The Road to Open News: A Theory of Social Signaling in an Open News Production Community

Figures & data

Figure 1. Conceptual framework of peer production (adapted from Benkler [7]).

Figure 2. Total articles by role with unique article creators (n = 1597).

Figure 3. Average total categories, tags, and comments (n = 1597).

Table 1. Factors across project phases.

		Pre-Launch Factors	Pilot Launch Factors	Platform Redesign Factors
IP and RA Advantages		Large group of motivated donors. Support the project as potential producers/consumers. Small group of skilled professionals. Staff with relevant experience for creating news content. WT staff setting news agenda. Affords top-down form of granularity for task setting. Modular news articles. Can be created independently (but not built collaboratively).	Expanded community. Volunteers joining platform and formal channels. More diverse community base (different skills, experiences, and availability) and more heterogeneity (through expanded resources and topic taxonomy). Modular news articles. Can be collaboratively built via new platform (increased accessibility) and self-selected by community of users. Use of multiple channels of communication. Reaches wider audience and creates relevant spaces for accessing resources (WT talk pages, WT project posts, Slack workspace, and others). Formalization of spaces. Facilitates access and discussion of projects and topics.	Growing community. Unique authors joining platform and formal channels (increased diversity) Large pool of modular news articles. More transparent and detailed revision histories. Increased accessibility of resources and spaces. Enhancing coordination with new system features. Levelling of incentives between community members. Less visible distinctions between paid and unpaid staff (culminating in removal of paid journalists). Participatory site design. Increasing participation signals to users and making resources accessible. More defined production processes. Project policy and guideline developments.
Challenges	Motivation	Limited contributor-base. Some volunteers included in beta testing of platform. Lack of diversity. Small limited paid staff members in community. Topic homogeneity. News agenda set and controlled by editorial team with focus on current affairs.	Unequal incentives for community members. Paid staff and unpaid volunteers. Non-participatory site design. Limits participation signals to users and accessibility of resources. Required registration. Barrier to users (real names encouraged) before being allowed to contribute. Limited topic heterogeneity. Core of articles created by staff; agenda set by editorial team. Limited granularity of work. Requires skill and experience for greenfield production.	Limited granularity of modules. Steps towards formalizing production processes. Limited topic heterogeneity. Decreasing topic coverage with reduction in article production and continued community changes.
	Coordination	Isolated article creation. Limited collaborative capabilities. Limited resources. Project focused on developing content to attract users. Managerial hierarchy. Insular communication channels.	Unequal power across community members. Administrative and publishing rights. Expanded contributor base. Increasing difficulty for coordinating and communicating work. Fragmented coordination. Multiple channels of communication with dispersed messages. Limited filtering of article topics and projects. Lacking modular spaces to allocate resources.	Fragmented coordination. Multiple channels of communication with dispersed and disconnected messages. Introduction of new communication channels. Switching platforms disconnects existing members and requires adaptation period and member transfer. New system features and design. Adaptation period for users to learn features and new system. Limited filtering of article topics and projects. Lacking modular spaces to allocate resources.
	Integration	Private beta platform. Limited users/content to integrate articles and work. Internal formalization. Internal processes and social structures to improve integration and quality.	Limited formalization. Inaccessible processes and social structures to improve integration and quality.	Limited community experience/skills. Expanded rights for volunteers to publish articles and evaluate article quality.

Figure 4. Social signaling model of hybrid peer production.

Benkler, Y. Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and “The Nature of the Firm.” The Yale Law Journal, 112, 3 (2002), 369–446.

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