News Audiences

The arrival of digital journalism and the associated participatory turn in journalism has shifted the audience away from being an imagined and abstract concept with little power or agency in shaping news to a potentially powerful agent in news production practices. This chapter asks, how does the relationship between journalists and audiences shape what becomes news? It explains four conceptualisations of the relationship audiences have with news: as citizens/the public; as consumers; as passive receivers and recipients; and, more recently, as active participants and producers. The chapter considers how these relationships have evolved over time and explores the new opportunities audiences have to shape news production in the digital age. Passive, hybrid, and active practices of audience participation in news production are visualised as a ‘Spectrum of audience participation’. The implications of emerging participatory practices such as personalising news consumption, sharing, commenting, and giving feedback are explored.