Ordinary People Regularly Reported? Looking for Patterns in the Presence of Ordinary Citizens in Television News in 20 European Countries

Abstract

Typically, ordinary people are not the main target sources on television newsmakers’ radars. Power and higher expertise make other types of sources safer and more attractive to them, although journalists may have commercial and/or idealistic reasons to use ordinary people in the news nonetheless. This study tries to map the use of ordinary citizens in the news across Europe, looking for similarities and differences and tries to link the findings to some of the reasons that may lead to (more) inclusion of ordinary citizens in the news. Three different types of ordinary citizens are distinguished and compared between countries, taking into account various types of news topics and the type of broadcaster (public or private). To answer these questions, we use a large dataset containing 28,756 (speaking) actors appearing in news items from 1096 news broadcasts from 41 television news broadcasters in 20 (mostly European) countries, taken from a 28-day constructed sample (2016), identical for all 41 broadcasters. Findings reveal rather large differences, mainly between countries, while also broadcaster types and topics influence the presence of ordinary citizens in the news. Generally, national contexts seem to matter (even) more than the commercial nature of broadcasters.