Local journalists and the construction of social identities. A phenomenological approach

Abstract

Research broadly agrees that geographical and social proximity to local inhabitants determines the embeddedness of local journalists in the communities they cover. Yet, the role of such proximity in local journalists’ understanding of local inhabitants–both as potential sources and audience members–has been less investigated. Understanding how journalists form their ideas of local inhabitants is essential, as it greatly influences their work. To address this gap, this paper reports the findings of an exploratory case study of a local Italian newsroom, studied through the lens of phenomenological sociology. The paper argues that Sartre’s concept of the look is a useful conceptual category to understand journalists’ perspectives of their work. The results show that, even in the digital era, local journalists still consider it crucial to physically look at local inhabitants to grasp them. Further, being physically looked at in the towns they cover is a strategic way for local journalists to be perceived favorably. However, the possibilities for locals and journalists to physically look at each other are complicated by the Italian journalistic culture, which can hinder proximity between journalists and audiences, particularly for outlets covering large and heterogeneous territories.

Introduction

While local journalism has been an integral part of local communities for more than 100 years, it has typically been taken for granted and rarely examined in scholarship, which has tended to focus more on national and international news media (Hess and Waller, 2017: pp.1-2). Yet, the digital transformations across journalism have led to a renewed focus on this field and research on the many facets of local journalism is rapidly growing (Gulyas and Baines, 2020). Most studies broadly agree that local journalists are geographically and socially close to the inhabitants of the areas they cover, impacting their embeddedness (see Vos and Hanusch, 2024) in the communities they serve (e.g., Amigo, 2023; Jeronimo et al., 2022).

Yet, how such proximity or embeddedness matters for local journalists’ understanding of local inhabitants – both as potential sources and audience members – is still insufficiently studied (e.g., Amigo and Pignard-Cheynel, 2023; Freeman, 2020). This is a crucial area of research, as how journalists get to know potential sources and audiences greatly influences their work (Nelson, 2021; Wintterlin, 2020).

To explore these issues, we conducted a case study of an Italian local newsroom, employing episodic interviews with 12 journalists. Through the lens of phenomenological sociology (Schütz and Luckmann, 1973), our analysis shows that, even in the current digital era, interviewed local journalists consider it crucial to physically look at (Sartre, 1992) inhabitants – both as potential sources and audience members. Looking, in the Sartrian sense, is regarded as indispensable to getting to know them, making it possible for local journalists to project and enact their work (see Schütz and Luckmann, 1985). Also, being physically looked at in the towns they cover is a strategic way for local journalists to communicate authoritativeness and trustworthiness. However, the possibilities for locals and journalists to physically look at each other are complicated by an Italian journalistic culture that hinders proximity between journalists and audiences. Ultimately, findings show that the look (Sartre, 1992) is a useful conceptual category to obtain a deep grasp of journalists’ perspectives of their work.

Local journalists’ relationship with local inhabitants

Local journalists – defined as professionals working for established local news outlets (Gulyas and Baines, 2020) – are characterized by great diversity in terms of purpose, scope, and reach but, at least in Western countries, they display a distinctive feature that makes the analysis of their relationship with potential sources and audiences peculiar, relevant, and intriguing: local journalists are embedded (see Vos and Hanusch, 2024) in the communities they cover (e.g., Amigo, 2023; Jeronimo et al., 2022). While embeddedness is regarded as the hallmark of community or hyperlocal journalists – that is, local inhabitants, often volunteers, who created their own online news services (Gulyas and Baines, 2020; Wahl-Jorgensen, 2024) –, local journalists, too, live in or close to the localities they cover, identify with such areas, and share their audiences’ lives (e.g., Amigo, 2023; Jeronimo et al., 2022).

As consistently highlighted in the literature, local journalists are likely to have personal relationships with potential sources, audience members, and subjects of the news; roles that are often assumed by the same set of people (Jeronimo et al., 2022). Moreover, creating social bonds with and between audiences is traditionally considered a primary function of local journalism (Amigo, 2023; Gulyas and Baines, 2020). Local journalists have also been consistently found to act as stakeholders committed to making local areas flourish (Gulyas and Baines, 2020).

As a result, research overwhelmingly agrees that geographical and social proximity with local inhabitants determines local journalists’ embeddedness (Vos and Hanusch, 2024) within the communities they cover. At the same time, scholars (e.g., Amigo and Pignard-Cheynel, 2023; Freeman, 2020) underline the need for more research on how such proximity shapes local journalists’ situational understanding of local inhabitants – both as potential sources and audience members – and attempts to foster a positive image among them.

