Mapping Citizen and Participatory Journalism

KEYWORDS:

• citizen
• community
• education
• journalism
• participatory
• reciprocity
• training

Citizen and participatory journalism occupy key positions in today’s news media environment, having become expected, regularized components of breaking and other forms of news as well as the topics of university projects and other types of training. The mainstream news response to citizen-produced media content has been the subject of scholarly analysis for some time, as more than a decade of studies of digitally enabled citizen journalism has traced the introduction, rejection, reluctant acceptance, and on-going competition and boundary maintenance in this multi-faceted relationship (Allan and Thorsen 2009; Singer et al. 2011; Wall 2012, 2015, 2017; Thorsen and Allan 2014). Building on seminal works such as the two citizen journalism compendiums by Allan and Thorsen (2009) and Thorsen and Allan (2014), as well as the previous special issues in this journal by Allan (2015) on visual citizen content and by Robinson (2014) on community journalism, this special double issue of Journalism Practice updates this area of study with a focus on the ways participation has been approached by a range of news outlets of varying sizes and economic models, as well as efforts to school ordinary people in journalism skills and practices.

The first set of articles examines participation and citizen news content within hyperlocal, non-profit and large global news organizations, then offers a critique of the ways industrial journalism makes use of citizen journalism, suggesting that, as Jönsson and Örnebring (2011) have argued, true citizen participation in the news may be an illusion. More specifically, the issue’s articles apply concepts such as reciprocity, journalism as practice and a new framework for assessing the political economy of participatory citizen content creation (the Appropriation/Amplification Model) as analytical frameworks. Included here is also a presentation of the claims by mainstream journalists that they are aware of a “duty of care” for citizens reporting from dangerous places on whom they rely for content. This first group of articles ends with an examination of a case study representing the growing trend of non-journalists self-organizing to curate disaster journalism.

The second group of articles focuses on the important but greatly understudied topic of training non-professionals to practice journalism—from programs that seek to inculcate community members with traditional news values to other more radical attempts to introduce principles beyond those most often associated with mainstream journalism in Western democracies. In these examinations, the authors employ concepts such as community infrastructure, connective journalism and folk communication in assessing a variety of training efforts taking place in Europe, the Middle East, and both North and South America. Two articles specifically offer models for university-facilitated programs that aim to nurture voices from under-represented and/or marginalized communities. Other articles explore programs that are connected with international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and non-profit community activist groups.

Forms of Participation

The double issue begins with a consideration of the concept of participation as Laura Ahva conducts an ethnography of three different European-based (Finland, France and Sweden) news outlets that place participation at the core of their operations. In “How is Participation Practiced by ‘In-betweeners’ of Journalism,” a diverse range of citizen contributors is identified: activists, volunteers, artists, students and locals. All of these are what Ahva calls “in-betweeners,” contributors performing in a liminal state that exists between full-time professionals and random individuals committing one-off acts of journalism. Ahva’s ultimate aim is to provide a more robust delineation of the types of possible participation by such contributors, suggesting that when non-professionals take part in journalism, they may engage in not only contributing to public debate but also to social togetherness, cultural life and/or their personal career development.

In a related but different take, David Harte, Andy Williams and Jerome Turner use a multi-method approach of interviewing and content analysis of news sites to assess the ways in which hyper-local news outlets in the United Kingdom cultivate forms of participation. A growing line of inquiry in journalism studies suggests that participation in news by amateurs and others will be most successful when that participation involves reciprocity or forms of relational exchange between professional journalists and audiences/amateur news participants (Lewis, Holton, and Coddington 2014; Borger, van Hoof, and Sanders 2016). In their article, “Reciprocity and the Hyperlocal Journalist,” Harte et al. find reciprocal exchanges between the news entities and their audience participants take place via social media as well as in face-to-face settings. These relationships appear to be key practices not just in building trust but in improving communities. In fact, they argue hyperlocal news outlets that engage in reciprocal relationships do more than provide opportunities to participate in creating news. In some cases they contribute to projects originated by other groups or individuals within their communities and in supporting these efforts, help connect community members in ways that improve their lives.

