Mobile Crowdsourcing of News Content – Participation Preferences and Implications for Design

Citizens participate increasingly in hyperlocal news content creation. In order to make content creation more meaningful to reader reporters and more interesting to a wider audience, it is necessary to examine the factors that influence participation and carrying out mobile assignments. This thesis has been carried out at Tampere University of Technology, Unit of Human-Centered Technology (IHTE) in 2012. The research was carried out as part of the Next Media programme by TIVIT and funded by TEKES. The trial was conducted in co-operation with Sanoma Kaupunkilehdet. The goal of the research was to study participation preferences and motivations of readers participating in news content co-creation process. The study included a five-week mobile crowdsourcing trial with photo assignments using Scoopshot application. The participants in the study were 104 readers of omakaupunki.fi hyperlocal news portal. Information on the factors affecting participation was collected via a web survey open for all participants and interviews of five participants. The results of the study indicate that the participants’ willingness to put effort to carrying out assignments is high and the trial was found a positive experience. Still the degree of activity was low. Many young people were participating and more suitable topics for them were wished for. The activity seems to be pleasant pastime. It is considered as a challenge or a game. Photo assignment was found the most pleasant assignment type. Also video assignments and information acquisition were of interest. Based on the results of this study and the related literature, implications for designing mobile tasks for news content co-creation were formed. They can be adapted to other types of crowdsourcing, too