ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates three challenges facing the online local newsroom: determining the news outlet's role in encouraging visitor interaction, negotiating corporate control, and yielding editorial control to the public. It also describes the challenge and suggest new agendas for future research on how online audiences can become online publics. Then it discusses three challenges facing news sites: First, it look at the tension between, creating a public by facilitating discussions among informed citizens and engaging the masses by providing interactive features and gimmicks geared for individual use. Second, it analyzes constraints facing local news sites based on corporate ownership. Third, it examines the challenge of newsrooms retaining editorial control over content versus ceding some of this control to site visitors. Finally, the chapter outlines two ways the public versus mass conflict emerges: whether news sites encourage citizens to interact with other citizens or with the Web sites alone, and whether news sites attempt to inform publics or engage masses.
