Political Potential of Citizen Journalism - Essay Example

Political Potential of Citizen Journalism Globalization has not only created interconnectedness, interdependence, and more profound level of communication between people of different cultures, it has also caused a number of serious problems for humanity. Terrorism, military conflicts for resources, global warming, pandemics, repressions have become the reality of modern world. However, in the past people were unable to learn about the crisis in the nearby regions and were not affected by it due to scarcity of information. Today media does not allow perceiving the world as separate countries or continents anymore: a crisis in one country inevitably affects the surrounding states and people living there. In such circumstances when reporting from the place affected by crisis becomes valuable and essential, those who earlier were simple observers take roles of journalists with the help of modern technologies. It makes professional journalists face a serious question about the future of their profession as information is becoming more available and easier to generate. A possibility to disseminate news within a click of a mouse is turning the whole process of information production into a tool of political influence and democracy establishment, and historical events in Eastern Europe and in Arab countries can serve as bright examples of statement. However, it is necessary to define what the concept of citizen journalism means as it has appeared quite recently and is still shaping. According to Bowman and Willis, citizen journalism is defined as the media content produced by citizens who take an active role in “collecting, reporting, and analyzing information and news” (2003, 9). Reasonably, it is Internet that has played a crucial role in emerging of citizen journalist phenomenon. Moreover, technological evolution and fast spread of innovations was important for accidental journalism emergence. A great variety of devices that are charged and plugged rapidly and connected to the Internet within seconds permitted almost every citizen to create some content from posts on Facebook to videos on YouTube. It allowed many people sharing their information instantly and also gave chance to find the right auditory for this information. And the combination of these two factors: instant ad relevant content and those who consume it was the primary factor of the phenomenon emergence (Bruns, 2005, 1). The appearance of citizen journalism is closely connected to the introduction of digital culture. The peculiar feature of this culture is value of audience participation in content production, cooperation between viewers and producers, common editing process. Moreover, most sociologists mark that modern era is marked by prosumerism that has substituted consumerism with the help of digital devices. It presupposes that people no longer use content in purely entertaining or informatioal purposes, they become active participants who share their thoughts, observations, visual images, and videos with the world. And citizen journalism has become inevitable part of process of shift from pure consumerism to prosumerism (Gunelius, 2010). The digital culture also presupposes convergence but in terms of media it can be understood as combination of various technological means of expression, such as audio, video, photography. Moreover, close interaction between those producing content and those who consume is also another attribute of convergence (Rutgiliano, 2008, 24). Citizen journalism is sometimes called participatory journalism and is defined as the act of citizens who take part in collection, analysis, and dissemination of information in order to provide public with accurate, up-to-date, and relevant data demanded by democracy needs (Shayne & Willis, 2003, 9). Obviously citizen journalism appeared comparatively recently, however, the very concept of ordinary citizens participating in creation of a media product was familiar to this industry long ago. One of the brightest examples of citizen journalism is dated back to 1963, when Abraham Zapruder took his camera movie camera to capture one of the most significant events of the American history of the XXth century- John Kennedy`s assassinations. Three days later the video was sold for almost $150.000 (Allan & Thorsen, 2009, 83). However, providing information is not the only form of citizen journalism, there are other ways of effective participation in the media process today, such as commenting, filtering, fact-checking, and grassroots reporting. Commenting is the first form of participatory journalism that gained exceptional popularity recently (Deuze, 2005, 14). According to Outing, commenting changes sufficiently the procedure of news perception and delivery. At the most basic level, the possibility of commenting allows expressing personal opinions, criticizing or appreciating the content created by real journalists. Any site that gives users the possibility of commenting receives an opportunity to see an instant feedback on the information, and determine the most popular reaction. Moreover, readers` comments add to the content of the articles and can give brief analysis of the information. That is why commenting can improve original content (2005, 2). Moreover, a big number of today online journals provide readers with the most popular stories and articles on the basis of attention paid to them. CNN and MSNBC have these “Must read top 10” and other websites often make conclusions from the history of users` participation (Haas, 2005, 9). Editing is another widely used option of participatory journalism due to enormous amount of information available. Users received a possibility of sorting, liking, deleting information that is not approved. A number of websites offer their users a possibility of correcting information giving users an opportunity to control and modify content (Lewis et al., 2009). Fact-checking is another issue of citizen journalism that can be provided by accidental citizens who find themselves in the epicenter of events. Checking the authenticity and trustworthiness of information is the basic necessity of journalism, and in this regard the witnesses and participants of the events can contribute seriously to the development of real journalism. Internet has given a perfect possibility to many users to verify the information instantly, and according to Silverman, fact-checking has become the trend of 2013 year. For example, the Daily Show paid much attention to fact-checking the information in the media reports and disputable statements of TV hosts. Moreover, the program also had a separate staff member verifying the information. There also was a project