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The concept of participatory journalism draws attention to the shortcomings of established journalism by emphasising the role of the audience for boosting pluralism, transparency, deliberation and media accountability. Drawing on filed theory, the study attempts to shed light on whether the former audience can disrupt the field of journalism. To do so, it investigates the level and preferred forms of participation and provides evidence on how users perceive of the participatory affordances offered through news media websites. Although users assign public discourse functions to participatory avenues, the study confirms the reluctant audience paradigm, and the popularity of tools enabling low editorial capacity. From a field perspective, it is argued that although users' doxa denotes democratising ideas about participation, their behaviour is ultimately driven by their weak habitus (position) in the field. To use Bourdieu's metaphor, the power in the journalistic game still lies in the hands of professionals; users are not willing or capable of disrupting the norms and practices of mainstream journalism.

Crisis in journalism is a widely discussed and controversial topic in Greece since 2009 when economic recession afflicted the Greek society. However, the last decade of financial hardships and ownership changes in the Greek media sector (2009–2019) gave rise to a widening of perception on the part of journalists of what really crisis stands for when it comes to their profession. Based on 25 in-depth interviews with Greek leading news media professionals from all types of media outlets (press, television, radio and news websites), the present research describes how journalists perceive, assess and manage the crisis of their profession in today's networked media landscape, characterised by unprecedented phenomena such as the rise of churnalism, post truth journalism and fake news in the context of new trends with regard to how the Greek audience is seeking information and consuming news. While existing research on journalism profession has tended to emphasise the conversion of journalist into a multitasked employee towards audience members who treat journalism with suspicion, this chapter focusses on to what extent journalists by themselves are critical of their profession's vulnerabilities such as the lack of genuine investigative journalism, alienation from the actual reporting based on primary material and manipulation of media professionals within an unstable market. The research gives insights into journalists' opinions and attitudes with regard to the symptoms indicating that journalism in Greece is suffering from chronic and acute crises related to the extraction and dissemination of news, the relationship of journalists with media owners as well as the operation of the media market.

This chapter focuses on data journalism, a relatively new brand of journalistic practices that take advantage of the growing availability and application of digital data and computational tools for news production. Although this brand of journalism has been on in some advanced democracies, it is still a relatively new development in Africa, especially Nigeria. Journalists still rely mostly on eyewitness reports and interviews to write their stories, thus leading to lack of depth in media reportage of critical issues. This chapter explores the nature of data journalism conceptualised as a social science pragmatic approach to news gathering and reporting, tracing its history and inherent strengths and weaknesses. It examines the windows of opportunities it provides towards guaranteeing transparency and accountability in Nigeria's nascent democracy. It concludes that, though data journalism complements the conventional investigative reporting to enhance good governance system in Nigeria, strengthening other institutions of government such as the police, judiciary, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) becomes imperative in entrenching accountability and transparency in Nigeria.

This article explores the synergy between journalism studies and computer science in the context of observing online news. By establishing web applications of online media observatories as research tools, researchers can employ various analytical approaches to gain valuable insights into online news discourse and production.

Drawing eight months of data (01.08.2022–30.04.2023) from the Labservatory’s web application, i.e. over 250,000 news items, the article demonstrates how some of this web application’s main functionalities may be useful in implementing (1) news flow analysis, (2) news topic distribution analysis and (3) media discourse analysis.

The capabilities provided by this web application, (1) to simultaneously analyse the daily news production of ten media outlets with varying features, (2) to rapidly collect a large volume of news items, (3) to identify the news categories as classified by the media themselves, (4) to present the results of the search in relevance order and (5) to automatically generate a search report, highlight the significance of this interdisciplinary collaboration for implementing comprehensive analyses of online news.

The article concludes by emphasising the importance of continuing this joint effort, as it opens new avenues for further research and provides a deeper grasp of the intricate relationship between journalism, technology and society in the digital era. The Labservatory also contributes to society since it may be used by the broader public for immediate access to more pluralistic information and thus for promoting both news media literacy and news media accountability.

This chapter investigates how alternative digital journalism operates in the broader context of the austerity economy in Greece. Using as a background the historical interweaving of interests between economic power, political power and media, this chapter explores the current state of digital journalism in Greece and whether it can flourish and serve the ideals of independence, objectivity and pluralism. The Internet provides new possibilities for pluralism in journalism and gives rise to alternative media outlets that purport objectivity and independence from vested economic interests (e.g., advertising) and political pressures. However, the financial sustainability of such ventures is questionable and the regulatory framework in a heavily concentrated Greek media ecology weak or nonexisting. In this chapter, we examine the origins and mission statements of selected cases of alternative digital media outlets/projects, as well as their financing sources and business models. We then discuss sustainability issues and the limits to alternative digital journalism. Our empirical data derive from desktop research, short structured interviews with academics and longer semistructured interviews with key actors of alternative digital media.

Despite increased academic research interest on how media sources represent and impact social realities, there is little emphasis on homelessness representations in street newspapers. The Greek economic crisis echoed socioeconomic changes and inequalities in both mainstream and lesser-known media with various framing representations of homelessness. One Greek journalistic effort born midcrisis was the street paper ‘Schedia’, which merits examining for its popularity and success as a component of the social reintegration program that launched it. Through the lens of our case study on Schedia and drawing mostly on contemporary interdisciplinary approaches from Cultural Studies and Media Communication, we provide a brief literature review on ‘homelessness street journalism’ research and explore theoretical interpretations thereof. We then discuss media discourse and framing of homelessness and whether it reveals utilisation of street journals mainly as tools for raising awareness or for creating income to maintain or augment social reintegration efforts and programs. We content analysed one year of Schedia's issues and examined instances of both perceived and experienced homelessness representations and causes therein, offering a snapshot of the ways and extent to which Schedia represents homeless voices. Lastly, through the example of Schedia, we discuss whether street media lends itself best as a voice for democratic empowerment of the homeless or as an identity-building intermediary tool for capacitating transformative social reintegration.