Post on 04-Mar-2023
Critically reflect on whether citizen journalists can
provide the same level of journalism as professionals in
newspapers, news agencies etc. and explain why or why
not. Include examples and use of research in your
discussion to highlight your argument.
Student No: 129036410
Total words: 4.993
Words οf which bibliography & references: 826
The day the Egyptian court banned the operation of the
Al Jazeera local affiliate channel along with three more
stations, was an attack against journalism. (Egypt courtbans Al-Jazeera TV affiliate - Washington Times. 2014. Egypt court
bans Al-Jazeera TV affiliate - Washington Times. [ONLINE] Available
at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/3/egypt-court-bans-
al-jazeera-tv-affiliate/?page=all. [Accessed 24 January 2014]).
However, even though the media were “tied up”, Arab
Spring continued to “sprung” and the rest of the world
was able to see the protesters flooding the streets of
Cairo because someone else was there reporting the news…
The day Turkish journalists were fired from their jobs
because they had expressed their support to the
protesters of the Gezi park or had covered the theme, was
an attack against journalism and free speech. (At least 22journalists fired in connection with Gezi protests - Today's Zaman,
your gateway to Turkish daily news. 2014. At least 22 journalists
fired in connection with Gezi protests - Today's Zaman, your gateway
to Turkish daily news. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-321554-at-least-22-journalists-fired-
in-connection-with-gezi-protests.html. [Accessed 24 January 2014].
However, the pictures of the riot police using tons of
water against the people and the solidarity the latter
showed to each other travelled across the world because
someone else besides the newsmedia were there to report
it… The day that “Mega Channel” a Greek private TV
broadcaster, reported the news of a police officer
shooting dead a 15 year old boy in the heart of Athens,
it used an altered video with added fake noise to draw
the impression that there were extended trouble in the
area that had maybe led to the shooting. The original
video, taken by a resident, circulated across the
internet immediately. Three years later, Mega channel
admitted the fact. (5 χρόνια από τη δολοφονία του Αλέξανδρου
Γρηγορόπουλου - ThePressProject. 2014. 5 years from the murder of
Alexandros Grigoropoulos - ThePressProject. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.thepressproject.gr/article/52598/5-xronia-apo-ti-
dolofonia-tou-Aleksandrou-Grigoropoulou. [Accessed 24 January 2014].
All these three cases are somewhat different from one
another. There is, however, one thing they have in common
so prevalent one cannot but notice: The rise of citizen
journalism.
“Since the late 1990’s we have seen the rise of the
content – generated user: the blogger, the citizen
journalist (McNair, Brian Trust, truth and objectivity : sustainingquality journalism in the era of the content-generating user.
InPeters, C. & Broersma, M 2012) The recent years as we witness
its evolution alongside with the decline traditional
media face, a certain quite debatable question has
emerged: Can citizen journalism provide the same level of
work as professionals in news papers, news agencies etc.
The main argument that will be supported in this essay
is that citizen journalism cannot provide the same level
of journalistic work as professionals in media outlets
do, because it fails to fulfill some necessary
prerequisites in order to be attributed the title of
“professional”. However, it would be elitist and
unrealistic not to acknowledge that citizen journalism is
essential to the society as it helps to the
democratization of the news field by offering alternative
ways of information and by giving people the opportunity
to be the prod-users of the news. In its first part, this
essay shall give a description of what citizen journalism
is. An analysis of the factors that prove why it cannot
be considered professional will follow. The last part
shall briefly state the role it plays in the society.
What is citizen journalism?
Internet, the Web 2.0 and the technological advances
created an “information revolution”. As a result,
traditional media ( TV, radio and print) started to
gradually lose their dominance because of the appearance
of the –so called- new media. Citizen journalism can be
described as the “child” of new media, since it makes use
of the technological applications they provide. The
concept of citizen journalism (also known as “public”,
“participatory”, “democratic”, “guerilla”, or “street”
journalism) is based upon public citizen “playing an
active role in the process of collecting, reporting,
analyzing and disseminating news and information”. (Citizen
Journalism. 2014. Citizen Journalism. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://mashable.com/category/citizen-journalism/. [Accessed 24
January 2014]). This is indeed possible to anyone who owns a
personal computer, a smartphone or a camera and of course
an internet connection. “New media technology, such as
social networking and media- sharing websites, in
addition to the increasing prevalence of cellular phones,
has made citizen journalism accessible to people
worldwide. Due to the availability of technology,
citizens can often report breaking news more quickly than
traditional media reporters”. (Citizen Journalism. 2014.