created by students from Holland who decided to check all the Dutch media with the aim of revealing fake stories. Eventually they found out that almost 80% of the stories they checked had some kind of error (Sklar, 2009). Most often the appearance of the very concept of citizen journalism is connected to the events that happened in South Asia in 2004. Gigantic tsunami hit the shore so unpredictably that hundreds of people (holiday makers generally) were caught in a trap. It turned that the majority of information regarding the situation was achieved with the help of “accidental journalists” through their blogs, videos and camera snapshots uploaded on social media accounts. A number of newspapers marked the appearance of citizen journalism at that time due to the fact that news agencies became dependent on simple people in search of information. At that time reporters, producers, and professional cameramen sent by their editions went not to the places of catastrophe but to the airports and hotels to find the witnesses of disaster that could share their videos (Allan & Thorsen, 2009, 67). Despite the fact that this event was not connected to political events “accidental journalism” proved to be exceptionally useful and effective in critical circumstances. Britain started utilizing the term user- generated content instead of citizen journalism and the question of its relevance in today media process turned out to be quite urgent today. The BBC`s Director of Global News Richard Sambrook in his public speech stated that news do not belong to news organizations anymore as they can only analyze, check its authenticity, deliver it to public. But there is no control over the news process anymore (2006, 2). Two years later another BBC manager, Helen Boaden, underlined that media now is using experiences of the audience, demonstrating their personal narrations, and analyzing their opinions. At the same time Boaden stated that media, Television in particular is performing the role of conduit between different layers of society. The bombings in London which were brought to light by accidental journalists served as a turning point for BBC. Since then the journalism started developing in a new direction – dependent on public in the question of information (2008). However, recent global events proved that citizen journalism can influence political situation in any country as such events as Arab Spring, protests in Turkey or Euromaidan in Ukraine are often attributed to the phenomenon of citizen journalism. Social media played a decisive part in all these events because the information that served as an impact for mass protests was initially spread through social networks and blogs by ordinary people capturing the scenes of injustice. Moreover, the actions of participants were often coordinated with the help of accidental journalists and a lot of information was disseminated only due to accidental reporters. The events of Arab Spring explain how ordinary people can impact and serve as catalysts of the mass political events in the country with the help of media. Thus, in Arab Spring, Facebook and Twitter served as a primary means of information spread. Wael Ghoim, who eventually became an epitome of the movement, was the first activist impressed immensely by the murder of Khaled Said who intentionally or not started a campaign of resistance with the help of simple post. In a couple of hours the page he created had about one thousand of visitors while in a month more than 250.000 joined it. The main slogan generated by Ghoim proclaimed “We are all Khaled Said” and was instantly picked up by protesters. The statements and the proclamations that were made online inevitably passed to the streets. The whole revolution started with “Silent Protests” which were coordinated and reported with the help of media by all those who had possibility of capturing events. The protests ended with impressive historic rally at Tahir Square in the capital of Cairo. The result of Arab Sprig was dramatic for the history of the country- the president of Egypt Hosni Mubarak resigned and the main ruling party National Democrats became inactive (Vargas, 2012, 1). Moreover, social media and this citizen journalism helped to raise awareness of the citizens of the other Arab countries such as Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain. So obviously the revolution of Egypt infected other Arab countries with the spirit of democracy. Further the authorities of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and United Arab Emirates offered more benefits and concessions to people. Thus, media helped to formulate the problem, mobilize, and encourage public to perform actions to change the current unsatisfactory situation (Huang, 2011). The protests in Ukraine resembled Arab Spring. The revolution that took place in Eastern European Ukraine in 2014 also was initiated with the help of social media and was regulated and supported mainly by accidental journalists. The protests on the main square of Kyiv took place in November when the President of country unexpectedly changed his politics and refused from signing European Association Agreement as it was planned earlier. On the contrary he continued negotiations with Russia showing that his previous decision to take pro-European course has changed. As a result thousands of protesters, students mostly, mobilized by Facebook fled the streets of the capital. (Onuch, 2013). From that moment on the events were developing so fast that central media was unable to follow them adequately. As this revolution was made mainly by students and people younger than forty it turned out that connection to the Internet and reporting from the epicenter of the crisis was the basic condition of the protests (Shandra, 2014). Most participants claimed that the only reliable sources they could trust were Facebook and Twitter because they were not under control of authorities. EuroMaidan resulted in serious bloody crushes with police and eventually became completely self-organized with the help of citizen journalism managing social networks. Serious tragic events that were craftily covered by media were brought to light by accidental journalists who had their cameras with them (Chervonenko, 2013, 2). According to Freidani, people were prone to trust Facebook and Twitter only as the principal coordination and mobilization was performed with the help of these two resources. Euromaidan even organized a separate subdivision of volunteers who fact-checked all the information to avoid provocations. With a quite chaotic organization EuroMaidan managed to arrange Medical department and Legal consultation online (2014, 1). According to Barbera & Metzger, photos of the police attacks, injured protesters, or those who were fighting with police without weapon as well as doctors rushing to help the victims of the attacked made by citizens shaped the narrative of EuroMaidan and provoked more and more people to take an active part revolution. The Facebook page created by the activists and journalists sharing the information about the events on EuroMaidan of the citizens collected the auditory of 100. 