Talk " - the only news bulletin board offered by a British national newspaper ." ( Nuttall , 1999 )
From the beginning , Rusbridger was committed to the venture - for the Guardian to endure , it had to be a financial success . Many resources were committed to creating a new user experience , harnessing the unique possibilities offered by the internet . This included the immediacy of updates , far more than the daily newspaper , and the ability to create specialist sites tailored to user interest . However , most significant was the possibility of reader interaction on the website . This would become Rusbridger ’ s focus for the remainder of his tenure , and would transform the Guardian ’ s relationship with its readers . As Rusbridger well knew , ultimately the Guardian website ’ s success – and the Guardian ’ s survival – would be , as all media change is , in the hands of its audience .
PART II - MYTHBUILDING With the audience at the heart of the Guardian Unlimited venture – motivated initially by financial necessity rather than journalistic integrity – new ways to engage readers became essential . The same was true for many other newspapers . In newsrooms across the western world , a myth of interactivity arose – an ideal form of reciprocal journalism , where all parts are active participants ( Lewis et al ., 2014 ), and financial gain is merely a by-product of this elevated art form .
Myths require imagination , both to form and to grasp . They demand a creative imagining of what could be – what Natale and Balbi ( 2014 ) call media prophecy . Those who imagine a new form of interactive journalism must see beyond what already exists to what could possibly come to be . However , myths can also be necessary for survival . Domingo ( 2008 ) describes the emergence of this journalistic myth as a direct response to a crisis in the social role of journalism , as well as the opportunities of digital media . In order for journalism to continue , despite the eroding of its former social role , journalists needed to believe that there was a way things could change and improve .
A creative reimagining of the relationship between newspapers and their audiences was required . Rusbridger understood this well . In 2009 he spoke of “ a very clear wall , dividing readers and writers ” in the old print newspaper approach . He committed to “ taking down those bricks , lowering the barrier and positively encouraging the relationship between the two ” ( Rusbridger , 2009 ). This he called the “ mutualisation ” of news . In 2012 , Rusbridger laid out his hopes for the Guardian ’ s “ Open Journalism ” approach :
“ A city trader in New York realises he ' s captured on film the moment the police struck a news seller in the middle of a crowd . A woman leaving a theatre is moved to write about her response to the play she ' s just seen . A dozen scientific bloggers group together to reach a much larger audience . A nurse wants to share her perspective of the NHS changes . […] The newspaper is moving beyond a newspaper . Journalists are finding they can give the whole picture better . Over a year the readership grows – a little in print , vastly in digital . Advertisers like it , too . […] This is what we mean by open . The newspaper is the Guardian .” ( Rusbridger , 2012 )
This collaborative process might sound like fantasy , but many journalists and academics agree that this was the future of journalism ( Borger , 2013 ; Graham and Wright , 2015 ; Wright et al ., 2020 ). In many ways , online participatory journalism can be seen as a democratisation of journalism , in the model of Benjamin ’ s concept of the democratisation of art ( 1939 ). Media forms and the nature of communication change over time , and there is a general trend towards
HANNAH WIGRAM
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