ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how crowdfunding and crowdsourcing are being used to increase the diversity of voices in journalism. It examines how journalists are crowdfunding to tell stories they do not see reflected in legacy media, including local news in areas where legacy news organizations are shrinking, as well as journalists who are crowdfunding to create feminist work. This chapter also explores how journalists use crowdsourcing to try to diversify the types of stories they report on. At the same time this chapter examines the limitations of this type of outreach, such as online “silos” and the lack of civility that can arise in online spaces.
Using the sociological concept of structuration (Giddens, 1984; Mosco, 2009), this chapter asks the reader to consider how crowdfunding journalists are attempting to exert agency in a media sphere that is shrinking and increasingly difficult to break into. They are also hoping to create change with their journalism itself, and see themselves as working to give a voice to underrepresented people and issues. Crowdsourcing can also be seen through the lens of structuration, as journalists use this technique to diversify their sources and stories.
