How Is Participation Practiced by “In-Betweeners” of Journalism?

This article suggests viewing journalism as a structure of public communication that is enacted through the practices of various actors at sites that go beyond the newsroom. In this practice-oriented understanding, journalists, audiences and all citizen actors in-between these traditional positions take part in the enactment of journalism. This article focuses on the “in-betweeners” of journalism: citizens who are not employed as full-time journalists yet are also not part of what is considered to be the typical audience. It explores the participatory practices of activists, freelancers, academics, local residents, artists and students who are participating in the journalistic process at three different European journalism outlets: Voima, an alternative monthly magazine (Finland); Cafébabel, a participatory online magazine (France and other European countries); and Södra Sidan, a public journalism-style local newspaper (Sweden). The article draws on interviews with 69 actors as well as observations regarding communication between citizens and journalists. It discusses and further develops the concept of participation as introduced by Nico Carpentier in 2011 in Media and Participation: A Site of Ideological-democratic Struggle by separating participation in journalism from participation through journalism. It concludes that there are additional orientations of participation when looked at from the perspective of citizens, namely those of participation with, participation around and participation for journalism.