Local journalists’ understanding of potential sources and audience members

Scholarship has attempted to understand sources’ and audiences’ role in journalistic work for some time. Reich (2012) defines journalists as “bipolar interactional experts,” that is, “specialists in interactions with both their sources and audiences and the interplay between the two” (p. 340). However, studies rarely deal with both journalists’ understanding of sources and audience members, as well as attempts to communicate a positive image to them, particularly in the case of local journalists (e.g., Amigo and Pignard-Cheynel, 2023; Firmstone et al., 2022).

Local journalists’ understanding of potential sources

Since journalists are not always able to eyewitness events and their expertise is necessarily limited, they must rely on accounts of sources they expect to be knowledgeable and trustworthy (Wintterlin, 2020). In the digital age, these sources are increasingly likely to be “distant sources”, that is, people whom journalists are usually unable to meet in person and thus must contact via the Internet or social media (Wintterlin, 2020). In such scenarios, journalists are likely to rely on digital media to grasp personal and group traits – for example, perceived benevolence, dynamism, and institutional embeddedness – and judge the knowledgeability and trustworthiness of the plethora of potential sources that exist online (Wintterlin, 2020).

Due to local journalists’ embeddedness in local communities, selecting adequate sources is an especially delicate and complex endeavor. Research highlights that for reasons of both economic profitability and the sensitivity of many local issues, local journalists usually aim at maintaining the economic, political, and social equilibrium that exists at the local level (Hanusch, 2015). In this sense, selecting news sources for local journalists is not only a matter of evaluating their trustworthiness and knowledgeability but also of relying on people who do not fuel controversies and hinder the stability of the local communities (Freeman, 2020). Furthermore, when local journalists select sources personally close to them – such as politicians or peers –, doubts about their autonomy and impartiality may arise (Amigo, 2023). At the same time, local journalists might be reliant on a limited set of sources, often institutional ones, due to the lack of resources to address other types of actors, such as laypeople (O’Neill and O’Connor, 2008), even if digital technologies are breaking this barrier (Jeronimo et al., 2022). Thus, given the contemporary media environment, investigating how journalists form ideas about potential sources is a necessary, yet not fully accomplished task for empirical research (Berkowitz, 2020), especially regarding local journalists (Freeman, 2020).

Local journalists’ understanding of audience members

Audiences’ views have always been to some extent present in journalists’ minds. For example, Gans (1979) found that journalists mainly considered audiences as people eager for sensational and superficial information. At the time, journalists mainly derived such understanding from letters to the editor and interactions with peers and friends (Zamith, 2020). Nowadays, journalists’ knowledge about audiences often derives from audience metrics or online reader comments (Coddington et al., 2021).

Audiences are especially susceptible to mis- and under-representations of their everyday lives and their communities (Freeman, 2020; Hess and Waller, 2017). Thus, local journalists must understand and anticipate local inhabitants’ expectations as accurately as possible. While the widespread use of audience metrics in most countries suggests that local journalists, too, increasingly rely on metrics to form ideas about audiences (e.g., Morrison, 2020), there are also continuing examples where face-to-face interactions are still extremely important. Local journalists in the Pacific Islands are traditionally oriented toward in-person consultation and dialogue with locals based on indigenous communal values (Singh, 2020); face-to-face interactions are also valued in community journalism and temporary initiatives of local audience engagement developed in several Western countries (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2024; Wall and Puzon, 2024). Nevertheless, besides the examples provided here, research on how local journalists form ideas about local audiences is still scarce (Amigo and Pignard-Cheynel, 2023; Morrison, 2020).

Local journalists’ attempts to foster a positive image of themselves

In addition to needing to understand potential sources and audiences, conveying a positive image of themselves is equally important for journalists to perform their job. As Berkowitz (2020) argues, both journalists and sources have a lot at stake in carrying out profitable interactions: while journalists put their credibility on the line by relying on sources to produce news, sources run a risk when sharing uncomfortable and even dangerous information with journalists. It is thus clear that to have access to a vast array of information, journalists need potential sources to consider them trustworthy.

While fostering a positive image among sources has traditionally been the basis of journalistic work (Berkowitz, 2020), journalists “have not traditionally needed to develop any kind of audience-facing identity” (Holton and Molyneux, 2017: p. 197). However, to tackle the increased competition in the news industry and to adapt to evolving media logics, today’s journalists are pushed to share more personal and professional information with audiences to foster favorable perceptions of themselves (Holton and Molyneux, 2017). For example, Ottovordemgentschenfelde (2017) found that US political journalists shared contact details on Twitter to communicate their accessibility to people. While such strategies are an ongoing and vibrant area of research, few focus on local journalism (Firmstone et al., 2022). Existing studies show that local journalists are used to refer to their long-standing and affective engagement with people and places they cover to claim authoritativeness (e.g., Firmstone et al., 2022). Nevertheless, empirical efforts on how journalists communicate such authoritativeness to local inhabitants are needed.

