Aug. 28, 2018 By APRIL LINDGREN and JON CORBETT Taken at face value, the Local News Map is a straightforward tracking device. But nothing is ever quite that simple. This article draws on theories of critical cartography to evaluate the map’s biases, limitations, and strengths with a view to enhancing its credibility as a research…
By SAHAR FATIMAEthnic media outlets will better serve their communities if they put more emphasis on reporting local news, Ryerson journalism professor April Lindgren suggested during a recent presentation to ethnic media representatives.
The Local News Research Project combines content analysis and digital mapping to explore issues related to local news. The project’s news poverty research examines local coverage in Canadian communities at a time when print and broadcast outlets are scaling back, consolidating or closing, and many online news sites are struggling to stay afloat. Project initiatives include The Local News Map, a study of how local media covered the 2015 federal election, and research on local news reporting on disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Other research has examined the role of ethnic media in shaping newcomers’ sense of place and portrayals of diversity in ethnic newspapers published in the Greater Toronto Area. For more information, contact us.
The Local News Map is a crowd-sourced resource that tracks what is happening to local newspapers, broadcast outlets and online/digital news sources in places across Canada. It displays changes to service at local news outlets, including information on the launch/closing of local news organizations along with service increases/reductions going back to 2008. The map is a collaborative project undertaken by Professor April Lindgren, lead investigator for the Local News Research Project at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Journalism, and Associate Professor Jon Corbett, who leads the University of British Columbia’s SpICE Lab (Spatial Information for Community Mapping). A summary of the latest map data is available here.