Innovative Development of Engagement with Local Readers

Our association has always considered it important to actively involve the community in content creation. This is achieved by sending their written and multimedia content and other information to our editorial team. For five years, members of our community, as well as our readers living further away, have been able to send us content, ideas and information via an encrypted messaging system (called: "I report"). We would like to further develop this system so that the content sent by readers is automatically uploaded to the self-developed editorial system (CMS) of Nyugat.hu and Enyugat.hu. In this way, a workflow will be automated. We can process, check and use as a basis for our articles more content sent in by our readers.

Target group

Our target audience is primarily the readers of the West-Hungarian region, mainly residents of Vas County, but there is also a significant number from the capital. We also have regular readers from abroad, mainly people who have ties with our region. The majority of our readership is in the 35-65+ age group, but 18-34-year-olds are also present on our sites. Gender distribution: 51% women, 49% men.

Goals of the project

• Civilians will have more trust in local news
• Civilians will be more interested in public affairs
• Civilians will be better informed about social issues
• Civilians’ local empowerment will be increase

Expected results 

• Increasing our readership
• Readership of our public affairs articles and social media posts increases
• Increase in the number of relevant comments
• More ideas will be submitted to our “I report system” to achieve and reform social goals.

About the media outlet

The non-profit Nyugat Media and World Wide Web Association publishes the news portals www.nyugat.hu (Vas county and Szombathely) and www.enyugat.hu (Sopron and its surroundings). It is important to highlight that www.nyugat.hu is the largest independent media outlet outside Budapest, and our region is the only region in Hungary where the primary source of news is not a government-controlled media outlet, but Nyugat.hu, an independent news portal.