000 in several weeks (Kapiluk, 2013, 1). The videos showing injustice and power abuse from the government served as a catalyst to numerous protesters. Several livestreams of the events were launched so the people in other cities could follow the events that unfolded too quickly (Barbera & Metzger, 2014, 4). Several special Facebook pages were created deliberately for information management and coordination of the protest, moreover, they were created quite unexpectedly and proved to be effective and extremely important. That is why numerous political experts and journalists marked that citizen journalism served as an essential driving force for the protests initiation, support, and management. Without close interaction of participants on the Internet the whole protest would be impossible as well as the resignation of the President Yanukovich that led to new Parliament and President elections (Bohadoova, 2014, 1). The events on the central square of Ukraine eventually led to serious changes within political regime of the country and qualitative changes in social self-management. Moreover, it resulted in a global change of the Ukrainians` attitude to the country with establishment of a number of volunteers ‘organizations and social initiatives. The possibility to create such a powerful impact for the whole society gave citizens faith in possibility of democratic values establishment (Pischikova &Ogrizko, 2013, 8). Analyzing these two events it is possible to make conclusion that citizen journalism is a very powerful tool as it can not only trigger political reforms, demonstrations, and protests but also can lead to serious changes in political regime of the whole states. As media was always considered to be “a fourth power” apart from judiciary, legislative and executive branches, its main function was to form and manipulate opinion of the public (Schultz, 1998, 9). When simple citizens achieved the possibility to bring to light those aspects of social life they considered important, authorities and official media lost total control over information flow. That is how with collection, processing and dissemination of information there appeared a possibility of regulating political life more transparently and shortened the distance between simple citizens and authorities. So the political potential of user-generated content is enormous as it has real power ad effect and it has demonstrated its efficacy. According to Revis, citizen journalists aim to create more profound access to information for the general public on the ground of moral education. This goal is what differentiates user-generated journalism from traditional as it most cases apart from financial benefits. Therefore, created without the main purpose of being sold, citizen journalism opens a new reality where simple people can be heard (2011, 1). Citizen journalism is an effective method of connecting public beyond the official newsroom and achieving such extraordinary possibility user-generated content is paving the way to a ew form of journalism generally. However, citizen journalism brings a number of possible problems as it certainly lacks regulation and management. As it is completely uncontrollable the basic principles of journalistic ethics cannot be applied to it, thus, the controversial issues of confidentiality, safety for the public, authenticity, validity of information provided by accidental journalists appear. One of the first problems connected with citizen journalism arises when this kind of journalism meets with professional reporting, and as the borders are blurring, and media workers start debating over the role of citizen journalism for media evolution. Several skeptic authors even claim that accidental journalism will inevitably lead to the disappearance of traditional media due to an increasing possibility to become a journalist for everyone (Gillmor, 2004, 84; Bowman and Willis, 2005). While editors, reporters and journalists play an active part in gatekeeping for public knowledge and they choose this role consciously, accidental reporters do not take this kind of responsibility. Gatekeeping presupposes choosing, creating, editing, placing, scheduling, and rubbing information to turn it into news (Shoemaker, Vos and Reese, 2008, p. 73). Journalists are responsible for the way reality is created in the perception of the audience with the help of media while accidental journalists tent to capture separate facts that can istort general perception irrevocably (Shoemaker, Eichholz, Kim and Wrigley, 2001, p. 233). Therefore, journalists have to not only collect, analyze, and disseminate information, they also have to check its authenticity as they determine what public reads and how it will further react. So such type of journalism can even be dangerous as it can be used for provocations an manipulations. Citizen journalism is a necessary attribute of digital culture: people who received access to large auditoriums online and the possibility to share images, videos, posts start using this opportunity at once. It turned out that user-generated content can be exceptionally important in critical situations when professional journalists are unable to see the events from within and report from the epicenter. Most media workers claim that engaging viewers and users to content production is not an option any more, it is urgency. However, citizen journalism turned out to be an important tool of political process regulation. The events of Arab Spring and EuroMaidan demonstrated that public can organize, manage, and communicate beyond traditional media and dos it successfully. As the authorities lost total control over media and were forced to share it with society, citizen journalism has become a real “fourth power” contributing to democracy. References Allan, S., & Thorsen, E. (2009). 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Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Sklar, R. (2009). The gift of citizen journalism: fact checking. Mediate. Retrieved from: http://www.mediaite.com/online/the-gift-of-citizen-journalism-fact-checking/, Vargas, S. (2012).Spring awakening. The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/books/review/how-an-egyptian-revolution-began-on-facebook.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 Read More