To perform their job, journalists thus need to understand the people they interact with and communicate a favorable image of themselves, a process that profoundly affects how journalists perform their job (Nelson, 2021). This requires analyses that are sensitive to the peculiarities of their relationships from the journalists’ perspective, with phenomenological sociology providing a valuable theoretical framework. Phenomenological sociology can build on existing perspectives by providing a fine-grained explanation of the mechanisms underlying these relationships. In particular, it offers conceptual tools to examine how journalists base their behaviors on typifications of others—expectations about typical attitudes and (re)actions. These expectations are shaped by various factors, including personal experience (Schütz and Luckmann, 1973, 1985). Another key influence is the visibility of others, making Sartre’s (1992) concept of look especially useful for providing in-depth insights into how journalists draw on physical interactions to form and sustain their understandings of others and how these, in turn, guide their actions.

Everyday life-world and social identities

From the standpoint of phenomenological sociology, to estimate the practicability of projected actions, people rely on, among other things, their expectations about attitudes and (re)actions of other people involved (Schütz and Luckmann, 1985). For journalists, this could relate to trusting a source or framing a news piece. Knowledge of other people is deepened only to the extent that is considered enough to carry out the intended actions (Schütz and Luckmann, 1973). Thus, most of the time such expectations regard typifications to which certain attributes, functions, and behaviors are ascribed – for example, the typical audience member or the typical political source (Schütz and Luckmann, 1985). Even when projecting actions requires greater knowledge of the other people involved – that is, usually when the stakes are high (Schütz and Luckmann, 1973) –, expectations about them are still derived from typifications; because no matter how intimately one knows a person, their behavior cannot be foreseen (Schütz and Luckmann, 1985). In these cases, expectations are based on what is perceived as typical of specific, individual people (Schütz and Luckmann, 1973).

In general, by typifying other people, those who project actions reify them and assign them a social identity, meant as categories through which people may be located and given meaning in a situational context (Scott, 2016). Assigning social identities serves to transform unique individuals into typical people who display predictable attitudes and (re)actions, which ultimately enables progress from project to action (Schütz and Luckmann, 1985). That said, people who typify might also want to be typified (Schütz and Luckmann, 1973), such as journalists who struggle to be recognized as the only actors able to truthfully report reality (see Carlson and Lewis, 2015). Journalists aim to be recognized by a typical trait – that is, the ability to truthfully report reality – which grants them their societal authority. The argument is related to the performative character of social identity (Goffman, 1959), which, in this case, represents the image people who project actions want to convey in a given situation (Scott, 2016).

Because journalists need to typify and be typified, it is crucial to analyze not only what typifications are employed but also the process through which they are activated and sustained, with attention to the specific projected actions, actors involved, and the communicative interactions between them.

The (mediated) construction of social identities

Phenomenological sociologists have traditionally been concerned with why some typifications are situationally employed at the expense of others. Schütz and Luckmann (1973) underline the importance of each person’s “unique biographical articulation” (p. 112), defined as the experience of past situations on which future actions can be based. Relying on past experiences entails the belief that actions taken and attitudes assumed in the past by certain (groups of) people will also be repeated in the future under similar circumstances (Schütz and Luckmann, 1985: p. 86). Nevertheless, typifications can also have a social origin, in that they derive from knowledge transmitted by family members and peers but also from folkways and stereotypes (Schütz and Luckmann, 1973).

Besides personal past experiences and socially transmitted knowledge, one’s own and others’ visibility are also a source for typifications (see Brighenti, 2007), especially in light of digital technologies (Couldry and Hepp, 2018; Scott, 2016). The role of visibility in social identity constructions is not new here. For example, the idea that interrelation between oneself and other people takes place through the look, or gaze, is central to the thought of Sartre (1992). Through the look, individuals can typify and be typified, also in light of one’s knowledge derived from past experiences and/or socially transmitted knowledge (Barber, 2001) ¹ . Further, following Goffman (1959), it is precisely the awareness of being looked at that pushes people to perform a calculated self to be typified favorably (see also Dolezal, 2012).

The importance of physical sight in performing journalistic work is not entirely new to journalism studies, where much attention has been given to witness testimonies that offer firsthand evidence about real-time events (e.g., Pantti, 2020). Journalists’ attempts to set up face-to-face encounters to engage and get to know their audiences have also been studied (e.g., Nelson, 2021: p. 79; Singh, 2020). Nevertheless, given local journalists’ embeddedness in the communities of the areas they cover, their use of the physical look to both construct and promote social identities (Sartre, 1992) deserves further exploration.

