Welsh language community hub launched

For the first time, Cardiff's 36,000 Welsh speakers now have their own digital news and networking service following the launch of PoblCaerdyddat the annual Tafwyl festival.

PoblCaerdydd has been developed by and for the community with support from Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies to meet a crying need for Welsh language content, appealing to an overwhelmingly young and digitally literate audience in Cardiff.

Using a new tool developed by the University and creative partner 'Behaviour' as part of a research project, anyone who has a story to tell, news to share or an image to display can contribute content toPoblCaerdydd quickly and easily, giving the potential for a very responsive and authentic service.

Sara Moseley, Development Director of Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies and head of the University's Centre for Community Journalism, said:

"Wales has a proud tradition of community newspapers with over fifty of them serving each part of the country. But with changing patterns of media consumption and young people very much used to generating and curating their own content, the Cardiff paper Y Dinesydd was seeing circulation go down and audience age profile go up. We were very happy to help when they approached us given that University's commitment to community engagement.

"It hasn't been hard to find a new generation of talented people who are embedded in their community and passionate about making this work. We've been able to help them set up and we've use the outcomes from our research to help spread the ownership for this venture far and wide and really pull in good content. That is going to be vital for long term sustainability and for keeping things really close to the audience."

On Saturday, festival goers were urged to trial a new tool – working title 'LittleJ' – and were able to send content instantaneously via their phones or tablets to PoblCaerdydd.