Below the Line or Below the Belt ? How the Myth of Participatory Journalism and the Reality of Online Comment Spaces Transformed Journalism at the Guardian
HANNAH WIGRAM
" What we are doing is a quantum leap ," declared Alan Rusbridger , editor of the Guardian newspaper from 1995-2015 , at a 1999 news conference ( Nuttall , 1999 ). Rusbridger was announcing the launch of the Guardian Unlimited network of websites , and he had ambitions . Unlike its predecessors and contemporaries , Guardian Unlimited was going to transform news media . Positioning themselves as trailblazers forging a path into a new digital world , Rusbridger saw the potential of their website as , quite literally , unlimited .
At the core of this “ quantum leap ” was the possibility of greater interactivity between journalists and their audience . In the past restricted largely to Letters to the Editor , the internet presented new avenues for reader participation in journalism – avenues hitherto unexplored and the consequences unknown . The Guardian ’ s online output was to be at the forefront of this exploration , heralding a new age of participatory journalism . However , with so many unknowns and rapidly changing technology , the road ahead was set to be a rocky one .
Below-the-Line ( BTL ) comment spaces emerged as the primary form of user-generated content ( UGT ) in early online news media . Situated underneath online articles , BTL spaces allow for instant comment and debate from readers . The hope was that these spaces could promote a new form of dialogic journalism , and ultimate positively impact wider journalism practice ( Graham and Wright , 2015 ). The reality , however , has been far from this utopian dream . By considering the history of the Guardian newspaper and its position within a broader narrative of journalist and audience , by examining the powerful mythmaking that established participatory journalism and specifically BTL comments as the lifeblood of online reporting , and by questioning the impact of these spaces on journalists , readers and newspapers as a whole , a non-linear narrative emerges – a narrative of constant adaptation , buffeted by social and technological change alike .
PART I - INNOVATION Rusbridger ’ s attitude is one of the innovator – wanting to use creative modernisation to affect change . On first encountering the internet in 1993 , he was left in “ no doubt ” that “ there would be no going back ” – the future of news media was digital ( Rusbridger , 2021 ). It was this certainty that fuelled his determination to put the Guardian at the forefront of online developments . To Rusbridger , the move from print to digital was a “ revolution ” – a forcible overturning of the old to make space for the new and the innovative . Not that Rusbridger necessarily thought this process would be immediate , but he strongly believed it was inevitable , no “ crystal ball ” required . Soon , printed newspapers would disappear into
HANNAH WIGRAM
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