A see-through curtain of varying texture: Negotiating power and material realities in engaged journalism

Acknowledging the networked nature of journalism and shifting power relations between actors in the hybrid media system, this paper invokes the metaphor of the curtain that separates journalists and external actors/forces in discussions on journalistic autonomy (Coddington, 2015) and applies it to the engaged journalism practices of four media startups. It places the curtain in the Hybrid Media Systems paradigm and its relational ontology (Chadwick, 2017) to examine to what extent that concept applies to engaged journalism, a participatory media practice which, by definition, involves publics in journalistic processes. Drawing on interviews with engaged journalism producers in Pakistan, Romania, Malaysia, and the UK, this comparative cross-border study explores the power relations within the actor constellations involved in journalistic co-creation. The outlets examined favour a relational approach to knowledge production, in which they prioritise mutual listening and learning – together with their communities. However, there is still a separation between journalists and audiences / publics. Examining the power negotiations that shape engaged journalism in different parts of the world, this study sheds light on the unique texture of each hybrid media space of co-creation. It offers a nuanced conceptualisation of hybridity, suggesting that engagement can lend itself to varying degrees of openness. The study findings challenge idealistic notions of participation by showing that, even in engaged journalism practice, participation remains tightly controlled by journalists and is subject to negotiation between capacity-enabling and capacity-limiting forces within the constraints of the context-specific material realities.