Importantly, in Dolezal’s (2012) interpretation of Sartre’s work, the look is not necessarily bound to the physical presence of another body; to look or to perceive to be looked at, it is enough to assume a different point of view from which the world can be grasped. Thus, typifying and being typified do not require physical co-presence but can also take place in mediated interactions (Song, 2024). This point acquires relevance considering the current “enlarged horizon of visibility” (Couldry and Hepp, 2018: p. 98) enabled by digital technologies, which results from new types of trans-spatial encounters. As several scholars (e.g., Berger, 2020) argue, people can typify and be typified by looking at online and social media personal pages, conversations, and comments; as journalists frequently do regarding “distant sources” (Wintterlin, 2020). Moreover, since digital traces can be captured and made available (Couldry and Hepp, 2018: p. 98), people can be typified according to traces they leave when using digital devices or applications (Couldry and Mejias, 2019), as is the case when journalists rely on metrics to form ideas about audiences (Zamith, 2020). Based on these considerations, our study poses two main research questions:

RQ1

How do local journalists construct the social identities of potential sources and audiences?

RQ2

How do local journalists try to foster a favorable social identity of themselves among potential sources and audiences?

Methodology

To address the research questions, we conducted an exploratory case study on the Italian local newspaper VareseNews as part of a broader project on local journalists’ work. A case study approach allows us to grasp journalists’ perspectives and experiences while appreciating the specificities of the social, political, and organizational context in which they are embedded (Stake, 1995). Thus, delving into “the complexity of a single case” (Stake, 1995, p. XI) is deemed a valuable effort to advance scholarly understanding of the matter.

The Italian context

The Italian context was chosen because its journalistic culture clashes with some of the characteristic features of local journalism. Importantly, the political and elitist character of Italian journalism is at odds with the development of social proximity between journalists and audiences (Splendore, 2017) – defined as the tendency of local journalists to share audiences’ lives and to assume the role of community stakeholders. Italian journalism has been traditionally carried out by and for the elites (Splendore, 2017). Further, instead of working to help society flourish, Italian journalism is used to privilege conflictual frames (Cornia, 2010). While those features are certainly not unique to the Italian context, they are especially accentuated therein as the development of many news outlets has been shaped by political actors and, therefore, they are rooted in specific political ideologies or political parties (Splendore, 2017).

Geographical and social proximity does exist between local journalists and inhabitants, but it is not usually reflected in news products. Various local news outlets and journalists have constant social interactions – both online and offline – with local inhabitants to foster solidarity and a sense of mutuality with and between them (Amigo, 2023). However, this proximity does not usually shape the information conveyed in the news media. Italian local journalists privilege issues of national relevance that are reported through the lens of institutional and political actors (Splendore, 2020), sometimes as an attempt to follow the lead of the more prestigious national press (Murru and Pasquali, 2020). Consequently, producing a rich and meaningful representation of local realities, that departs from the processes of newsmaking typical of the national press, depends on individual journalists’ and news organizations’ professional orientations, as an established model of local journalism that sets normative standards does not exist in Italy (Murru and Pasquali, 2020). It is therefore important to conduct case studies aimed at understanding how different social identities are constructed by local journalists who operate in different social and organizational contexts. Given these considerations, studying VareseNews makes it possible to “maximize what we can learn” from a single case (Stake, 1995: p. 4).

Varese news

VareseNews is a local, digital-only newspaper that covers the entire province of Varese, as well as parts of the provinces of Milan and Verbano-Cusio-Ossola. Varese province alone is highly populated, with almost 900,000 inhabitants across more than 135 municipalities, including towns and larger cities. VareseNews represents one of the most established and reputable examples of local journalism in Italy. Founded in 1997, it is one of the first digital-native newspapers and over the years has come to hold a central position in Varese province’s information landscape, even topping longer established local newspapers (Professione Reporter, 2023). Every year, VareseNews organizes a journalism festival that is considered a reference point for local journalists nationwide. The director and co-founder of VareseNews is also the president of the National Association of Online Press and holds a prominent position in the Italian information landscape. All these factors make VareseNews a benchmark for many local Italian journalists and news outlets who try to follow its lead. In this sense, it is deemed the single case that is most likely to help to understand Italian local journalists’ efforts in constructing local inhabitants’ social identities and fostering a positive social identity of themselves among local inhabitants (Stake, 1995: p. 5).

