What does it really mean to serve a community today?

Credit: Mousetrap Media / Frank Noon

In a nutshell:

• News organisations are shifting from thinking about "audiences" to "communities," recognising that community-driven engagement requires understanding specific needs beyond just data metrics
• Different communities (geographic, identity-based, or experience-based) have distinct information needs - local communities often seek pride and positive stories, LGBTQ+ communities need validation and representation, and neurodiverse communities need diverse portrayals
• Modern community engagement is evolving beyond just gathering feedback, with organisations like The Green Line using a four-step approach that includes explaining issues, exploring solutions, hosting community events, and publishing community-sourced solutions

The full story:

Community engagement projects often rely on quizzing people about their needs or news habits, and then delivering on those findings. But this may be an outdated approach, says Anita Li, founder of The Green Line, a hyperlocal solutions journalism outlet based in Toronto, Canada.

"This idea of consulting communities on their information needs isn't quite enough to continue engaging people in news and therefore help them advocate for themselves in a democracy, she explains on the Journalism.co.uk podcast.

In what she calls community engagement 2.0, the end goal is not more page views or subscribers. It is about improving the lives of people within that community and being able to take more meaningful action. There are too many barriers between the reader and the product, so news must take a more direct approach. Help them engage with the world around them instead.

Every month, The Green Line tackles one systemic issue facing the city. There is a four-step, four-week newsgathering process:

• Publish an explainer on the systemic problem
• Publish an in-depth solutions story on existing solutions to the problem (in any format or medium)
• Hold an event for members of the community and expert speakers to discuss, survey and curate ideas for moving forward
• Publish a solutions article that reflects top solutions that emerged from the community

Resources are also provided to solve any immediate problems. On the back of discussions about the urgent housing crisis in Toronto, for instance, Li produced practical tools like a cost-of-living calculator and various guides from fighting eviction notices to catching up with unpaid rent.

What on earth is a community, anyway?

Communities are complex and the reality is that many people associate with communities for different reasons. They consist of different stakeholders and so the needs can vary greatly. It is not so simple to serve a community in a single broad-stroke way. There are also different types of communities.

Li provides three useful categories:

• Geographic: self-explanatory, but can range from hyperlocal to city-wide
• Identity: commonly based on race or sexual identity or orientation
• Experience: like a profession or hobby, or something more stigmatised, like withdrawal and addiction

Look a little closer, and it is easy to imagine how many of these can blur together. A racial community within a town. As journalists, our jobs can be a core part of our identity. Sexuality can be as much of an experience as an identity for some.

We have explored different communities with specific needs and how news products target those needs.

What do local communities need? Pride, positivity and progress

Ed Jennings and Steven Keevil set up the community Substack newsletter Local Authority, covering the area of Medway in Kent, and a county-wide title Kent Current. Medway, a borough of five towns, is home to some of the most deprived places in the UK, as well as very affluent areas.

Given this wide range of circumstances, it can be hard to hone in on exactly what the community needs. But Keevil narrowed it down to two key factors on our podcast: being a "critical friend" of local policies and a "champion" of local success stories. The latter matters because local people tend to be very negative about Medway.

"It really does feel like Medway punches above its weight, whether it be musicians, artists or cultural moments. Medway has so much going on, but as a young person you could be led to believe that no one who comes from Medway can achieve anything," says Keevil. He wants to celebrate people like Alice Oseman, an author originating from the Medway towns who came up with Heartstopper, a comic-turned-Netflix sensation.

That sense of pride was shared by Andrew Brown, owner of the community news project Stand Up For Southport, and a journalist with 25 years of experience reporting on the local area. Southport gained global headlines last year when three girls were murdered at a Taylor Swift-themed event.

Southport, as a tight-knit community, has been trying to come to terms with this tragedy and restore its reputation as a family seaside destination, Brown says on our podcast. What the community needs more than anything is journalists to come and tell the story of how the community is getting back on its feet.

