Utility of Local News Source Repertoires for Understanding Engagement with Local Community

• In Event: News Making Considerations

Abstract

This study joins the tradition of those that attempt to understand how local news consumption relates to community engagement, but to address the question in a world of burgeoning news source choices. It investigates the news ecosystem of a large metropolitan area by identifying in a representative survey of adults, two types of news repertoires, one including national and local news sources and the other only local news sources. The three profiles identified in the local repertoires, Low Interest, Traditionalists, and News Junkies are differentiated not only by demographics, but also in terms of measures of engagement in their community, including belief in the value of working in their community, interpersonal and digitally-based conversing with community others, community knowledge, and community participation like volunteering. The national plus local repertories fail to do so. Nevertheless, the best set of predictors of the engagement measures remain measures of individual media consumption.

Authors

• Esther Thorson, Michigan State U - Department of Communication

• Weiyue Chen, Michigan State University

• Stephen Richard Lacy, Michigan State U