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Álvares, Cláudia & Pinto-Martinho, A. (2020). 'When Amateur Journalism Ceases to be Civic: the case of Notícias Viriato' ExOrdo submission number: 3875 . IAMCR - Journalism Research and Education Section (JRE).

M. C. Álvares and A. I. Martinho,  "'When Amateur Journalism Ceases to be Civic: the case of Notícias Viriato' ExOrdo submission number: 3875 ", in IAMCR - Journalism Research and Education Section (JRE), 2020

@misc{álvares2020_1714142384656,
	author = "Álvares, Cláudia and Pinto-Martinho, A.",
	title = "'When Amateur Journalism Ceases to be Civic: the case of Notícias Viriato' ExOrdo submission number: 3875 ",
	year = "2020",
	howpublished = "Digital",
	url = "https://iamcr.org/tampere2020/online"
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - 'When Amateur Journalism Ceases to be Civic: the case of Notícias Viriato' ExOrdo submission number: 3875 
T2  - IAMCR - Journalism Research and Education Section (JRE)
AU  - Álvares, Cláudia
AU  - Pinto-Martinho, A.
PY  - 2020
UR  - https://iamcr.org/tampere2020/online
AB  - Abstract
On the 10th June 2019 a new “information” website was launched in Portugal. Its name is Notícias
Viriato (Viriato News), and its structure mimics a traditional online news outlet. However, if one
bears in mind the criteria regulating journalism in Portugal, this site does not correspond to a news
outlet. Firstly, it is not registered in the Regulatory Communication Entity that regulates media in
general and journalism outlets in particular; secondly, the information output is not delivered by
journalists. Here, we should take into account that, in Portugal, journalists are only legally
considered as such if they are registered in the Journalists’ Professional License Committee.
Being produced by citizens who are not journalists, and with a positioning clearly despising
traditional media, it is important to understand where Notícias Viriato fits in, in light of the
classification labels for this kind of information production, as described,.for example, by Chris
Atton (2009). Indeed, Atton specifies that the more frequently used labels - alternative journalism;
citizen’s media; citizen journalism; democratic media; radical media, - share an ideological
perspective and thus circumvent the traditional journalistic criteria of impartiality.
Page 80
We would argue that the Portuguese media landscape tends to follow a ‘catch-all model’ (Arons de
Carvalho 2011), where newspapers seek to embrace several ideological slants, due the attempt to
optimise financial viability in the context of a small market. In this context, websites like Notícias
Viriato occupy the empty space of biased information, leaning, in this case, towards right-wing
conservativism.
Taking Notícias Viriato as case study, we propose to analyse the logics behind the constitution of
this website, and the way it positions itself as more reliable than traditional media outlets. Trust and
diversity of perspectives are characteristics that this website flags up so as to hold audiences’
attention in a digital age of ferocious media competition. The main objective of our
presentation is to shed light on the creation of such a website, revealing connections it may have to
other international ‘journalistic’ initiatives of the kind (ex. Voice of Europe). We will explore the
extent to which such a site represents a novel ‘normalcy’ for journalism and what this means for
other official media outlets as well as the public. Issues that arise concern the assimilation of lay
contributions by news organisations and implications both for the professionalization of journalism
and editorial control over media content (Splichal and Dahlgren 2016).
Methodologically, we will perform content analysis of the Viriato Notícias website, and carry out
interviews with its creators, as well as with the publishers of official media outlets or other entities
with editorial responsibilities, and regulatory bodies.
Arons de Carvalho, Alberto (2011), ‘O alinhamento político da imprensa Portuguesa’, http://www.eclique.com/suplementos/opiniao/com/o- alinhamentopolitico-da-imprensa-portuguesa/. Accessed 14
January 2020.
Atton, Chris (2009) ‘Alternative and Citizen Journalism’, in The Handbook of Journalism Studies
(eds. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen , Thomas Hanitzsch). London: Routledge, pp. 265-278.
Splichal, Slavko & Dahlgren, Peter (2016) ‘Journalism between de-professionalisation and
democratisation’, European Journal of Communication 31(1): 5-18.

ER  -