Audience engagement for change
Under the content-based model of journalism, much of the relationship with audiences is shaped around the pursuit of growth metrics.
Engagement often means distributing content across third-party platforms to maximise visibility, with the hope that greater reach will drive more website visits and, eventually, convert readers into subscribers. Despite today’s technology, the one-way broadcast model still sticks.
Paradoxically, in the age of hyper-connectivity, many newsrooms have never held a conversation with the people that follow them. “I had no idea a majority of the journalists that I have previously spoken with have never communicated with their audience,” said Carmen Nicoara, Researcher and Impact Manager at Syli. “I’m talking here about real interactions with real people.”
As the Pulitzer Center’s Pereira put it: organisations often end up speaking to no one when they try to talk to everyone.²⁷
Change-Centric Journalism approaches audience growth through the lens of purposeful engagement. Instead of chasing visibility, it plans for meaningful interactions. It prioritises showing that audience voices resonate in the newsroom and that their participation matters. It meets the human need for recognition, acceptance, and dialogue – made more profound in the age of AI.
A 2024 Vox Media survey found that 60% of respondents view social media negatively, calling it, “a place of never-ending product placements”.²⁸ What’s rising in its place? Smaller, more intentional spaces where people feel seen.
Even AI is drawn into this shift: some users turn to chatbots for companionship, therapy, or private conversation. Shorenstein Fellow Shuwei Fang calls this “the intimacy dividend”: a quiet retreat from public hostility toward something more personal, more human – “intimate conversations without social consequences”.²⁹
This should prompt a rethink for journalism. News outlets cannot afford to focus solely on how people consume their work when those people are looking for everything but content.
The problem with an audience-growth mindset is not ambition, but misalignment. To stay relevant, newsrooms must shift the question from “How do people engage with our work?” to “How do we engage with them?”
A wide range of actions can help shift the focus: from how you respond to comments, to the planning of in-person events. At the root of success for all of these actions is active listening. Purposeful engagement means treating your audience as participants, not users or consumers.
²⁷ International Journalism Festival. (2025). What is the impact of journalism and how to measure it? Retrieved from https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2025/what-is-the-impact-of-journalism-and-how-to-measure-it
²⁸ The Verge. (2025). The future of the Internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/press-room/617654/internet-community-future-research
²⁹ Fang, S. (2025). The Intimacy Dividend: How AI Might Transform News Media Consumption. Retrieved from https://shorensteincenter.org/commentary/intimacy-dividend-ai-might-transform-news-media-consumption/