Freelancers in Newspapers Local Editorial Offices - Characteristics, Professional Self-Understanding and Organisational Structures

地方新闻是用户在自身环境中定位的重要来源，用户对地方新闻的兴趣较高。需要了解当地事件并在附近环境中找到方向是使用它的高动机。然而，编辑部受到地方和区域报纸最近经济发展的挑战。以前的收入模式的丧失导致了削减成本的措施，这主要涉及到地方编辑部的人力资源：由于这些事实，作为地方自由职业者的记者的数量和重要性在过去几年中有所上升。问题是在什么情况下这些自由职业者会在当地的编辑部工作？谁在哪个过程结构中与谁合作？谁——有什么资格——在当地编辑部做自由职业者？回答这些问题的结果尚未提供。计划中的研究项目的目标之一是首次全面和详细地概述区域和地方报纸新闻（印刷和在线）自由职业者的专业特点。第二个目标是分析地方编辑部自由职业者的组织整合情况。为了达到这些目标，将分析他们的教育背景、新闻知识和经验等特征，以及他们的专业自我理解和对他们融入编辑结构的评价。此外，它将分析编辑部使用哪些人力资源管理和编辑质量管理策略，哪些相关性归因于它，数字流程和结构有什么影响，哪些编辑管理的实际概念可以确定。项目的理论建模将参考有关地方编辑部自由职业者和平面新闻自由职业者的研究，他们的工作条件和日常生活以及自我理解，以及研究地方公民新闻的研究。此外，编辑研究、编辑管理的研究，以及新闻工作流程数字化的更广泛背景下的结果也将包括在内。将采用多方法设计。对当地编辑部负责人进行定性半结构化采访；这些自由职业者将接受一份标准化的在线问卷调查。随后，结果和解释将与当地编辑部的负责人进行讨论，以进行交流验证。除了扩大科学知识外，该项目还产生了具有社会政治和专业利益的结果：它将对当地新闻的预期表现发表声明，并提出行动建议。

Local news is an important source for user’s orientation in their own environments and the user’s interest in local news is high. The need to be informed about local events and to get oriented in their nearby environments is a high motivation for the use of it. Nevertheless, editorial offices are challenged by recent economic developments of local and regional newspapers. The loss of previous earning models results in cost-cutting measures, which concern predominantly the personnel resources of local editorial offices: Due to these facts number and importance of journalists working as local free-lancers is risen over the last years. The question is under which circumstances these freelancers work in local editorial offices? Who works with whom in which process structures? And who – with which qualification – works as a freelancer in local editorial offices?Results to answer these questions have not yet been provided. It is one goal of the planned research project to provide – for the first time – a comprehensive and detailed overview of the professional characteristics of freelancers in regional and local newspaper journalism (print and online). The second goal is to analyze the organizational integration of freelancers in local editorial offices. To reach those goals, characteristics will be analyzed like educational background, journalistic knowledge and experiences as well as their professional self-understanding and the evaluation of their integration into editorial structures. Furthermore, it will be analyzed which strategies of human resource management and editorial quality management the editorial offices use, which relevance is attributed to it, what impact digital processes and structures have and which practical conceptions of editorial management can be identified.For the theoretical modeling of the project, studies that have dealt with freelancers in local editorial offices as well as freelancers in print journalism, their work conditions and routines as well as self-understanding, and studies researching local citizen journalism will be consulted. In addition, studies of editorial research, editorial management, and results from the wider context of the digitalization of journalistic workflow will be included. A multi-method design will be applied. Heads of the local editorial department will be interviewed with the help of qualitative semi-structured interviews; the freelancers will be questioned with a standardized online questionnaire. Subsequently, the results and interpretations will be discussed with the heads of the local editorial offices for a communicative validation. Besides the expansion of scientific knowledge, the project also generates results that are of socio-political and professional interest: It will produce statements about expectable performances of local journalism and develop recommendations for action.