Connecting to Local Publics Through Media: An in-Depth Study of Local Media Use and Public Connection

The places where citizens live their everyday lives constitute an important yet under-researched context for public connection. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of how citizens’ everyday media use entails connecting to local publics, and how an orientation towards local publics constitutes a component of public connection more broadly. Methodologically, the paper draws on recurring interviews and logging of the weekly media use and information practices of 24 citizens, thus combining insights on people’s everyday media use with their experiences of media, platforms, and content. The findings highlight the importance of media for citizens’ local public connection and the value of accounting for the local level in researching public connection, suggesting that the local level is more important to public connection than what is generally accounted for in the literature, which to some extent have devalued important aspects of ordinary citizens’ public connection.