The next speaker in this ECREA 2012 session is Maria José Brites, whose interest is in young people's perspectives on the news. So far, much journalism research has focussed on the point of view of news producers than audiences; this is true especially for young people's attitudes towards journalism – there is a real need particularly for more longitudinal and participatory studies here.

Maria's work engages with Portuguese youth between 15 and 20 years of age who participate in school parliament programmes, party youth organisations, graffiti, or school newspapers, and/or come from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Youths were also asked to …

The next speaker at ECREA 2012 is Irène Bastard, whose interest is in the use of the Facebook 'like' button to engage with the news. Talking about news can be a democratic expression, or can enhance social interactions; it can be a driver of attention and buzz, activate weak social links, or serve as a 'bubble' filter. I ordinary conversations, there may also be a range of acceptable or unacceptable topics, depending on the social situation.

On Facebook, the 'like' button provides the simplest possible way of engaging with the news; by liking a news article, it is shared …

The next speaker in this ECREA 2012 session is Alison Preston from the UK Office of Communication, whose interest is in the role of online and social media in news consumption, as measured by an Ofcom survey of some 3,300 respondents and various focus groups and interviews. Most people in the UK use television for news; just over half use radio and newspapers for news (the latter is declining); while Internet, mobile, and app-based news consumption is growing rapidly, especially in younger groups. Word of mouth news dissemination, at least face-to-face, is declining, and possibly moving to social media platforms. …

It's the final day of ECREA 2012, and I've wandered into a session on the perception of news. The first speaker on this (uncomfortably early – which means there's hardly anyone here; hello, conference organisers!) Saturday morning is Mark Harmon, whose interest is in examining the value of local news. In the US, news use except for online news has declined; traditional outlets and mainstream broadcast news are down, while local broadcast news is stable, and online (including mobile and tablet) news is growing.

This also reflects changes in the news product, and the perceived value of that product …

The next speakers in our ECREA 2012 panel are Laura Ahva and Maria Hellman, whose interest is in the citizen eyewitnessing of crises. Witnessing has always been a central task of crisis journalism, but citizen-generated content is now increasingly important; citizen eyewitness images are especially central now, and are mediated from the sites of crises to the global audience. The Arab Spring provides a very useful recent example for this.

Professional media and citizen eyewitnessing have become co-dependent on each other, leading perhaps even to a symbiotic relationship or congruence between the two. Audiences use such content to make sense …

The final paper in our ECREA 2012 panel is presented by Jennifer Wladarsch, who focusses on the recent resignation of the German federal president following a corruption scandal. Scandals represent a specific constellation of actors – the scandalised actor themselves, the scandalising actors who point out and report the scandal, and the general public who respond (with outrage) to the scandal.

Online communication broadens the range of potential participants in this process; audiences can participate in the scandalising by providing or reacting to information, for example. Jennifer and her colleagues examined this in the context of a scandal which revealed …

Day two at ECREA 2012 starts with a panel on political communication using social media which I've had a hand in organising, and the panel begins with our paper on Twitter in the recent Queensland state elections. The slides are below – audio to follow... is also available now.

Political Networks on Twitter: Tweeting the Queensland State Election from Axel Bruns

For the next ECREA 2012 session, I'm attending a panel which starts with Christian Christensen's presentation on WikiLeaks. His interest is in how WikiLeaks has been engaging with mainstream media in its publishing of leaked content; WikiLeaks relied on mainstream outlets as a means of summarising and promoting such materials.

This relationship with mainstream journalism might position WikiLeaks as a form of radical media, subject to some very aggressive rhetoric from the US government and other interested parties which refuse to classify it and its participants as journalists (which would afford it constitutional protection in the US, of course). …

The second ECREA 2012 keynote speaker this morning is Clemencia Rodríguez, who will be shifting our focus further towards citizens' media. She notes that it is important to take historical precedents seriously – reacting against the popular representation of recent political unrest as driven and determined by social media, and as leaderless revolutions.

But media have always played a role as mediators, of course – in political communication, social actors negotiate their identities through interaction; media effects theory has this wrong. The visibility of today's ICTs has led to a resurgence of media effects theory, and this needs to be …