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Abstract
Patch.com, an online community journalism platform, is focused on the reporting of local news at more than 900 communities across the United States. Scholars have observed that community journalists often display personal engagement in the stories that they report, and, envisioning their community, actively work to facilitate a sense of connection among their readers. This work finds that Patch.com sites, however, exhibit a lack of clear engagement with their wider communities—stories feature an overreliance on official sources, reader (and editor) posts to stories are minimal, and Patch's linking strategies focus on keeping the reader on Patch sites. Patch's approach to local journalism presents questions about online community journalism's ability to visualize, and engage, wider communities of interest through a networked, connective journalism.
Notes
1. Twenty-one stories could not be classified. One unusual example was an editor reprinting Craigslist entries where people tried to connect with others, or complained about bad dates. Other stories were simply too generic, like reprints of recipes, reports of traffic accidents or backups, or republication of mailing dates from the Postal Service website.
2. Approximately 15 percent of safety/security stories were actually brief crime-round ups with no additional reporting offered.
3. A few Patch stories did ask for photo submissions only. This study did not include those stories in the calculation of reader responses as it was not possible to determine which photos on the site were placed by the editor or the readers.
4. The total ratio of official sources to stories skews low because of calendar lists, promotional contests, and brief crime blurbs appearing as editor-bylined pieces.