Kirsten A. Johnson, Ph.D., an Associate Professor at the Department of Communications at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa, has a request. She’s doing research about citizen journalism efforts around the country and would like your views as users and contributors to this site. The more responses she gets, the more accurate the results can be. We filled out our survey, and she followed up and asked us to invite you and share the link.
If you’d like to share your views, please consider taking a few moments to fill out her survey at:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MYZ33VT
Here is her official introduction to the project:
“My name is Dr. Kirsten Johnson and I’m an Associate Professor in the Department of Communications at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. I’m working on a project with Dr. Burton St. John, an Associate Professor of Communications at Old Dominion University in Virginia regarding citizen journalism and I’m hoping you can help us.
You’re being contacted because we believe you do some form of citizen journalism (e.g., reporter, columnist, editor, photographer) at a citizen journalism website. We’re interested in understanding, through a short survey, how you view your role as a citizen journalist. The survey should only take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.”
Chris, This survey seems to
Chris, This survey seems to be geared more towards the originators or ‘overseers’ of a community journalism site rather than those of us who contribute to it.I started to take the survey but found so many of the questions directed at decisions that the person running the site would be responsible for that I just stopped answering midway through.
I agree
I thought so, too, but she asked us to ask everyone…so, thanks for trying.
The Survey
From the questions, I got the sense that it was not a purely academic inquiry or to improve journalism, but that the intension is to figure out how public relations professionals can better exploit citizen journalism sites for commercial purposes.