ABSTRACT
This article discusses how the relationship between professional and participatory media could be described in a changing media environment. It presents key findings of a two-year research project which explored online journalism in Germany. The findings draw a multilayered picture of the latest developments concerning professional online newsrooms and their counterparts in participatory media. The data consist primarily of standardised interviews with editors-in-chief of online newsrooms. In most newsrooms, they produce a supra-regional and comprehensive news offer on their websites each day. In total 183 newsrooms participated in the survey, which was conducted in 2007 (response rate: 44 per cent). At first glance, three different relations can be identified between professional and participatory media: competition, complementarity and integration. We found little evidence that weblogs or other forms of participatory media are replacing traditional forms of journalism. It seems to be more likely that they complement one another. Besides this, we observed that the integration of audience participation platforms into news websites is expansive. Therefore, the study also reflects on the following questions: How do newsrooms manage user contributions on their sites? What kinds of rules and features have already been implemented?
