What, if anything, the term ‘hyperlocal’ now means is something that keeps coming up in conversations I have and it strikes me that it’s no longer necessarily defined by a tight geographical area, but instead seems to have evolved to describe more of an attitude than a place.
Often it’s the subject matter that could be termed ‘hyperlocal’ (eg. littering reports) or a story treatment (eg. data maps) but even sites which cover large geographical areas (eg. the city blogs which I look after for Guardian Local) are referred to as ‘hyperlocal’. Can these things be considered ‘hyperlocal in nature, even if that’s not true of their scale or scope?
I’ve been thinking about what it is that links them, what’s meant when we use the shorthand ‘hyperlocal’ and identified the following ten characteristics. Not all sites display all these characteristics and, before the print lobby gets over excited, yes of course a lot of these characteristics are present in local newspapers as well.
I’m quite sure there’s other things I haven’t clocked, so please do let me know any more that should be included.
Plus, is it time to find a term which would better describe what we’ve come to mean or do you think ‘hyperlocal’ is well used enough to keep? Please do let me know in the comments below.
- Participation from the author. To my mind, this is the biggest single hyperlocal attitude characteristic – the blogger, writer, journalist or whoever it is running the site participates in activities in the community. Includes activity on, and offline.
- Opinion blended with facts. Can sometimes be related to point one but generally a less distinctive, more blurry line of difference between what is reported and what is opinion is commonplace. The author’s personal take on an issue can be more pronounced than would be expected in a piece of traditional news journalism.
- Participation from the community. Whether it’s commenting, submitted material such as pictures and tips or crowdsourced information, hyperlocal means involving others in its production.
- Small is big. When it comes to news values, the agenda can be distinctly different to that of a traditional news outlet because scale is not important, impact is.
- Medium agnostic. Use of different platforms is a very common characteristic with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Audioboo etc. being deployed as and when required.
- Obsessiveness. I mean this in a good way! Hyperlocal-ers seem more likely to stick with a story, update it’s every change and so take proper advantage of having no restrictions on space that blogs provide. Is this the hyper in hyperlocal?
- Independence. The publishers of these sites tend to pride themselves on being independent and see not being answerable to a mainstream organisation meaning they’re able to be more responsive to their community.
- Link lovers. I’ve struggled to find any hyperlocal sites that aren’t generous in their linking policy and why wouldn’t they be? Linking out is a natural state of affairs for bloggers who don’t pretend they are omnipresent when resources don’t allow.
- Passion. Most of these sites were set up as labours of love – and it shows. That sort of (more often than not unpaid) enthusiasm is very attractive to users who’re savvy at spotting disinterest or ulterior motives.
- Lack of money. Sorry to end the list on this but…..it doesn’t seem the revenue question has been fully answered yet, or if it has, I’ve not spotted it and would love to hear from the person that has.
Dim Sum Digital 
A great list Sarah.
I take your point about no longer being defined by a tight geographical area but I still think this is a really strong defining aspect of hyperlocal. In terms of definition I think its the starting point. Even it it’s driven by, or develops in to a more universal subject. The starting point should be in reflecting and highlighting what is happening on your doorstep.
My worry is that it’s a definition that gets subverted by larger more mainstream efforts – a bit like ‘doing a blog’ or building a community. Recognizable terms but unrecognizable in terms of their output.
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It’s a good point. I also think I should have given more emphasis to output from the activity – many hyperlocal sites are less bothered about the publishing side than the engagement side as Ali from GreenerLeith and I discussed earlier today too. Loving that this issue is being talked about tho, thanks for taking the time out to comment 🙂
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I read this, and I thought, that’s a good list, so this is just to say so.
At the moment, I think money only really comes into it when a site is linked up in some way to something else. For example, a friend of mine called Damon Allen now runs http://www.bridportradio.co.uk which was originally set up by another friend of mine, a German sea captain and martial arts & yoga teacher called Horst Lindenau and it isn’t really a radio station at all, mostly these days it prints entertainment-related press releases (with side servings of causeries and jeux d’esprit) but it keeps going out of love and because Damon also has a website-designing business and there’s some useful traffic between the two.
Sorry – that sentence rather ran away…
Myself, I do other things as well which are linked.
