Designing Engagement in Local News: Using FOIA Requests to Create Inclusive Participatory Journalism Practices

ABSTRACT

This study explores how an engaged journalism process supported by participatory design practices can impact attitudes and perceptions of audience engagement in local journalism. Using MuckRock’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) submission tool, journalists, journalism students, and community stakeholders engaged in participatory design workshops centered around pressing local issues and creative approaches to filing FOIA requests. This study re-imagines FOI requests not just as a way to locate source material for important local reporting, but as a visible process that invites the public to engage and understand how that reporting is done — and how anyone can use and benefit from the process. Findings show that design-driven engagement journalism practices can make public records culture more inclusive, engaging, and accessible, and support more collaborative and creative engagement between journalists and audiences.

KEYWORDS:

• News literacy
• participatory journalism
• civic media
• FOIA
• participatory design
• public data
• community engagement

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Michael Morisey of Muckrock, Chris Faraone of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, MIT Professor Catherine D’Ignazio, and Media Design and Data Journalism students who worked alongside us on this project.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Online News Association under Grant 270006-830811. This project was made possible with a 2018/19 Challenge Grant from the Online News Association.