primary source of credible political information. But more of thatinformation than in the past is explicitly intended as a starting point rather than an end product for audience members. Online editors are increasingly accommodating the interactive, participatory nature of the medium, simultaneously redefining and reaffirming their
Jane B. Singer is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa.
]&MC QuarterlyVol. 83, No. 2 Summer 2006 265-280 ®2006 AEJMC

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own space within it. To investigate this subject, the article presents and analyzes findings of a 2004 follow-up to a 2000 study of online newspapers' campaign coverage. The results indicate a continuing focus on providing information but suggest a growing emphasis on content that serves as the raw material foruser participation and personalization.

Literature Review

Online Journalists and Interactivity. Almost all U.S. daily newspapers now offer online versions,'^ and the Internet is a news source for a majority of Americans.^ However, research attempting to document how journalists are taking advantage of the medium's inherently interactive nature has produced mixed results, partly because ofconceptual disagreement about what "interactivity" means,^ Definitions encompass a range of user capabilities, from clicking on a hyperlink to construct a nonlinear story,' to providing feedback to professional communicators,'" to engaging in online discourse and forming virtual communities," The most valuable definitions for the purpose of this study relate to a user's ability to "participate inmodifying the form and content of a mediated environment in real time."'^ Applying a journalistic framework, Massey and Levy call this concept "content interactivity," or "the degree to which journalists technologically empower consumers over content."" Journalists have been slow to let go of "the 'we write, you read' dogma of modern journalism,"''' Traditional media have been criticized for...