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Journalism as an industry has undergone many changes in the last few decades. As successive reports by organisations like the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, academic scholarship and empirical evidence show, trust in news media has declined sharply across much of the world. The business models that once sustained quality reporting have been eroded by the shift to digital platforms. Newsrooms are shrinking, local journalism is disappearing, and audiences are fragmenting. Academic researchers have largely responded to this shift as detached or neutral observers. The relationship between journalism scholars and practitioners remain complex. As Schaetz and co-authors in the introduction to a special issue on action research in journalism at Journalism Studies (May 2025) point out, journalists accuse academics of extractive research practices and being out of touch with real-world pressures, while academics feel pulled between their own professional demands and producing actionable work and believe practitioners largely ignore their findings anyway. Bridging the gap between theory and practice in journalism requires sustained efforts, patience, and flexibility in approach by both journalists and scholars. Academic scholars, with their vast pool of knowledge, can be important stakeholders in creating sustainable frameworks for journalism.
While there have been efforts by journalism scholars to directly engage with newsrooms to navigate the pressures, the scale has been relatively small. Action-oriented research remains relatively unexplored, for valid reasons. It requires substantial time and resources, does not follow a structured research plan, and, crucially, it is challenging to link academia with practice in the field. The existing literature indicates that only a few studies have adopted an action-oriented approach in journalism. One notable example is the INJECT Norway (Innovative Journalism: Enhanced Creativity Tools) project, which aimed to bridge the gap between industry and academia by equipping journalists with digital tools to boost creativity (EU Commission, 2021). However, Nyre & Maiden (2022), in their research on INJECT, found that tensions between researchers and local project partners posed obstacles to project implementation. More recently, Jones & Jones (2025) conducted action research at the BBC to understand and influence the use of AI in newsrooms. Some of the pragmatic challenges pointed out by the researchers included securing funding for long-term studies, measuring impact, and maintaining journalists’ interest in the research. Adams & Cooper (2025) adopted a more granular approach to action research through live journalism, engaging members of the public with journalists. The project demonstrated that moving journalism out of its traditional setting increased audience trust and engagement while also empowering journalists, much like narrowcasting in the early days of radio. There are even a few instances of action research in journalism at the PhD level.
I attempted to incorporate elements of action research into my PhD thesis, titled “Community Media as a Catalyst of Climate Justice in India.” In this essay, I reflect on my experiences in conducting the research. The participants in the research included a) Mandakani ki Awaz(MKA), a community media radio station based in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand b) Khabar Lahariya (KL), a community media digital news outlet, formerly a newspaper, run by neo-literate women in Central India c) Video Volunteers (VV), a mobile journalism platform with pan-India presence that publishes stories produced by local communities on its own website and YouTube channels. The observations below are neither a recommendation nor a catalogue of challenges or limitations, but rather observations that were made during the course of the research. As an ongoing PhD project, it is difficult to tag the possible outcomes of my research as successes or failures. However, they led to some action, which is better than nothing. As highlighted by Schubotz (2020), PAR does not necessarily need to be an immersive collaboration, but a ‘light’ participatory touch applied to some parts of a project is okay, too.” (Schubotz, 2020. p.17).
Flexibility in research approach
I began my PhD with a Participatory Action Research (PAR) framework firmly in mind. As the work progressed, however, guided in part by my supervisors, conversations with PAR scholars and my own experiences during the pilot study, I came to see participatory ethnography as a more pragmatic fit for a doctoral study. My stakes were high. After three years of research, failing to demonstrate sufficient methodological rigour could jeopardise the thesis itself. While my overarching aim remained unchanged, to generate tangible benefit for the communities I was working with, participatory ethnography opened new research possibilities. It offered a pragmatic and effective approach to the research: my objective observations informed the subjective interventions. I drew on the framework of “ethnography to inform design,” in which ethnographic work underpins the co-creation of interventions, conceived as a natural extension of the ethnographic process (Blomberg & Karasti, 2012). I didn’t abandoned PAR; rather, I reframed my methodological orientation in line with Schubotz’s (2020) guidance on action research as a fluid method, where collaborations in PAR can range from sharing advice to co-producing projects. I came to understand action and intervention in my research through a lens of flexibility, in which both the degree of collaboration and the nature of outcomes were contingent on the interests and capacities of each community media organisation.
Ground-up research design
Working across three organisations meant working across three very different contexts. In each case, a period of ethnographic observation preceded the participatory intervention phase. Two organisations, MKA and VV, agreed to participatory intervention; at KL, the study remained confined to ethnographic observation. Even within the two organisations where intervention did take place, its character varied considerably, evolving in response to each organisation’s needs, capacity, and perceived value of the research. A predetermined research plan was of limited use. During the pilot study, for instance, I observed that limited community participation and resistance from more powerful actors were significant barriers to the practice of climate justice. Drawing on Harvey’s (2011) research design from a community radio project in Ghana, I proposed a community event that would bring together diverse stakeholders to discuss climate justice issues. At MKA, however, logistical constraints, poor weather and the timing of the harvest season made the plan unworkable. At VV, by contrast, the reporters were receptive to the idea. The event eventually took place through a collaborative effort. At MKA, I worked with the team to develop an alternative approach based on suggestions that emerged out of focus group discussions. The radio constantly needed outside experts who could discuss educational content in relatable language. The topic of climate justice was appropriate for this form of content. I invited external speakers to discuss climate justice on air. This experience reinforced the belief that adaptation to participants’ perspectives and contexts is crucial in action research. It also yielded a broader observation: smaller organisations with fewer resources and less institutionalised ways of working can sometimes be more open to participatory research than larger, more established media houses.
