Citizen Journalism: Redefining World News Coverage

Modern media is evolving just as rapidly as modern society is progressing. Traditionally, a select group of newscasters and reporters gave the news every day to the general public, but that is no longer the case. Now we see that traditional model being flipped on its head as citizen journalism, or firsthand reporting of local events by citizens, is on the rise and is becoming influential in international events. It is not contained to just one region of the world either. With the advent of the World Wide Web and especially social media like Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, the struggles, revolutions, victories and losses occurring all over the world every single day, big or small, are made very public. The real-time, exclusive perspective of citizen journalism supplements established news sources, often making note of trends and brewing uprisings long before they even take full force. Citizen journalism also gives stories a distinctly human face and tells directly what people living in a certain region are concerned about. All in all, this evolving form of reporting is revitalizing the way the international community understands how the world is currently working.

Citizen journalists are defined by longtime journalist and new media issues commentator Mark Glasser as “people without professional journalism training using the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others” (qtd. from Simons). News and ideas are spread rapidly by citizen journalists via social networking sites, through which details of witnessed events can be disseminated to a large, multifaceted audience. They are usually in the wrong place at the right time (ie-victims), the right place at the right time (accidental witnesses of events), or seeking out the right places at the right times by going out of their way to find events to cover. Citizen journalists are typically inexperienced and untrained in professional journalistic style, but what they lack in style they can often make up for in enthusiasm. Due to the rapid increase of amateur journalists desiring to be heard, there are now a wide variety of forums through which they can present their articles, critiques, photos, videos, and other forms of media, in addition to style guides and tool pages for the expressed purposes of assisting citizen journalists in their endeavors.

Citizen journalists are put in unique situations by being accidental witnesses to events. These predicaments give citizen journalists an advantage over traditional journalists: they have access to the “scenes of the crime”, if you will, that might be closed off or unreachable at the instance of the event. They oftentimes will also have immediate connections to the area surrounding them to gather information and other witness testimony or insight. Locals have a range of access to resources and eyewitness opportunities in the midst of incidents occurring within their vicinity that outside reporters lack.

Public forums for citizen journalists to publish their work are useful in order to promote wider speculation and knowledge on brewing issues before they blow up. For example, in 2007, two female bloggers in Madagascar were covering a rally protesting their president’s choice to block all media outlets used by the opposition leader and mayor of Antananarivo before the conflict went national in 2008 (Sasaki). Protests escalated as time went on, and several television and radio stations stopped broadcasting as directed by the President. But the use of Twitter and Facebook aided the protesters in perpetuating their rallies and opinions, and the movement lost no steam despite the loss of media outlets such as television and the radio. In this case, the efforts of citizen bloggers not only noted an uprising before it happened, but they also continued to fuel the protests in the face of attempts to shut them down.

Another often cited example of the importance of citizen journalism is the Arab Spring in which, despite Islamic government crackdowns on publicizing the uprisings, passionate protestors using social media were able to successfully have their voices heard and their respective regimes brought down. The wealthy tend to be the ones that have technology like the Internet and cell phones available to them in places like Egypt, Tunisia, or Libya. They tend to be educated elites whose support or disapproval is extremely significant to the future of a regime. Therefore, their expressed dissatisfaction with current regimes, through social media outlets as seen in the Arab Spring, is the greatest threat to the stability and power of a regime (Khamis 4).

Those with the technology to capture what is going on around them demonstrate how quickly their eyewitness accounts can become the first impressions of others. Take, for instance, the gruesome pictures and videos of deceased, deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi that were accessed by the media minutes after it happened. One might be able to clearly remember the front page of the Washington Post the next day, which displayed a full-page picture of the dead dictator taken by what would be considered a Libyan citizen journalist. They were certainly in the right place at the right time. This is only in addition to the news coverage including eyewitness photographs and video shown on the news on the day of Gaddafi’s death. One can also consider the timely tweets of Sohaib Althar on May 2^nd, 2011, who complained about helicopter noise overhead that ended up being U.S. Navy SEALS raiding Osama bin Laden’s compound. The rapid dissemination and far reach of what other people are witnessing in the moment is a remarkable feature of citizen journalism.

Indeed, the movements behind the Arab Spring were also fueled not only by the dissatisfaction with current regimes but also sheer strength of numbers, both in social media and in real-life manifestations. The more dissenters expressing their joint opinions through blogs, tweets, etc., the more seemed to join the movement, whether out of pure bandwagoning or feeling more secure that the protests were actually going to accomplish something (Khamis 4). Without large uprisings of shared sentiments, these overthrows of authoritarian regimes may never have been successful.

Through these case studies and certainly countless others, it’s easy to see the incredible dichotomy between the traditional reporting of the news and the newer form of reporting the news through the eyes of the citizens witnessing it. This increasingly more common perspective of the news spins the way news is perceived by its audience. It is often given in real-time, and in a more personal way than traditional news sources give the news. It is a tool of those who seek change and comrades to help them bring their desired change. Clearly, citizen journalism is developing into an international force to be reckoned with.

WORKS CITED

Khamis, Sahar, and Katherine Vaughn. "Cyberactivism in the Egyptian Revolution: How Civic Engagement and Citizen Journalism Tilted the Balance." Arab Media. 13 (2011): 1-29. Web. 8 Dec. 2011. _Khamis.pdf>.

Sasaki, David. "Protests in Madagascar and the Importance of Citizen Journalism Training." Idea Lab. PBS, 28 Jan 2009. Web. 8 Dec 2011. importance-of-citizen-journalism-training028.html>.

Simons, Greg. "Citizen journalism in the age of global terrorism." European Journalism Centre. European Journalism Centre, 04 Dec 2008. Web. 8 Dec 2011. errorism/>.