Ah! This has much to do with the branch Erik and Max a few others here had around the concept of bricolage on the web, inspired by Erik's gist on Singing in the Rain and Diablo 3. (Seriously.)

This new branch uses the lens of fostering endearment and ownership, while we used the lens of artificiality versus authenticity. Both, though, share the common ground of giving a user a way to affect the outcome of digital products through participation with or in them.

I wonder what lessons news consumption can draw from thinking about product design this way, given that it's not really possible to "participate" in a news product? Or is it?

"Most news sites have come to treat comments as little more than a necessary evil... tolerated mainly as a way of generating pageviews. ...

[Gawker's] new design dispenses with the tyranny of time order. On most systems, the most prominent comments are posted either by the most obsessed users (when comments are posted oldest first) or the drive-bys (newest first)." -Clay Shirky.

Reader behavior is changing. Non-journalists write tweets starting with ICYMI. High school students don't realize they are citizen journalists by posting photos to Reddit. News production is changing. Denton's comment vision and Branch's take on conversation are the start. The end result is when readers are involved from assignment to production to commentary.

Noah, your point is sound. It makes sense that the production will become distributed, with journos and editors serving as ring masters whom piece together and verify the noise into a cogent story.

But we shouldn't ignore one form of participation that exists today, especially in cable news: advertising. On MSNBC and Fox News commercials for brokerages and gold (respectively) are ways for the viewer to participate with the story they're watching. We should acknowledge that, yes, this is borderline (sometimes clearly) predatory, but recognize that these ads' persuasive power is derived from viewers' desires to participate with the story they're watching. To be on the inside line.

How might these tactics be harnessed for good?

I love Drew's point about advertising as I think it may be easier for consumers to directly engage with ad content -- think "is this ad helpful, thumbs up or thumbs down on Hulu" -- since it is more common for people to be randomly asked for product feedback.

Turning the internet into a giant focus group is not necessarily how we improve the production of news. Concerns about enduring groupthink via filter bubbles is substantial. Without creating a new branch for this topic, I'll ask a question.

Why do the companies paying for advertising on Fox/MSNBC, Drudge/Huffington Post, Facebook/Twitter, one day Branch?, etc have an incentive for producing content that aids in the production of news?

What role does "branded content" play?