Research project
Developing Confidence in Community Journalism
- Start date: 9 December 2024
- End date: 31 July 2025
- Funder: School of Media and Communication
- Primary investigator: Layla Painter
- Co-investigators: Professor Julie Firmstone
- Postgraduate students: An undergraduate journalism student was employed as an Impact Support Assistant for the project. Clem Zamora’s role included filming workshops and participants to tell the story of the project in a short digital film.
Value
£1843.50
Partners and collaborators
Bradford Community Broadcasting (BCB)
Description
The ‘Developing Confidence in Community Journalism’ saw staff from the University of Leeds School of Media and Communication work alongside Bradford's community radio station, BCB, to build volunteer confidence in broadcasting local democracy content.
BCB radio has been providing a local community radio service in Bradford since 1994 – with a team of nearly 200 volunteers broadcasting locally produced content. Mary Dowson, BCB Director says: “The success of our Election coverage in 2024 confirmed that our volunteers and audience have an appetite for more political stories and content. This project with the University of Leeds will help us explore how to include more of this and provide an improved local democracy service to the city of Bradford.”
An initial survey of volunteers and staff at BCB identified topics to be explored to give volunteers the skills and confidence they need to find and tell political stories. Teaching staff from the School of Media and Communication’s Journalism team, who are all experienced practitioners and journalists, created and delivered a series of practical workshops to cover these areas, such as interview techniques, media law and practical audio skills.
Professor Julie Firmstone is one of the academics who delivered a workshop for volunteers, sharing her research into trust in news and what audiences expect from journalism. She says: “Our research has shown that there is a big demand from the public for news about their locality and that audiences tend to find radio more trustworthy than newspapers and online news. We also know from talking to members of the public that confidence in the news media is declining, so we have been asking people what can be done to improve the credibility of journalism. Sharing and discussing these findings with BCB will help them make informed decisions about future content”.
Impact
After each workshop, participants graded their confidence on these topics, with a lift seen at every stage.
Comments from participants following the workshops included:
- “The workshops were so useful... They brought an important team of people together on a regular basis so it really felt that we were learning together.”
- “I enjoyed and valued it and would like to see it continue.”
- “I’ve noticed that some of the presenters have started doing more - and more creative - reports. It’s created a confidence in doing this and somehow opened up a different aspect of their role at BCB.”
Publications and outputs
Watch a short video about the impact of the project
Read more
Coleman, S. et al. 2016. The Mediated City : the News in a Post-industrial Context.
Firmstone J, Steel J, Conboy M, Elliott-Harvey C, Fox C, Mulderigg J, Saunders J, Wragg P. 2022. Trust and Ethics in Local Journalism: A Distinctive Orientation Towards Responsible Journalism and Ethical Practices. In: Lynch J, Rice C (eds.) Responsible Journalism in Conflicted Societies: Trust and Public Service Across New and Old Divides.
Firmstone J, Whittington R. 2021. Local political journalism: Systematic pressures on the normative functions of local news. In: Morrison J, Birks J, Berry M (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Political Journalism. Routledge Journalism Companions.
Firmstone J. 2016. Mapping Changes in Local News. Journalism Practice. 928-938+ 10.7