Challenge Statement

“How might we tell different stories, in different ways to meet the information needs of people and communities who don’t currently see or get  a value from journalism - to enhance the capacity of citizens to understand and orientate themselves in the world and take action on behalf of themselves and their communities - because healthy societies rely on an informed public.”

Action

We worked with existing active communities in South Wales to recruit 20 participants spanning from 17-70 years old, from students to social workers.
We convened sessions over a 6 month period, sharing our stories, giving a view into how newsrooms work, and recording what matters most to our community.
This led us to co-designing and proposing three service interventions which could go on to be prototyped at the input stage of information forming.

Behind the scenes I worked with community charities to plan fair and equitable recruitment for sessions which did exclude anyone. Payment was considered in terms of social benefits. I onboarded community facilitators, planned sessions, hosted group analysis with core teams, and worked with the project lead to write regular progress updates and final report.

Outputs

• Video case study

• Full length report

• Industry talks

• Hosting ‘Future of Journalism’ workshops

Results

• 3 x concepts for service interventions

• Atlas of communities’ needs to explore with decision makers

• Industry coverage to provoke useful debate

• Blueprint of participatory research for newsrooms to re-use and scale up

• 100% agreement that as a direct result of taking part in this research, the participants would be more likely to engage in civic participation in the future