Citizen Journalism. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://mashable.com/category/citizen-journalism/. [Accessed 24
January 2014])
This technological facilitation has given people the
opportunity to become themselves “prod-users” (Bruns, 2008)
of the content they used to consume through the
mainstream media and for that reason there is an existing
notion that “everybody can be a citizen journalist”.
There are, though, different kinds of citizen
journalists:
One category of citizen journalism is blogging. Blogs
are free and have a format that allows easy publishing
and editing. They have multiple uses since many use it as
a diary to externalize their inner thoughts or practice
their writing skills. Some people cover current issues
and important news stories and/ or express their opinion
about them, while others write about a subject they like
from food recipes to fashion or technology. 60% of the
bloggers are hobbyists who blog for fun. (Technocrati cited
in Laird, 2012). The use of images or sound to enrich their
content is quite often. Another feature of blogs is that
they provide a commentary section in which writers can
discuss with their readers, something that promotes vivid
interaction. A research conducted 3 years ago concerning
the use of blogs showed that “By 2007 there were over 20
million blogs on the internet. More recently, it has been
estimated that there are 70 million blogs online”
(technocrati, 2011 cited in Athique, A., 2013 chapter 13). While
some blogs may look like simple notebooks, there are
plenty of others that are quite famous because they are
written in a serious, structures manner with in depth
analysis. “Blogs pluralize the public agenda by adopting
two modes of media influence: First, by functioning as
contemporary opinion leaders, and second, by monitoring
news developments operating as media watchdogs”
(Papacharissi, Z. 2009).
A second category of citizen journalism is independent
websites run by people that are not professional
journalists but mostly (political) activists or at least
people that support that information should not be spread
exclusively by “systemic” media but also and from
alternative newsmedia. These sites also operate as
“watchdogs” for the established media. (Cook, C. “U.K, socialmedia citizen journalism and alternative news” in Anderson, P, Ogola,
G. and William, M 2014). A relevant example is indymedia.org,
a site that operates worldwide and characterizes itself
as “a collective of independent media organizations and
hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-
corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media
outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and
passionate tellings of truth.” (Independent Media Center |www.indymedia.org | ((( i ))). 2014. Independent Media Center |
www.indymedia.org | ((( i ))). [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.indymedia.org/or/index.shtml. [Accessed 24 January 2014].)
A third, wider category of citizen journalists consists
of the rest of the people who may not be writing on a
site, personal or collaborative but contribute in the
spreading of news and information using digital tools.
They can be dedicated citizen journalists (Citizens, theFloor is Yours! - The Nordic Page - Exclusive. 2014. Citizens, the
Floor is Yours! - The Nordic Page - Exclusive. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.tnp.no/norway/exclusive/3323-citizens-the-floor-is-yours.
[Accessed 24 January 2014].), people who attend and cover
major public events, like the “Occupy Wall Street”
movement for instance, carrying the palm of the street
straight to the Twitter feed or Youtube every single day.
They can also be occasional like the random commuters of
the London subway the day a terrorist hit occurred. For
many hours, the only material available the traditional
media had available to help them figure out what has
happened, was the pictures and videos sent by these
people in the train. (Nieman Reports | Citizen Journalism and theBBC. 2014. Nieman Reports | Citizen Journalism and the BBC. [ONLINE]
Available at: http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?
id=100542. [Accessed 24 January 2014]).
For many years, “elites have played the key role in
controlling public knowledge” (Bimber 2003 cited in Tewksbury
and Rittenberg, 2013 ) but as time goes by, the development
of the digital media has brought a change in the media
scenery. Mainstream media are becoming witnesses of
public disbelief and their own loss of dynamics as well
as of an increasing shift of the audiences not only
towards digital media but mostly towards alternative
forms of information. One of them is citizen journalism.
While we think that citizen journalism is in no position
to totally replace traditional journalism, we cannot
ignore the fact that in an “info-war” era it gains a
great amount of the audience’s attention. So, the
question remains: Can citizen journalism provide the same
level as journalists in newspapers, news agencies etc?
In order to prove why citizen journalism cannot be
considered “professional”, we have to explain what
defines “professionalism”.
“A journalist is someone employed to regularly engage in
gathering, processing and disseminating news and
information to serve the public interest”. (Why Defining aJournalist Is Messy, But Crucial | Mediashift | PBS. 2014. Why
Defining a Journalist Is Messy, But Crucial | Mediashift | PBS.