Data collection and analysis

The first author conducted 12 episodic interviews (Flick, 2021) with the staff of VareseNews in February 2024. Two interviews were conducted with management members and 10 with reporters. Considering that VareseNews’ journalistic staff is composed of around 25 people, data saturation was reached despite the relatively small sample size. Episodic interviews focus on small-scale narratives of episodes and situations to grasp interviewees’ experiences regarding a specific issue or domain. While interviews are not generally seen as a straightforward source of factual data about journalists’ experiences and practices (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2024), episodic interviews precisely aim to avoid vague, superficial, or rote responses that might emerge from generic questions (Flick, 2021). Interviews lasted between 40 and 70 minutes and were conducted in the VareseNews newsroom. Alongside formal interviews, the first author spent several days in the newsroom conducting non-participant observation. A friendly and collegial environment made it possible to further deepen the understanding of journalists’ perspectives and experiences through informal interviews (Flick, 2021). The physical presence in the newsroom allowed interviewees to contextualize their words by showing their everyday spaces, objects, routines, and practices while reducing recall biases (Flick, 2021).

The interview guide addressed six main themes: (1) the interviewee’s career; (2) work routines; (3) reconstruction of the newsmaking process of a news product especially close to the interviewee’s heart; (4) reconstruction of the newsmaking process of a news product dealing with a controversial issue; (5) the various roles of local inhabitants with regard to local journalism and the communication with them; (6) reconstruction of two episodes where local inhabitants played an especially positive and an especially negative role. Thematic content analysis was performed on the collected data. Drawing from the literature, we deductively derived four categories that concern local journalists’ construction of the social identities of inhabitants as both (1) potential sources and (2) audience members; as well as local journalists’ promotion of a positive social identity among inhabitants as (3) potential sources and (4) audience members. Then, data analysis proceeded inductively to identify in what circumstances and for what reasons local journalists deem necessary to construct and promote social identities in relation to local inhabitants, as well as how they conduct this endeavor (Kuckartz, 2014). Data analysis was first performed by the first author; the second and third authors agreed on the coding protocol and contributed to improving the systematization of the findings (Kuckartz, 2014). To avoid interviewees’ words being traced back to their identity, we will refer to them by their position – that is, manager or reporter –, their gender, and a unique number.

Findings: the unmediated construction of social identities

A common factor connects the construction of social identities of sources and audiences by VareseNews journalists and their attempts to promote a positive social identity of themselves: the key role of the vis-à-vis look (Sartre, 1992) between journalists and local inhabitants. Since VareseNews covers a vast and heterogeneous territory, the news outlet is organized in a way that allows reporters to meet local inhabitants on an almost daily basis. The work of reporters is divided into two types of shifts: one at the desk and one in the field. The organization of field shifts mainly follows a territorial criterion; as a rule, each reporter covers the cities and towns closest to their place of residence, facilitating rapid displacements and mutual physical looking with local inhabitants.

It is through physical looking that VareseNews journalists claim to understand which local inhabitants can serve as trustworthy sources. Also, it is only by looking at local inhabitants in their everyday settings that these journalists believe they can grasp people’s needs and expectations as audience members. Finally, respondents believe that being looked at by local inhabitants in important events but also in everyday situations is the best strategy to be typified favorably by both potential sources and audiences. That said, constant and repeated physical encounters with inhabitants can also have negative implications for VareseNews journalists in terms of their work-life balance.

To look is to understand: vis-à-vis look to typify potential sources

VareseNews journalists consider assessing the trustworthiness of potential sources as pivotal for doing their job. Such evaluations are especially critical when information comes from both (a) ordinary people and (b) local political actors. Even though VareseNews journalists try to cover their province closely, they are not able to witness all events, and consequently rely on inhabitants for additional reports. However, journalists are also wary about taking these reports at face value. While information exchange with sources is facilitated by the Internet and social media, VareseNews journalists stated that it is only the physical look (Sartre, 1992) directed at local inhabitants on repeated occasions that allows them to distinguish who can serve as a reliable source. Such a look does not only take place when a potential source wants to report news to a reporter but also on everyday occasions. Through such a reiterated physical look, several respondents said they get to know inhabitants, their points of view on current issues, and whether they might have an agenda when they intend to serve as sources.