"There's an incredible enthusiasm in Southport that we want people around the country to come back and see what a beautiful town this is," he explains, adding that he is happy to share any content on the website and make local connections with news providers (just reach out and ask for permission).

What do LGBTQ+ people need? Inspiration and internet personalities

It goes by several acronyms. But whether you omit the Q or add the +, people within the LGBTQ+ community tend to think there is strength in numbers.

Enrique Lazo Anarte, multimedia correspondent at Context, part of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, identifies with this community and has long reported on LGBTQ+ rights. He says many people find it empowering to be part of this community, as it makes them feel like they belong.

What unites people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transexual or queer usually comes down to a shared experience of being marginalised, discriminated, oppressed or abused because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. But it often depends on what part of the world they are living in.

The LGBTQ+ community is also one that has formed critical behaviours and habits online.

"The internet is so important for us [in the LGBTQ+ community], partly, if not entirely, because often the internet is the first place we 'find' ourselves," he explains on our podcast, 'find' meaning to discover who they are sexually.

"A lot of us had straight parents and relatives, and no one was really 'out' in high school. So where do you find yourself? Blogs, social media, the internet. It's a big part of our personality and our lived experience and that's why we care so much about what's happening to other LGBTQ+ people around the world."

In his role at Thomson Reuters Foundation, he has seen firsthand the huge response to LGBTQ+ stories from parts of Africa, for instance, where there are strict anti-LGBTQ± laws in place. This resonates deeply with their lived experience.

He refers to user needs specifically, and says content for TikTok, where much of his work features, should consider both informing and entertaining the audience via "keep me engaged" and "inspire me" needs.

@enriqueanartelazo

You can watch our short documentary “Inside Trump’s controversial cuts to trans Africans” on our Context YouTube channel. Our handle is: context_news #lgbtnews #transrights #usaid #transawareness

♬ original sound - Enrique Anarte - Journalist

What do neurodiverse people need? "The rainbow of life"

Neurodiversity - also referred to as neurodivergence - is an umbrella term for the variety of ways our brains can operate, commonly associated with autism, ADHD, Tourette's, dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia.

Nick Ransom is a journalist and neurodiversity consultant who specialises in helping news organisations improve representation around neurodiversity. He has ADHD and is autistic, and is the founder of the Neurodiverse Media Community.

It is another community with a large online presence that often seeks validation and representation of their experiences, though what these experiences are differs greatly. Not just because there are different conditions (not a term that everyone favours, though the NHS uses it), but the conditions themselves manifest differently.

Many parts of the community will argue over the precision of certain language. That is understandable when you consider the community is defined by having brains that work in atypical ways.

Social media algorithms have a lot to do with enabling echo chambers and polarisation, Ransom says, and news organisations have a duty not just to show a more balanced reality, but a broader picture of neurodiversity.

"It's important that media shows a variety of intersectional experiences, like gender, disability or LGBT. We need to see the rainbow of life, it's pointless to see the same white, young, autistic boy playing with trains."

What do young professionals need? Proof that the path is possible

Dazed Media is a digital publication for "young creatives", as in students and early career professionals entering creative fields like photography, fasion, graphic design, and yes, journalism.

Speaking on our podcast, executive director Harry Slater and creative director Jack Sunnucks explained that this community needs assurance and a confidence boost more than anything else. Simply being inspired by other professionals who have trodden their desired career path is enough.

An inspiring webinar livestream series, How I Became, aims to address this need. One of its first interviews with Anna Meacham, revealed how she got the idea to launch a talent agency after working at a heavy metal magazine.

There is also Dazed 100, its take on the Fortune 500 list, a definitive list of industry trailblazers, including parts of their community whom they have helped to "make it". It is a way of coming full circle and inspiring a new wave of community members.

Events, provided through its membership Dazed Club, provide a space to get firsthand tips from a panel of pros and establish new contacts.

"A lot of it is overcoming a fear of failure," says Sunnucks. "Anyone who has had success has usually failed loads."

Check out the full agenda and speaker line-up now and book your place for Newsrewired and the study tour while places last.

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