Mindy McAdams continues her discussion of online journalism here: Making online journalism – part 2. This part deals with user interaction. My comments below the fold. #

First, Mindy tells us what interaction is not: #

User interaction has got to be more than clicking a button or a link. Clicking on the Web is rather like turning the page in a printed book. How interactive is that? #

I partly disagree here. For newspaper web sites especially, learning to master the art of hyperlinking is the first step in understanding interactivity. By hyperlinking to other web sites, there is an exchange between the news site and other sites. This nascent form of interactivity is what helped build the blogosphere, and it can build engagement between the news site and other web site operators, which can, in turn, lead to further interactivity on the news web site. It’s my view that the worst thing a newspaper can do is try to “fence in” the conversation it is trying to build. Learning to hyperlink helps overcome that urge to build boundaries around interaction. The analogy to “turning a page in a book” isn’t really apt, as a book progresses along a linear path, whereas a hyperlink can take you to a whole new area of information. To put it back into a book analogy, hyperlinking would be like turning a page in a book and finding yourself holding an entirely different book. #

Mindy’s explanation of what is usually meant by “user interaction” is a good one: #

So what we usually mean when we discuss interactivity is a two-way exchange between producers and consumers of the journalism content. #

Of all of the exchanges she lists on her blog (form input, e-mail input, discussion, chat, publication), publication is perhaps the one with the most promise. And by publication, I mean much more than just allowing users to set up weblogs on your site. User-submitted video or pictures can be a fertile area of user interaction, and has been used successfully in certain breaking news contexts (the July 7 London tube bombings and the ice storm that struck Greenville, SC last year, to name just two instances among many). Likewise, allowing users to post their reviews of local restaurants or concerts can be used effectively. I would like to see someone who has tried to leverage user interaction to create a good map. #

In these instances, the “people formerly known as the audience” (to borrow Jay Rosen’s phrase – or was it Jeff Jarvis’?) become the producers of the journalistic product. #

One final area of interaction that “old-line” news sites have generally steered clear of is user ratings of story importance (a la Digg). In this scenario, user ratings (votes) would be used to rank where a story appears on the front page of the news site. It may be that users are interested in quite different things than the editors of the newspaper. Even if the newspaper just allowed readers to vote on the significance of the story and posted an item on the side of the page that said “highest rated stories” (not “most viewed”), that might strengthen user perceptions of “ownership.” #

Obviously, all of these areas of interaction need careful consideration. But experimentation is necessary to find what works best in your situation, and how you can best get your online readers engaged in your web site. #

In St. Louis a couple of weeks ago, the question that kept coming up was how to maintain forums, which seemed to prosper for a time and then trail off from lack of participation. Perhaps the answer is that forums are not the type of interaction that your readers prefer. Perhaps some other form of interaction is a better fit on your campus community. #

Finally, one key to user interaction that can’t be stressed enough is that it needs to be a prominent part of the front page of your web site. Readers who see their content or comments prominently displayed are more likely to feel like their opinion is valued by the news organization. Readers will be able to tell quickly if you’re just putting up “interactive” features because it’s trendy. The clearest indication that is what’s going on is to bury the interactive user-generated content on a page with a tiny link on the front page. #

In the end, user interaction is about who “owns” the news site? Is it a product by a few student journalists for a campus, or is it a product of the community and for the campus community? My own sense is that online readers will feel much more loyalty to a site when they feel some sense of ownership in and belonging to the online community. #

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