[ONLINE] Available at: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2013/10/why-
defining-a-journalist-is-messy-but-crucial/. [Accessed 24 January
2014]. While this term may resemble a lot the one for
citizen journalists, there is a clear difference between
them: A professional journalist does not work for free.
He is not a hobbyist or an amateur but a qualified
employee who belongs in a certain working field, that of
information. Therefore, he is in a way “obliged” to
operate under a specific ethic code that consists of a
variety of values. In our attempt to show that citizen
journalism cannot be conceived as professional journalism
we are going to analyze some of the core principles of
journalism that were published by The Pew Research
Journalism Project (Principles of Journalism | Pew ResearchCenter's Journalism Project. 2014. Principles of Journalism | Pew
Research Center's Journalism Project. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles-of-journalism/.
[Accessed 24 January 2014]).
“Journalism’s first obligation is the truth”. Journalism
holds the title of the “fourth estate” and not
unreasonably as it exercises significant influence over
people’s decisions concerning matters of citizenship and
therefore democracy.”Trustworthingness is defined as the
absence of persuasive or manipulative aims of the
communicator and the desire to transmit the information
in an complete and accurate way” (Peters, C. and Broesma, M.
2012). On the one hand, One cannot deny the fact of an
existing “credibility crisis”, the evidence are clear
enough: “63% of American people said that news stories
are often inaccurate” (Pew research Center, 2009) On the other
hand the Guardian’s revelations of NSA’s secret spying
program showed that there is no general rule and there
are exeptions. Nevertheless, even if we accept that
media outlets do not always operate by having the
citizen’s best interest in mind, they generally try to
state loyal to this code as they are well aware of the
fact that once their audience find out that they have
repeatedly transmitted unreal news, this will mean the
end of their relationship. Citizen journalism has also a
strong will for exposing the truth. The main difference
here is that bloggers or independent contributors in
websites etc. do not have the same access to essential
sources of information that experienced journalists have.
They do not have connections or permission to classified
documents. Weldon puts it in an excellent way when he
says that “Journalists were information elites. Readers
and citizens did not know the handshake; No one let them
into the code” (Weldon 2008 cited in Anderson, P., Ogola G. and
William, M. 2014). That means that very often than not they
know only either one side of the story or the story
partially. Even if their intentions are good, they lack
the means to exercise what we call “investigative
journalism” properly. In addition, citizen journalism is
characterized by anonymity. The fact that there is any or
limited control proves that everybody can post a false or
fake story online for purposes of manipulation or just
fun, but it will take time until it is understood that
the story or picture was a hoax. A journalist on the
other hand cannot afford to do that, because not only his
article is signed but even if it is not he represents a
company and he puts his job at risk if he acts
disrespectfully.
Moreover, “journalism’s essence is a principle of
verification”. This is one extremely important element
that differentiates professional journalism from amateur
journalistic work without, of course, believing that
journalists do not ever make mistakes. Treymane sets as
“abiding rules of journalism,” the need to always “check
your sources” and to “correct published mistakes”
(Treymane, 2007 cited in Papacharissi, 2009). For that reason, by
the time a rumor for a story or some initial information
breaks out, journalists rush to identify its authenticity
and find out the rest of the details. For those working
in digital media, time is always an additional pressure
(if they want to post the story before it is “old news”)
but even so they “appear hesitant to rely on social
networks to source and verify information. A survey of
500 journalists in 15 countries found that almost half
the respondents used Twitter to source angles for a news
story” (Oriella PR Network, 2011 cited in Hermida, A, 2012). That
comes in sheer contrast with the information coming from
citizen journalists since their material is found
basically on social networking sites where an information
can spread like fire within minutes. One would need hours
to compare and contrast all the information available in
order to understand if it is real or not. Finally,
anonymity plays here too a serious role, as someone, a
blogger for instance, has the option to “enjoy commenting
upon events and issues with or without verification”(Digital Media Ethics | Center for Journalism Ethics. 2014. Digital
Media Ethics | Center for Journalism Ethics. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/resources/digital-media-ethics/#lay
ered. [Accessed 24 January 2014].)
