ABSTRACT
New practices of news production/consumption (Bruns 2005) are emerging in the digital age as the resources for, and entry barriers to, content production have changed radically. While much work has been done on mainstream news institutions’ treatment of user-generated content (Örnebring 2009; Wardle and Williams 2010), such work has prioritised “former” audiences’ activities (Rosen 2006) directed back towards mainstream journalism. But what if such activities are often directed elsewhere, for example within people’s own communities or networked spaces that link up community reporters (CRs) across multiple locations? This article will investigate such new spaces of news circulation, drawing on interviews with CRs trained by, or networked with People’s Voice Media (henceforth PVM), a CR organisation based in the north of England whose aim is to become a “Reuters of the Community”.1
