Overview
Access to local news is essential for civic participation: enabling individuals to understand, share and act on information about their community.
There is increasing use of technology and smartphones
There is potential for this to enable access and sharing of local information
But original, credible and impactful content production is difficult to achieve and resource-intensive.
We sought to understand the current landscape of local news curation and consumption; it's potential to go "digital" and develop mechanisms that would help to optimise the success of digital local news platforms.
We conducted research to
Identify current barriers and opportunities for producers of local news, Citizen Journalists, in producing more digital content.
Identify current barriers and opportunities for consumers, community members of underserved communities, in accessing and engaging with digital news
We then designed and tested potential solutions to
Improve access to locally-tailored content for low-income populations, and
Promote the ability to access, share and engage with locally-relevant information and knowledge
Project activities
Literature review of the current landscape of digital news in underserved communities, to understand
The general consumption habits of digital content (across the Kenyan population at large)
What digital content platforms specifically for local news currently exist in underserved communities (rural or informal settlements of Nairobi).
What regulations and policies exist for citizen journalists
The barriers on the supply-side and demand-side of digital local news.
User Experience research
Qualitative interviews with 61 community members and 20 citizen journalists from informal settlements in Nairobi and rural communities in Kisii
Focused on:
How do people currently access and share local news?
How do citizen journalists report on local news?
What experience do people have with digital platforms?
What challenges do people face in accessing and engaging with digital content?
Co-design workshop with Digital Access Program partners
Conducted over zoom due to Covid-19
We presented and discussed findings from the user research
We worked collaboratively on an online platform to brainstorm solutions to the barriers digital local news identified in the user research.
Prototyping and Testing
Prototyping sessions with chiefs where we discussed the value, feasibility and practical requirements of three identified solutions from the co-design workshop, all of which involved leveraging their traditional communication structures through digital platforms.
Virtual lab experiment whereby we tested the impact of "the messenger" of digital news on trust, intentions to share and willingness to pay for local news.
We sent a piece of local news to residents of informal settlements in Nairobi, randomising whether the news came from their chief, a citizen journalist, a community member or none specific (control).
Using an app called Kite, we then asked all respondents survey questions related to the piece of news that they had been sent.