What is more, “journalism’s practitioners must maintain
an independence from those they cover”. Objectivity or at
least impartiality, and subjectivity are the two
keywords. Traditional media, despite the fact of existing
proof1 that are not at all free of biases cannot be
compared with blogs or social media in terms of
subjectivity. “Blogs are expressions of personality”(Bentley, C. “U.S Citizen journalism and alternative online news
sites” in Anderson, P., Ogola, G. and William, M. 2014) and social
media are primary channels where users can make their
beliefs public. This is perfectly fine for the goal they
were originally set up for, but when it comes to
professionalism, an image or an article with an added
personal comment can not by any means constitute
journalistic material. A professional journalist has the
ability and the obligation to maintain some distance from
the person or situation he covers so that his crisis can1 Only about a quarter (26%) now say that news organizations are careful that their reporting is not politically biased, compared with 60% who say news organizations are politically biased. (Pew Research Center 2009) (Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. 2014. Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.people-press.org/2009/09/13/press-accuracy-rating-hits-two-decade-low/. [Accessed 24 January 2014].)
remain unaffected and be able to report the facts in a
fair and objective way avoiding characterizing people or
putting his opinion (unless it is an opinion story). When
covering a protest for example, a professional reporter
is obliged to mention if there was police brutality
against the people but he will use the proper language to
do so and he will never take a stand on whether he thinks
this was necessary, good or bad.” Objectivity is a
standard that promotes truth, defined as a
“correspondence, grounded in correctness, between thought
and reality” (Heidegger, 1943:1). On the contrary, a citizen
journalism who is reporting the same event may or may not
act the same because he does not have the obligation to
operate under a specific code so his attitude and
reaction depends completely on his own morals.
Professionalism in journalism is not about chances.
Certain rules should be followed at any cost because the
journalist is the medium, the transmitter.
Another principle journalism has to follow is that “it
must strive to make the significant interesting and
relevant” and “keep the news comprehensive and
proportional”. While traditional media (in their
conventional or digital form) have a variety of
categories, from politics to environment and from science
to culture, so they report on multiple subjects daily,
the majority of blogs or citizen journalism news sites
usually tend to be monothematic or undertake local news
an topics. “You’ll find masses and masses of political
blogs, masses and masses of blogs about technology but
you are not going to find really many good blogs about
education, social services, health or other areas that
are just as important to people” . Angela Philips – TheGuardian (tvxs gr. (2010). Citizen Journalism. [Online Video].
15/09/10. Available from:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xets9i_015642-0907032104_shortfilms?
start=8. [Accessed: 24 January 2014]). Professionals journalists
are qualified and trained to recognize a good story from
a pile of potential others. In other words they can
ensure diversification and make sure that their audience
will be able not only to find the kind of information
they prefer and need but also additional subjects that
may not had considered before worthy of their attention.
Besides that, though, journalists are responsible for
delivering comprehensive, structured articles to the
readers. That means that they are educated and skilled
enough not only to write well but also to respect and
follow the rules of grammar and syntax. As far as citizen
journalism is concerned, there are indeed a lot of
people, bloggers for instance, that truly have a talent
in writing, are quite descriptive and careful. However,
there are many others in wikis, blogs, personal sites or
social media who cannot do that but in order to be
professional this ability is essential. Therefore,
independently if someone is making an important
revelation or simply narrating a very interesting story,
the fact that he cannot express himself in a proper way
or he does not have the time to perform the necessary
editing before posting, results in the undermining of
their work and the loss of credibility of the medium.
“Yet, those at the forefront of exposinggovernment abuse in Egypt are not the so-called professional media- reporters working for newspapers, TV or Radio but rather citizen journalists who first broke the barriers of media silence, both government – imposed and self- enforced. […] Citizen journalists have paved the way for traditional media to follow.” (Egypt: Citizen Journalists Lead Revolution Coverage | Pulitzer Center. 2014.
In the previous paragraphs we made an attempt to
explain why according to our opinion citizen journalism
is not professional journalism. However, these
“circumstantial news gatherers” (. 2014. . [ONLINE] Availableat: http://www.cimethics.org/home/newsletter/jun2013/Nanda
%20Armoogum_EDITED.pdf. [Accessed 24 January 2014]. are becoming
more and more essential to the society because through
the characteristics of their work they help in the
reconstruction of the news field towards a more
democratic character.
To begin with, citizen journalism’s main characteristic
is interactivity. “The internet has changed the
relationship between journalists and audiences from an
one- way, asymmetric model of communication to a more
participatory” (Hermida, A. 2010). Bearing in mind that
citizen journalism exists because of the tools internet
provides, we can safely argue that it promotes
interactivity via a horizontal communication system
instead of the top down classic, old journalist media
use. (Tewksbury, D. and Rittenberg, J. )
Furthermore, citizen journalism can be conducted
extremely fast and the material it provides can be used
as supplementary to the professional journalistic work in
purposes of enriching research or giving primary
information. Citizen journalists have the ability to
gather and upload material instantly when an important
event occurs, advantage mainstream reporters do not have.
