Citizen Media and Journalism
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on the local channel and then on CNN as part of Citizen Media and an affiliate agreement with the station. Journalism The emergence of citizen content and social media in the news organization is associated with VALÉRIE BÉLAIR-GAGNON several factors that are discernible from previ- Yale Law School, US ous citizen media examples. The rapid growth C. W. ANDERSON of the internet and Web 2.0. throughout the City University of New York, US 1990s conflated citizen media with traditional journalism. With the ability of citizens to use internet technologies and the World Wide Web Historical Developments to replicate and distribute their work online, a formerly passive audience became both producer While the term “citizen media” is relatively and consumer of content, or, as communication new, citizen journalism practices have histor- scholar Axel Bruns (2005) referred to them, ical antecedents. Citizens have participated in “produsers.” Though there was never a consensus news production since the start of modern on use of the term “citizen media,” in the 1990s, journalism, long before the emergence of the terms such as “participatory media,” “journalism internet and Web 2.0. The popular radical press 2.0,” and “network journalism” started emerging. in England in the late eighteenth century and mid-nineteenth century included elements of citizen media through its activist stances and use Computer mediated citizen media of audience reporters. Likewise, in the United (2000–04) States in the 1740s, citizen journalism existed as citizen distributed political pamphlets in New Networked environments (such as markets, York, Philadelphia, and Boston. This practice was distribution, production) and many-to-many magnified by Thomas Paine’s publication of Com- communication flows replaced the hierarchical mon Sense in 1776, with approximately 150,000 and centralized structures of traditional journal- copies distributed. Citizens demonstrated that ism. In this computer mediated communication audiences could produce and become part of context, and with the rise of the World Wide Web, news production. In the 1920s, free radio stations citizen media moved from a sporadic to a much or pirate radio involved unauthorized commu- more common activity. This shift raises ques- nity activists and political and cultural dissidents tionsabouttherelevanceoftraditionalmedia who broadcasted offshore in parts of continental by enhancing new practices in new spaces of Europe or the United Kingdom. On November communication, such as with the emergence of 22, 1963, Abraham Zapruder documented the citizen journalism and media organizations – for assassination of US President John F. Kennedy example, South Korea’s OhMyNews International with his Bell & Howell camera, selling the rights founded in 2000 by Oh Yeon-ho. OhMyNews for US $200,000 to Life magazine. And in 1991, was founded in the civic media tradition in South from the balcony of his apartment, George Holli- Korea. The news organization played a key role day chronicled Rodney King being beaten by Los in the 2002 election of reform President Roh Angeles Police Department officers by filming Moo-hyun and protected the South Korean pres- itwithhisSony-Handycam.Afterfilmingan ident in 2004 when the conservative party tried eight-minuteclip,HollidaycontactedalocalLA to impeach him. television station, KTLA. The station gave him The terms “citizen media” and “citizen journal- $500 in exchange for the video that was first aired ism” emerged by the end of the 1990s and early The International Encyclopedia of Digital Communication and Society, First Edition. Edited by Robin Mansell and Peng Hwa Ang. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/9781118290743/wbiedcs028 2CITIZEN M EDIA AND J OURNALISM 2000s as a type of news production outside tradi- credentials to a select group of bloggers to cover tional journalism that shapes the public debate; it the four-day event. is in contrast to participatory journalism, which This shift from computer mediated media to involves audiences interacting with journalistic postindustrial journalism is illustrated by the content on a wiki, an online comment page with definitionofcitizenjournalismgivenbyJay ajournalist’sstory,oracollaborativeopen-source Rosen, media critic and professor at New York production. By participating in citizen media University,whereby,“thepeopleformerlyknown and journalism, citizens are involved in the as the audience employ the press tools they have production, selection, dissemination, and con- in their possession to inform one another” (2006, sumption of news. The practice of citizen media n.p.). The boundaries between citizen media and was intensified by the rise of computer mediated traditional journalism are