Three Stages of Innovation in Participatory Journalism—Co-initiating, Co-sensing, and Co-creating News in the Chicago School Cuts Case

Taneli Heikka () and Elias G. Carayannis
Additional contact information
Taneli Heikka: University of Jyväskylä
Elias G. Carayannis: George Washington University

Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 2019, vol. 10, issue 2, No 2, 437-464

Abstract: Abstract This article introduces a new way of thinking about innovation in the public sphere through the three collaborative steps of co-initiating, co-sensing, and co-creating news. We investigate a case of mediatized civic responses to public school closings in Chicago, Illinois to understand how participatory news production was initiated from outside the newsrooms and added value to the public debate. A network of civic activists analyzed and visualized data, reported live from school grounds, and developed networks and tools to challenge the local government’s narrative for the school closings. We argue that a limited understanding of the process of co-creation has confined the practice and analysis of collaboration between audiences and professional journalists in news production. Focusing on digital platforms and technologically capable individuals has ignored the majority of the public as potential news producers. Furthermore, we suggest that on the level playing field of contemporary innovation systems, professional journalists can be seen to be participating in the co-creation of journalism initiated by the civil society, challenging the conventional model of newsroom-led participatory journalism. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for innovation systems. We suggest that the fine-tuned steps of co-initiating, co-sensing, and co-creating innovations can help in developing the role of the media-based civil society in innovation systems. Applying these steps in practice can help in making the innovations emerging from these systems socially inclusive and sustainable.

Keywords: Co-creation; Dialogue; Dialogic journalism; Participatory journalism; Innovation; Innovation systems; Quadruple Helix (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13132-017-0466-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:10:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s13132-017-0466-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13132

DOI: 10.1007/s13132-017-0466-0

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Knowledge Economy is currently edited by Elias G. Carayannis

More articles in Journal of the Knowledge Economy from Springer, Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().