Yet in America there are people who seem to make their sites alone work through sheer effort. I think http://annarborchronicle.com is under-rated or not even known about over here.
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Thanks for the comment Jonathan – and for introducing me to your west Dorset site which I hadn’t seen before.
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I’d add ‘constantly evolving’. As everytime someone says ‘that’s hyperlocal’ then someone, somewhere, is doing something slightly different and the definition builders have to start all over again.
Wonder what the team at the Oxford/Collins dictionary would come up with?
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Thanks Ed – yes can’t argue with constantly evolving as a characteristic 🙂 I wasn’t so much looking for a dictionary definition as much as a general set of things in common. Been great to hear from so many people on this.
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Thanks for this useful contribution Sarah.
I’m in flux as to what term to use if referring to citizen-led online websites. Hyperlocal has become something of a convenient catch-all for me. It’s brief and snappy and for that reason I like it. However, I’m also increasingly associating it with a citizen journalist led approach to local online which by no means includes all sites. East Dulwich Forum and Harringay Online are two examples which you couldn’t term citizen-journalist led, though Harringay Online (whch I run) does include elements of a CJ approach.
In an effort to begin explaining some of the differences between local sites, at Networked Neighbourhoods we’ve developed a local site typology as part of a study we’ve been commissioned to do on the impact of local citizen-led sites.
I also certainly agree with Andy that a tight geographic focus is an essential part of the definition. But, people’s thoughts of the size of that area vary widely.
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I loathe the term hyperlocal.
I’ve had it applied to my blog, The Lichfield Blog, and also aggregators and hybrids like WV11 and TheYamYam.
We’re not really doing similar things – what defines TLB and TheYamYam for example, is a personality but lack of overt bias, where as what I do is all opinion. What I do isn’t news, isn’t journalism and is just a bloke ranting into WordPress, a world away from the ex-journos who seem to dominate the more newsy end of things.
Hyperlocal just seems like a catch-all term for the latest media hype, and is seemingly applied blindly.
I’m just a blogger who blogs about what I do and the place I live.
Best wishes
Bob
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An excellent list. Thank you. I was able to check off 9 of your 10, with a modified exception on #2. While we identify opinion as such, we are occasionally very opinionated in our story selection. As for the revenue question… we produce a weekly printed version (limited run/free distribution) in our Oregon, USA town of 3,500 and are supporting that product and our online costs through our print advertising. When we build out our website to include local ads, we will be profitable, not just breaking even.
This is obviously not a model that will work everywhere, but it works for Toledo, Oregon.
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Hello from an ocean and a continent away.
Good list (found it from Lost Remote).
#2 and #10 do not apply, for us. Re: #2 – we don’t do opinion. Did in the first year, which was the first of two years that we ran the site before it became a business three years ago.
And business brings us to #10. We do pretty well. Enough advertising revenue to pay both of us (partnership between husband and I), and an increasing freelance budget which creeps ever, ever closer to full-fledged employee funding equivalent. And it is ALL advertising that we sold ourselves – no Google ads, no network ads, etc. No CPMs, no CTRs, 100 percent local flat-rate display advertising.
What I’m personally tired of, as some know over here, is the abuse of the word “blog,” which is nothing more than a publishing format. I am not a “blogger.” I do not “blog.” I am a journalist who writes, reports, edits, publishes. My site only has “blog” in its name because I didn’t know any better when I founded it. For those of us who do serious news, whether in the “hyperlocal attitude” you describe or otherwise, the sooner we start emphasizing that we are offering news services, not “blogs,” the sooner some of these other challenges (maybe even money! if you’re not making any yet) will be solved.
One thing “hyperlocal” definitely is not – it’s not a term to use in your branding, marketing, other communications with your “audience.” It’s a total industry term. We just use “neighborhood” or “community.”
-Tracy @ W. Seattle Blog, Seattle, WA, USA
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Esp …especially in my Getty with imagination, The converstation comes UP here : ) http://www.factadress.com
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This dovetails nicely with a hyperlocal twitter banter (rant) I started and some smart people joined earlier this week: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23Hyperlocalsecrets
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Thanks to everyone who has commented here. It’s been fantastic to get such a wide range of views. Those of you who have started earning a living from the activities will be particularly inspiring to many here in the uk who are just settling out.
