This participation occurs both onsite and on social media platforms – and many Australian news organisations allow onsite commenting, including the public broadcaster ABC.
In the traditional print media, the “Letters to the editor” had been the customary feedback tool. Most Australian newspapers still devote a page to “Letters to the editor”, which also contains columns of brief emails from readers, under the page heading of “Commentary”. Now, however, there are much more direct forms of feedback available to the public, creating new challenges for news organisations. While some news organisations have managed to turn their onsite commenting features into a profitable and attractive addition to their offerings, others have had to turn them off completely due to the challenges presented by hostility and poor-quality comments as well as the cost of moderation (Huang, 2016). Nevertheless, the feedback from comments and social media has had an impact on journalists and news organisations (Bruns, 2012; Hanusch & Tandoc, 2019).
The degree of public participation is now as high as it has ever been. Some investigative stories are accompanied by an online forum where the public could send in comments and tips, and the response is overwhelming and often unmanageable. Many programmes now have a “Twitter backchannel” for the audience to send in their opinions or to ask questions. But it would be wrong to affirm that this greater interaction between journalists and the public leads to actual participation in the news process.
As it was already the case in 2011, the public broadcasters ABC and SBS have high-profile programmes, Q&A and Insight, which are built on audience participation. Audiences are not only in the studio, but can also e-mail questions and participate via Twitter, with a feed of tweets running at the bottom of the screen (see Josephi, 2011). However, these programmes are very formulaic and opinion is relatively closely controlled.
The ABC website offers a live blog with analysis and opinion, and a fact-check site, run in partnership with RMIT university, which monitors important claims including those suggested by the audiences (ABC, 2020).
The availability of a comments section at the end of online news sites varies considerably, as does the moderation style in terms of intervention.
