Participatory journalism - the (r)evolution that wasn't. Content and user behavior in Sweden 2007-2013

A contemporary debate in media studies concerns participation and empowerment, and to what extent digital media shift power to the citizens. This study assesses the long-term viability of participatory journalism using Swedish content and user data. Inclusion of comments and blog-links on news sites increased from 2007 to 2010, and decreased rather dramatically from 2011 onward. Posting user comments or writing blogs have never been activities that have appealed to a majority of the Swedes. Participatory journalism seems to have decreasing value to producers and little appeal to users. A shift in how power is distributed in the public sphere is absent. This is not primarily a problem of reluctant producers but, more importantly, a lack of interest from users.