As to the term ‘hyper local’ itself, there doesn’t seem to be a great love for it, even loathing mentioned!
Community news would seem to describe what most people mean by ‘hyper local’ which makes me wonder why it seems to have fallen from favour at some point on the journey online?
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We don’t use the term ‘hyper local’. We use the term ‘local’ to differentiate ourselves from the well-established county-wide newspaper, which covers our town, but only as part of a broader geographic effort. Toledo, Oregon has a much more cohesive identity than other towns in our area, which plays into our favor. Your community may be different; we got lucky.
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This is a great list! I think that the one that really distinguishes local blogs from anything the mainstream media might do is #6 – obsessiveness. Though, actually, I would not call it obsessiveness as much as I would describe it as “paying attention.” I try follow up and provide my readers with updates, but I also do not try to create a story out of nothing.
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Thanks Kerri. It’s possibly from a tradition of restricted space that mainstream media tend to wait for some major development before updating some stories but with community sites it would seem, just as you’re finding, that if a reader is interested in an issue then they’re often interested in all of it, even small updates.
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Dear Sarah,
thanx for the list – I argued to your thesis on my blog – unfortunately in german. My active english is not good enough to translate that accurately. Perhaps someone could help.
Abstract: I think it is a question of attitude(s) that makes the main difference between hyperlocal journalism and traditional media. Localized reporting, plus subjectiv reporting based an objectiv facts, plus networked information with private, official, scientific and other sources and links, plus an archived local database, plus user-generated input, plus velocity, plus transparency are keywords to define.
I will try to catch your thougts and combine with my view (this also in english).
Regards from a german reporter (for the moment on holidays in Italie)
Hardy Prothmann
About me: I started in 5/2009 with a local blog and have three until today, a 4th will start the next month. The break-even is planned until end of the year (see your thesis 10).
A lot of media reported about my blogs and the way I do (all reports in german). Some called this work “future of local journalism”:
http://heddesheimblog.de/2010/07/02/in-eigener-sache-berichte-uber-das-heddesheimblog/
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Thanks Hardy. You thesis sounds interesting – will attempt to get a translation.
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Hello!
Next essay on hyperlocal journalism in german. Translation will follow.
http://prothmann.posterous.com/sinn-und-unsinn-einer-definition-von-hyperlok
Greets
Hardy
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Dictionary.com defines “hyper-” as:
a prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, where it meant “over,” usually implying excess or exaggeration ( hyperbole ); on this model used, especially as opposed to hypo-, in the formation of compound words ( hyperthyroid ). Compare “super-.” Akin to “over-“. Can be confused with “hypo-.”
So if a regular community newspaper (as opposed to a major metro/regional daily) is local, then does that mean hyperlocal is an excess of reporting and newsgathering?
Does it mean that the coverage, which is localized, i.e., designated for a certain and limited geographical area, becomes even more microscopic and precise within the locality? Does that mean coverage of towns and cities becomes coverage of neighborhoods or even apartment buildings?
How fine-tuned is hyper, really? Can we call the method “hyper-journalism?” Am I a “hyper-reporter?” Should any of us believe the hype?
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Wow, what a post Sarah. Think you’ve hit a nerve here with hyperlocal meaning lots of different things to people.
From our experiences with King’s Road the word hyperlocal is not even mentioned in the community. Businesses and readers would look puzzled. To them it’s about having a local site which helps them find out what’s going on.
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You’re right that ‘hyperlocalism is an attitude’, but I don’t believe that makes scale irrelevant, since the scale of a medium and its locatedness – in short, the way it maps onto place – profoundly affect the attitudes that people bring to the use of media for communication. Depending on their scale, therefore, place-based sites may naturally favour a particular form or pattern of communication.
I develop these ideas further on the Leeds Centre for Digital Citizenship blog at: http://digitalcitizenship.co.uk/?p=123
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I think that these sites can be important in promoting local business usage. My site letlion.com encourages people from Denmark Hill London to use local business. This is both good for the very local economy and fosters a sense of community (not to mention that it is green reducing fuel usage!)
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