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Abstract
Research concerning user participation in online news has demonstrated that news websites offer a wide range of participatory features, but largely permit users only to comment on already-published material. This longitudinal analysis of Sweden's four major mainstream national news websites focuses on front-page news items to investigate to what extent user participation has increased over time and whether the participatory features present allow users to exert control over key journalistic processes. Its findings indicate that user participation has increased rapidly in regard to processes peripheral to news journalism, but also that users have to a minor extent begun over time to perform work previously reserved for professional journalists.
Notes
1. The distribution phase is also commonly considered to be a key journalistic process (DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach, 1989; Domingo et al., 2008; Seib, 2001; Singer, 2003), but as this study utilizes Nip's definition (2006) focusing on generating content it excludes distribution.
2. The first two layers are called layer 1 and layer 2. These are the first page displayed when one visits the main website and all the pages to which the news on the first page points through hyperlinks, respectively.
3. As these websites evolve, some have introduced measures to prevent different computer software programs to scan and download their sites, which excludes the possibility of downloading certain sites using such software.