Moving beyond documenting success
One of the pragmatic difficulties in action research is the lack of a mechanism to quantify success. This is especially a challenge in subjects that require long-term observation to understand outcomes, such as climate justice. In my observation, the willingness of the communities/participants to continue working with the researcher or to replicate the interventions carried out during the study is one of the indicators, if not a measure, of success. For example, I introduced the concept of climate justice to MKA, the community radio station, which adopted it as its theme for 2026. This indicated that the radio was interested in exploring the concept at a deeper level. However, the question of whether the introduction of the concept led to more tangible changes, including listeners’ propensity to be proactive about their climate-related rights, remained unanswered. Interviews may serve as another tool to gauge the level of success. However, after prolonged association with the researcher, the participants might be reluctant to offer any critical views. Therefore, gauging the outcomes of action-oriented research remains a challenge, especially in social sciences. However, it is possible to observe indications of success in the participants’ responses and actions after the intervention.
Connect with communities
Community acceptance is foundational to action-oriented research. Yet deep engagement with participants always risks compromising the researcher’s objectivity. My “ethnography to inform design” framework helped to navigate this tension to a degree by maintaining a structured relationship between observation and intervention. Nevertheless, irrespective of research design, earning the trust and confidence of communities is both necessary and difficult. In many parts of the Global South, researchers are perceived as operating within their own insular world, arriving with predetermined agendas and offering little of practical value in return. This dynamic was evident at KL, the organisation that declined to participate in the intervention phase. As a well-researched organisation, the organisation’s employees viewed academic researchers as a distraction rather than a resource. Action-oriented research can help counter this perception by making explicit the potential benefits of the work for the community itself. However, a participatory framing does not automatically generate trust. Trust is built through sustained communication, consistent presence, and a genuine willingness to contribute, including, where appropriate, through volunteering and practical assistance, remotely or in person.
Beyond the research, an exit plan
For all practical purposes, the association between the researchers and participants cannot last forever. Therefore, it’s important for the researcher to come up with an exit plan. An exit strategy is not merely a logistical formality; it is an ethical responsibility. Communities and organisations that invest time, trust, and energy in a research project deserve clarity on when and how the researcher’s involvement will end, and what, if anything, will remain after the researcher leaves. At a minimum, an exit plan should involve communicating transparently with participants about the research timeline from the outset, so that expectations are managed and the eventual departure does not feel abrupt or like abandonment. Knowledge transfer is a key pillar to an exit plan. In my research at VV, my exit plan included a training session for a core group of reporters, who could then act as trainers for other reporters. Informally, the association between the researcher and participant might last for a long time. Even after the research is over, it is important to maintain communication and offer help, if needed.
Funding is not a constraint
Action research is always seen as resource-intensive. My own PhD experience, however, challenges this assumption. Conducted with a negligible budget, the research demonstrated that the most important resource in action-oriented work is not financial but the ability to develop relationships and the willingness to contribute meaningfully to the communities. In my thesis, a combination of a participatory approach to action helped achieve the twin purpose of creating academic knowledge and outcomes, even though they were not perfect. When resources are not available, giving time to the participants makes the research strong. At VV, for example, the training sessions I designed and delivered as part of my exit strategy required no budget. At MKA, inviting external speakers to participate in radio discussions on climate justice costs nothing beyond coordination.
References
Adams, C., & Cooper, G. (2025). “News on the Street”: An Action Research Case Study of Embodied Live Journalism in an Urban Public Space. Journalism Studies, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2025.2531777
Blomberg, J., & Karasti, H. (2012). Ethnography: Positioning ethnography within Participatory Design. In Routledge international handbook of participatory design (1st ed., p. 31). Routledge.
Jones, B., & Jones, R. (2025). Action research at the BBC: Interrogating artificial intelligence with journalists to generate actionable insights for the newsroom. Journalism, 26(8), 1708-1725
Nyre, L. & Maiden, N. (2022). Can action research improve local journalism?. Nordicom Review, 43(2), 171-189. https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2022-0011
Schubotz, D. (2020). Participatory research. SAGE Publications Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529799682
Schaetz, N., Schjøtt, A., Dodds, T., & Mellado, C. (2025). Introduction to the Special Issue: The (invisible) work involved in bridging the research-practice gap in journalism. Journalism, 26(8), 1591-1602.
Opinions expressed here are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views, policies or positions of the EJO or the organisations with which they are affiliated.