For example, concerning a petty crime incident, Reporter F1 said she had received a complaint from a person she had known. Because of this, she knew he had an agenda on the issue and typified him and his supporters as biased sources: “I understood who said it and why, what he was trying to do. I put it aside, I understood and I put it aside”. Yet, a colleague from a competing news outlet did pursue the story:

Along came a colleague from another news outlet who also covers the same town but doesn't know the situation, doesn't know the people, doesn't know the evolution of that story there, and made a whole newspaper page out of it. The result? The mayor picked up the phone, called the editor of the newspaper, and said, ‘What are you doing? Who did you send on the ground?’. From that article, it appeared that that town was the Bronx and people were killing old ladies all the time. (Reporter F1)

A similar argument applies to information spread by local political actors. Several interviewees (e.g., Reporter F1; Reporter F4; Reporter M2) argued that while the fact that politicians could easily communicate to the public through their personal digital channels could certainly be good for a closer relationship between local institutions and citizens, they also worried that the political actors could spread propaganda unchecked. Consequently, many respondents argued that it had become ever more important to have a constant, physical look at political actors to adequately deal with political news, and to avoid acting as political actors’ megaphone. This entails getting to know political actors personally, constantly visiting them at their offices, attending their public appearances and interacting with inhabitants. Besides allowing VareseNews reporters to differentiate between truth and propaganda, a physical look at political actors also has a “surveillance” goal (Brighenti, 2007). It is a way of letting politicians know they are being looked at by journalists who might assign them a negative social identity, and reflect this in their articles, as in this example from Reporter F2:

It often happens to me that I express my opinion off the record and say: “Excuse me, this thing you said is nonsense (…)”. It's part of the relationship that you have with your interlocutor, maybe we have known each other for twenty years and you want me to pretend nothing happened? If you tell me nonsense, I'll tell you that I think it's nonsense and you will not do that again. That's part of being a local journalist, I mean, that's our strength!

To sum up, for VareseNews journalists to physically look (Sartre, 1992) at potential sources, whether they are ordinary people or local political actors, is the main means for assessing their trustworthiness. In the case of political actors, ubiquitous digital communications make this even more required than in the past. But the look is also important to grasp inhabitants’ needs and expectations as potential audience members, and to understand how they might respond to certain topics and frames, as the next section discusses.

To look is to know: the vis-à-vis look to typify audiences

VareseNews dedicates considerable resources to the study of audience metrics. Among other tasks, one member of the management team is designated to use audience analytics “to control, monitor the flow of data concerning the performance of the newspaper, so how articles are doing, readership, dwell times, numbers on social networks, and things of this kind, to then turn all this into input to be given to the newsroom” (Manager M2). All interviewed reporters argued that they constantly looked at these metrics to grasp how the news outlet was generally going and what could be improved. At the same time, they all agreed that audience metrics told little about audiences if they were not contextualized. The primary and irreplaceable way to get to know their audiences was “mingling with people, mingling with people to grasp what problems are faced on the street” (Reporter M2), not only during the field shift but also on everyday occasions – that is, by living with them and sharing a reality with them. Respondents highlighted that physically looking at (Sartre, 1992) people whose lives they have to write about gave them a sensitivity toward local communities, that is precisely what marks the difference between good and bad local journalists. Reporter F2’s example is emblematic in this sense:

You cannot ignore that among the most-read articles are those on frontier workers. The article on the birth of the swimmer Federica Pellegrini's daughter was also among the most-read articles, but that doesn't mean we'll be writing about gossip all the time. We knew this was going to happen, but it's different from a strong theme such as that of the frontier workers, which affects us closely. So, you focus on frontier workers because you know by personal experience that people are interested and need to know what's going on.

In addition to grasping inhabitants’ interests and expectations regarding local journalism, a reiterated, physical look at them also allows VareseNews reporters to grasp – that is, typify – how they might respond to certain topics and frames. In line with other studies (e.g., Hanusch, 2015), VareseNews tries as much as possible not to fuel controversies at the local level. According to interviewees, this goal is feasible only through knowledge of the inhabitants and their sensitivities – gained through the physical look (Manager M2; Reporter M4). By talking about the delicate task of reporting on local politics, Manager M2 gave an insightful example:

The “Lega” ² was born here. The province of Varese has been told a lot over the years on the basis of this, with all that the “Lega” has always represented. (…) But, by living here (…), we were more aware of the complexity of the Varese province. By going forward we realized that the truth is always much more multifaceted and complicated (…). Our ultimate goal is the well-being of the community, which sometimes really does not need anyone to impose itself on the debate.

Hence, while VareseNews journalists underlined the importance of audience metrics to obtain information on how to improve their work, they considered them as an ancillary rather than a central means; far more important is the physical look (Sartre, 1992) at inhabitants. But in addition to looking at both potential sources and audience members, interviewees also constantly underlined how important it was to be looked at to get typified favorably.

