Citizen's agenda project

The Citizen’s Agenda Project aims to study some concrete procedures developed by public journalism, at the level of regional Press, in order to understand if an effective reinforcement of the democratic deliberation in the public sphere is to occur. It is intended to collaborate with regional media in order to implement, to test and observe procedures guided and influenced according to a logic similar to the one practised by public journalism.

The Project will be guided by pursuing general goals: A) To reflect critically on the relationship between journalism, democratic deliberation, public sphere and civil society, through a case study, theoretical approach and comparative analysis of other similar experiences; B) To analyze the potentialities of “the public journalism” or “civic journalism” through the application of some of these potentialities in cooperation with the media, particularly the regional media.

The basic idea is to analyse the chance of substitution of an agenda determined mostly by primary definers (institutional sources, for instance) by an agenda that also gives visibility to issues of public interest identified as such by the public of the media.

Project coordinator: João Carlos Ferreira Correia

Research Team: Anabela Maria Gradim Alves, Andreia Filipa Pinto Rendo, António José Rosas da Silva Pereira, Catarina Sofia Lourenço Rodrigues, Gil António Baptista Ferreira, João Manuel Messias Canavilhas, José Ricardo Pinto Carvalheiro, Patrício Ricardo Soares Costa, Susana Maria Cerqueira Borges, Susana Maria Silva Sampaio Dias, Susana Paula Florindo Salgado.

Starting Date: 22/03/2010

Duration:36 months

Funding: FCT