Platform Journalism: Law & Society

Christopher Hall, Platform Journalism: Law & Society

Winner - University of Technology Sydney VYT (2023)

Journalism, it’s important for democracy. It plays a public interest service role by providing citizens with critical information and it holds power to account through investigative reporting. That’s why journalism has a special place in the law. Despite this, trust in news is low, and news avoidance is high. Hey! What’s up? Would you believe that more and more people are moving to YouTube for news? And this is where my research comes in. Through interviews and content analysis I’m researching platform journalism. A new type of journalism that combines journalism ideals with youtuber norms. What do you think? Do these people look like journalists? Audience members are increasingly calling them journalists. So why study this area? Because that’s where audiences are, and there’s a massive legal grey area around this type of content. It’s important to study changes in journalism. Democracy itself could be at stake!