University of Oregon researchers are surveying local area residents about how they find out — and would like to find out — about local news
By Bert Etling, Ashland.news
What do you need to know about what’s going on in your community? How do you currently find out that information? How would you like to find out that information?
Those are the kinds of questions a team of University of Oregon researchers are hoping you’ll help answer.
Faculty members at the UO’s Agora Journalism Center think you may have noticed a decline in local news and information in this community, a documented trend across the state and nation.
The Agora team is part of the UO School of Journalism and Communication. It bills itself as “The forum for the future of local news and civic health.”
That decline in local news sources “is affecting our ability to build strong and functioning communities,” Agora said in a release announcing a survey focusing on the Ashland-Talent-Phoenix-Medford area. “The best way to improve local news and civic health is to involve the communities most impacted,” the release adds.
So they’re surveying residents to understand how people in this area get their information. They want to know what news sources you trust, what information is essential to you, and how informed you feel about what’s going on in your community.
To take the survey, which should take about four to nine minutes to complete, click here: bit.ly/uosurvey-southoregon.
Researchers need to finish compiling results by mid-March, so responses need to be in by the end of the first week of March.
Email Ashland.news Executive Editor Bert Etling at betling@ashland.news or call or text him at 541-631-1313.
