Including the Audience

Abstract

The audience has always been an important reference for journalism although, under mass media conditions, it remained an “operative fiction” for its practitioners, reflecting a clear distinction between sender and recipients. Recent shifts in mediated communication towards networked public spheres and the increasing implementation of participatory features force media organizations, journalists and scholars alike to rethink the journalism–audience relationship. We introduce the concept of audience inclusion in journalism, to provide an analytical framework to investigate the relationship between journalists and (their) audience. The article presents the results of a multi-method case study of the German television newscast “Tagesschau” and its online platform tagesschau.de, and compares the attitudes of journalists and audience members towards the role of journalists, the relevance of participatory functions, the motivations for participation, and their general assessment of audience participation. By and large we find congruence between journalists' and users' expectations towards audience participation in news journalism. However, there is notable disagreement regarding the (assumed) motivations of users for participating at “Tagesschau”.