To be looked at is to be known: the vis-à-vis look to get typified

As Brighenti (2007) notes, far from being a passive activity, being looked at can be strategic to advance a positive social identity; fostering a positive social identity of themselves has become increasingly important for journalists given the increased competition in the information market (Holton and Molyneux, 2017). VareseNews journalists are aware of all this and over the years have promoted several extra-journalistic initiatives to create opportunities to be looked at. Aside from special initiatives, respondents emphasized that it was also important to be looked at by inhabitants in their everyday spaces, which can regard both events – like town parties (Reporter F4) – and casual encounters. As for the latter, Reporter M6 argued: “It is part of our job, we can normally be met in the town square”. Those casual encounters are facilitated by the organization of the work shifts in the field adopted by VareseNews.

By being constantly looked at in the localities she has to cover, Reporter F2 argued that she had become a trustworthy reference point for many inhabitants willing to express their discontent as well as highlight virtuous occurrences:

If you keep staying there and telling the stories of these towns, it's you who becomes the spokesperson for this community. So, when something happens, they look for you and say: ‘Oh, you know the mayor is doing this thing and it pisses me off so much’. Or they say, ‘Oh, look how beautiful this thing is’ and you go there and report it.

Besides being typified as trustworthy by potential sources, many interviewees emphasized that being looked at in towns is fundamental to be considered authoritative in reporting about local communities. For VareseNews journalists, being authoritative mainly means two things: to care about the communities and to be knowledgeable about their dynamics. Those are the traits VareseNews journalists want inhabitants to associate them with. Among the many possible examples of how these journalists try to promote such a social identity, there is a paradigmatic initiative. It took place between April and May 2022, when:

For six weeks we went into a different town every day. And one can say ‘Whatever, you do it commonly’. Yes, but we usually do it with the news. Instead, we went in to tell about the local communities, which means telling about the citizens, the associations, the experiences, the companies, the projects. (…) So, giving a lot of importance to the whole territorial experience (M1).

In recalling that initiative, Reporter F4 explained that the goal was:

to tell about the areas from the eye of those who live there, that it does not only entail beautiful things because the territory has a thousand limitations. And they told us about them because… even though we are very embedded in the community, it may be that you do not live exactly there. So, sometimes you need that, you need to say ‘let me really see it’, and it changes a lot.

Thanks to this and other initiatives, as well as the everyday work on the field, VareseNews journalists aim to be considered as both caring and knowledgeable about the communities they cover. Many respondents reported that, although there was always room for improvement, they were overall satisfied with the goals achieved. Yet, as the next section, the physical look can also be a double-edged sword that complicates journalists’ separation between work and their personal lives.

Visibility as a double-edged sword: pros and cons of a constant vis-à-vis look

Besides being considered fundamental for doing local journalism, looking at and being looked at (Sartre, 1992) by inhabitants on an almost daily basis is, for many interviewees, one of the most enjoyable parts of the job. Reporter F5 said that her “friends who are in national newspapers often envy me for the work I can do here, that I can go around to places and meet people”. But interviewees also noted that the resulting close relationship with inhabitants could also jeopardize their work-life balance, mainly for two reasons: (a) they often felt the pressure to perform a calculated self (Goffman, 1959), even in informal settings, and (b) it led some inhabitants to believe that local journalists were or should be constantly available and willing to meet their needs.

As regards the first point, respondents claimed that how they were physically looked at was crucial to whether they could gain trust and authority from the inhabitants. Since they were likely to meet inhabitants daily, they felt that the need to perform a calculated self could not be restricted to work environments; what they were seen to do in more informal settings was equally important. The words of Reporter M5 are illustrative: “I always try to behave as professionally as possible, both from a personal and professional point of view, because a journalist… That is, you’re always a journalist.” In the experience of Reporter F2, it entails the need to always:

look very accommodating even when inhabitants approach you while you are minding your own business, in the sense that you have to keep them at the right distance without looking neither standoffish nor annoyed, because otherwise you risk losing sources.

This consideration leads to the second point raised – that is, that a close relationship with inhabitants leads some of them to believe that VareseNews journalists are or should be constantly available and willing to meet their needs. In this regard, Reporter F2 acknowledged that it was “good that they (inhabitants) take you as a point of reference” but at the same time “if you’re out on the street they call you, or they phone you, or search for you via WhatsApp at all hours of the day, evening, night, maybe for things that are important to them. Then you read it and say ‘Well, you could have told me in the morning, couldn’t you?’”.

Reporter M6 argued that some interference between personal and professional life was inevitable: “It is the consequence of our credibility, that comes from living on the same territory, of being present there”. Nevertheless, our respondents developed personal strategies to manage their work-life balance. For example, Reporter M6 said that he was careful not to share his home address. Reporters M1 and F2 stressed that it was necessary to learn not to respond immediately to everyone, especially in the evening and at night; in this way, personal boundaries were communicated and, over time, inhabitants learned to respect them.