Relative examples that prove this argument can be found
in the Tsunami that hit Indonesia in 2004. Passers- by
and holiday makers captured raw footage with their
cameras and mobile phones and “fed” the media with the
very first images of the disaster. (Stuart, A. and Thorsen ,E. 2009).
Another characteristic of citizen journalism is that in
many cases operates as government and/ or media
“watchdog”. A site that made a huge impact because of the
revelations and exposures of U.S government activities
that showed “corruption, deceit, brutality” was Wikileaks
. (What WikiLeaks revealed to the world in 2010 - Salon.com. 2014.What WikiLeaks revealed to the world in 2010 - Salon.com. [ONLINE]
Available at: http://www.salon.com/2010/12/24/wikileaks_23/.
[Accessed 24 January 2014]. “Other sites such as MediaLens and
Spinwatch, concentrate in scrutinizing existing
mainstream media for bias or spin, adopting a “watch-men”
role” (Cooke, C. and Dickinson, A.” UK Social Media, CitizenJournalism and Alternative News” in Anderson, Peter J., Ogola, G and
William, M. 2013)
Diversification and plurality is one last characteristic
of citizen journalism. People have the ability to access
multiple and alternative sources of information which in
most cases are open sourced and free (like Ohmynews.com,
Demotix.com and NewsVine.com for instance). That means
that anyone who is interested in having a deeper
knowledge about a story has the opportunity to explore
many sources from online Vlogs to wikis and discover
different angles that traditional media do not know or
wish to keep unknown.
As traditional media face the competition of the new
media as well as the “growing pressures for profitability
emanating from market forces” (O’Sullivan, J. and Heinonen, A.
2008), they experience tangible changes that affect the
way they used to operate, like the newsroom shrink for
example. These factors, in addition to the knowledge that
alternative media will constantly appear from now on,
have made some the erstwhile dominant media outlets to
appreciate the contribution of citizen journalism more
quickly and try to adjust to the new reality that calls
for an effective collaboration of the two. “Professional
new media are also providing opportunities for news
consumers to participate” (Thurman, N. 2008). Examples of
these initiatives can be found on BBC’S Hub, which is a
“part of BBC’S newsroom” that receives and processes
material sent by the audience covering national, regional
or local news. (Harrison, J. 2009). CNN also has its own
iReport section, where professional journalists monitor
the approximately 500 daily submissions” (Bentley, C. U.SCitizen Journalism and alternative online news” in Anderson, P.,
Ogola, G. and William, M. 2014). Guardian has launched its
“Guardian Witness” application for Iphone and Android
devises with which “asks users to supply staff
journalists with video, photos and stories for breaking
news which could then appear on The Guardian’s website
and/ or in print” (The Guardian' Calls for Citizen JournalistsVia App. 2014. 'The Guardian' Calls for Citizen Journalists Via App.
[ONLINE] Available at: http://mashable.com/2013/04/16/the-
guardianwitness/. [Accessed 24 January 2014].) One last very
interesting effort is that of the famous video sharing
website, Youtube. Youtube has launched a special channel
called Youtube Reporter’s channel, where citizen are able
to look at a number of video tutorials, in which some of
the leading experts in the field of journalism explain
how to do amateur journalism”. (Citizen journalism and itsimportance | Flows. 2014. Citizen journalism and its importance |
Flows. [ONLINE] Available at: http://iletisim.ieu.edu.tr/flows/?
p=1266. [Accessed 24 January 2014]). The reason why this
initiative is notable is because Youtube’s audience
consists of young people therefore it can be proved
really educational and motivative.
This essay critically examined whether citizen
journalism can provide the same level of journalism as
professionals on newspaper, news agencies etc. In the
first part we described the nature of citizen journalism
and supported the idea that for reasons of credibility,
objectivity and a certain ethic code professional
journalists follow, citizen journalism cannot respond to
that characterization. The second part of the essay was
dedicated to the reasons that we believe indicate that
citizen or participatory journalism has become a
necessity and a dynamic factor in the field of news
gathering. Embraced by both the society and the
journalist world, the only way this new, amateur but
promising kind of journalism can follow is up and that
will only be proven beneficial for our society.
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