blurred. Post-2004, communication, the internet and Web 2.0, as well citizen journalism moved from being a contested as by the ability of citizens to participate in such to a mainstream medium, although in many cases practices at “key moments.” The production of citizen media itself is contested. citizenjournalismincludedvarioustypesthatall In breaking news stories, citizen media often came under the umbrella of citizen media and is the first source of information for traditional journalism: audience participation, independent journalists. Some of the best citizen journalism news and information websites, full-fledged following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 came from participatory news sites, collaborative and con- the blog of Salam Pax, a 29-year-old architect tributory media sites, and personal broadcasting living in the suburbs of Baghdad, who docu- sites such as video broadcasting. For example, mented events before and after the invasion. His in 1999 in Seattle in the United States, the anti- blog is a good example of an alternative source World Trade Organization protests marked one of reporting, providing a first-hand account of of the first times activists organized themselves the daily life and viewpoints of Iraqis. In 2005, through computer mediated communication. citizen media also had an impact on the cov- Citizens began disseminating their news, shaping erage of Hurricane Katrina. According to the and controlling how their protests would be Online News Association (ONA), some of the portrayedinthemedia. most compelling journalistic coverage came from citizen journalism. Citizens used websites on the internet to post pictures or search for Postindustrial journalism (post-2004) missing relatives. In the United Kingdom, ear- lier that same year, some of the first pictures Rather than being a completely independent during the London bombing attacks also came source for information, citizen media quickly from citizen journalists. Alexander Chadwick, began to converge with traditional media, blur- asurvivor,snappedamobilephonecamera ring the boundaries historically claimed by the photograph of the evacuation of King’s Cross latter. Post-2004, an international shift in tradi- Station. Traditional news organizations such as tional journalism occurred when citizen media the BBC, The Times,andThe New York Times became integrated into mainstream reporting. used that picture in their news reports and Scholars such as Dan Gilmour (2004), an advo- also online. Chadwick emailed the picture to cate of citizen journalism, claimed that citizen [email protected]. At around 11:30 a.m., the media entered the lexicon of journalism imme- picture landed on the desks of BBC editors. It diately in the aftermath of the December 2004 became the iconic image of the day for the news Boxing Day tsunami in South Asia. The tsunami organization. is a particular instance of the increasing ability of The 2007 Saffron Revolution in Myanmar is news organizations to gather eyewitness accounts another example of the changing nature of the from audience material and user generated con- relationship between citizen journalism and tra- tent, for example via email. Another important ditional journalism. The self-publishing nature milestone came during the 2004 US Democratic of Twitter, Flickr and Facebook allows news politicalconventionwhen,forthefirsttime, organizations to seek citizen journalism online the Democratic National Committee gave press rather than wait for it to arrive by email. During C ITIZEN M EDIA AND J OURNALISM 3 the Iranian election of 2009, citizens also used professions literature of the 1970s, the histories video sharing platforms and Twitter to dissemi- and ethnographies of journalism from the late nate news content and organize the protests. The 1970s and 1980s, and the fusion of occupational same can be said about the Haiti earthquake in sociology and journalism studies which has flow- 2010 and the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, ered in the 2010s (Lewis, Kaufhold, & Lasorsa, first disseminated on Twitter by Sohaib Athar 2010), journalism as an occupation, as well as (@ReallyVirtual), an IT consultant in Abbotabad, the occupations of media more generally, are Pakistan. In 2011, the Arab Spring and Occupy considered the domain of a privileged class of Wall Street movements saw citizen journalism professional producers. A concept like “citizen blending with traditional media. Social media media” only makes sense if a sharp line is drawn have given mobilizing power to people formerly between professionally produced content and known as audiences. Social media and mobile media content produced by “everyone else.” communication are essential in supporting citi- Whilethisispartlyattributabletooccupational zenmediaandintheblurringoftheboundaries