Discussion and conclusion

This article responds to two recent calls addressed to scholars of local journalism: First, a need to understand how local journalists situationally construct local inhabitants’ social identities – both as sources and as audience members – and how they try to foster a positive identity of themselves (Amigo and Pignard-Cheynel, 2023; Freeman, 2020). This is important because the ideas journalists form about their sources and audiences greatly influence their work (Nelson, 2021; Wintterlin, 2020). Second, scholarship has noted an urgent need for research on local journalism to expand beyond Nordic and English-speaking countries, which has narrowed our understanding of the complexities within local journalism ecologies (Amigo, 2023).

We addressed these calls by studying the Italian local newspaper VareseNews through the lens of phenomenological sociology, which allowed us to examine how local journalists construct the social identities of local inhabitants – both as potential sources and as audience members –, and how they try to foster a favorable social identity of themselves among these inhabitants. Combining this approach with Sartre’s (1992) concept of the look, our findings indicate that, even at a time when sources can be easily reached through Internet and social media (Wintterlin, 2020), the physical look is a fundamental means employed by VareseNews journalists to assess the trustworthiness of local inhabitants – both ordinary people and political actors – as potential sources. Further, although audience metrics are available to VareseNews journalists, they rely on the vis-à-vis look at local inhabitants to typify them in terms of what they expect and need from local journalism as well as how they might react to the coverage of certain topics through certain frames. Moreover, aware of the necessity to foster a positive social identity of themselves in an increasingly competitive information market, VareseNews journalists consider being looked at in several social situations – for example, during events or initiatives organized by VareseNews, but also during town events and informal settings – the best way to be typified as trustworthy by potential sources and as authoritative by potential audience members.

Findings suggest that despite the “enlarged horizon of visibility” (Couldry and Hepp, 2018: p. 98) enabled by digital technologies and the fact that VareseNews is one of the first digital-native news outlets in Italy, VareseNews journalists aim for a mutual, physical look with the multiple communities that inhabit their province. Our findings align with literature on local audience engagement underlining the importance for news outlets to design initiatives to physically meet inhabitants and improve relationships with them (see Wall and Puzon, 2024); they also resonate with insights from research on community, hyperlocal as well as Indigenous journalists, for whom physical encounters with community members are central to their practice (Singh, 2020; Wahl-Jorgensen, 2024; Wenzel and Crittenden, 2023). An important contribution of this study is its illustration that in-person interactions with local inhabitants are integral and fundamental parts of both the daily work and life of local journalists more broadly. Our findings gain even more relevance considering that VareseNews covers a large territory of more than 135 municipalities, and operates in a country where journalistic culture hinders journalists-audiences’ proximity.

Looking at our findings in retrospect, VareseNews could thus be interpreted as a least-likely case (Gerring and Cojocaru, 2016), suggesting that, when resources allow, the core of local journalism might be looking at and being looked at (Sartre, 1992) by local inhabitants in vis-à-vis interactions. This finding can be read into the broader trend of both audiences and journalists equating physical sight with authenticity in journalistic work (see Pantti, 2020). Furthermore, while journalists occasionally relied on less time-consuming digital or telephone conversations to assess a source’s trustworthiness, they emphasized that these alternatives were only used after repeated face-to-face interactions. These considerations suggest that, despite the focus in research on digital technologies as key tools for enhancing visibility, including between local journalists and audiences (Morrison, 2020), the physical look is an effective means for local journalists to get to know their audiences and sources, foster positive perceptions of themselves, and potentially help bridge important gaps in their relationships, for instance, in terms of trust.

All this considered, the look proves to be a useful conceptual category to grasp how journalists construct and promote social identities, which might inform further research on journalists’ perspectives of their work. Our findings also have practical implications for local news organizations. As our interviews revealed, and as other studies have suggested (Jeronimo et al., 2022), local journalists face some challenges related to their work-life balance that differ from the ones of their colleagues working for national and international news media. There is therefore a need for interventions that aim at fostering a culture of well-being in local journalism (see Bélair-Gagnon et al., 2023) and that take into account the peculiar proximity that characterizes many relationships between local journalists and local inhabitants.

As with every study, this one is not without limitations. VareseNews ranks among those Italian local newsrooms with the largest number of staff (Splendore, 2020). Many other local news outlets do not have the resources to physically preside over a large territory with such breadth and depth of coverage. While VareseNews might be considered a benchmark by Italian local journalists and news outlets, further case studies are needed to understand how local journalists construct and promote social identities while dealing with scant resources. Further, the findings should be transferred beyond the Italian, and especially beyond the Mediterranean context with caution. Despite these limitations, we feel that the theoretical and empirical contributions this study has made can pave the way for future research on how local journalists construct and promote social identities to perform their job.