Curating Citizen Content

When citizens opt to produce content during conflict and disasters, they may be knowingly or unknowingly contributing to mainstream news efforts. Whatever the case, their efforts have led to a growing dependence on citizen content and have raised issues about the rights and responsibilities of both sides in these relationships. In their assessment of an alternative model for collaborating with audiences, Elvira de Torres and Alfred Hermida examine reporter Andy Carvin’s use of social media, overlapping with the period in which he was the editor-in-chief of the collaborative news site Reported.ly. In “The Social Reporter in Action: An Analysis of the Practice and Discourse of Andy Carvin,” they find Carvin’s collaboration with the community to help verify and discover information greatly empowers his work; his open and transparent relationship with the audience makes him a better reporter. While he also relies heavily on mainstream news media, the authors argue that relationship is more “ambivalent.” They conclude he demonstrates a successful, ethical model for creating networked journalism in a hybrid media environment.

In “Looking After Ibrahim: How Journalists Network, Develop and Safeguard Relationships with Citizen Journalists and Activists in Syria,” Lisette Johnson explores the citizen–reporter relationship issue from the point of view of journalists working for a global newscaster. Drawing on interviews with BBC personnel, she highlights the professionals’ growing dependency on citizen journalists whom they cultivate in order to gain access to original news content about this extremely dangerous conflict. She suggests BBC journalists exercise an awareness of a “duty of care” toward citizen journalists as they explain the steps they take to protect those amateurs who are on the ground collecting the content the corporation uses.

In yet another model for curation, a group of self-organized individuals collect and curate media content being produced during disasters in Wendy Norris’ “Digital Humanitarians: Citizen Journalists on the Virtual Front Line of Natural and Human-caused Disasters.” Using a case study approach coupled with participant observation and document analysis, Norris argues that these self-organized volunteers who collect information from social media, news and various other websites are producing, in effect, journalism. Coming together for a limited time across borders in virtual settings (such as via the online collaboration tool Slack), they collect and assess content during the initial days of often chaotic situations, aiding mainstream news and other organizations in identifying and verifying information. The trackers may also curate information themselves, becoming, Norris argues, a highly specialized group of self-organized citizen journalists. This article demonstrates that citizen news techniques are being practiced outside the realms of news operations by new actors developing new practices. In this case, the successful creation of a global, collaborative structure may provide a model for new ways of managing dynamic transnational, well-informed crowdsourcing efforts.

The Appropriation Problem

While much research celebrates the ways citizen participation is fostered by news outlets, we have less critical research on the ways citizen content is, as Waisbord (2014, 193) notes, “enriching industrial journalism.” Indeed, it has been argued that corporate journalism’s interactions with citizen news has stymied the ability of the latter to develop in its own right, stifling creative new approaches toward creating news (Kperogi 2011; Usher 2011). Along these lines, Joanna Krajewski and Brian Ekdale’s examination of a global news broadcaster’s interaction with citizen journalists raises questions about the ability of traditional news media to foster authentically grassroots citizen voices, at least in disaster reporting. In “Constructing Cholera: CNN iReport, the Haitian Cholera Epidemic and the Limits of Citizen Journalism,” Krajewski and Ekdale use discourse analysis to examine CNN’s iReport coverage of the Haitian earthquake, finding a “participation gap,” in which citizen content from the Haitian disaster is produced primarily by Westerners, replicating the long-standing domination of international news by those from the Global North. The same tropes mainstream news media use for understanding non-white countries are used by citizens who have the social and economic capital to represent the island’s disaster. In other words, citizen participation in the news may well further help marginalize local voices on the scene.

Stepping back for a broader view, Nikki Usher offers a new model to highlight her assessment of what happens when citizen content enters mainstream news streams, emphasizing the ever-increasing structural imbalances between industrial news media and citizen-produced content. In “The Appropriation/Amplification Model of Citizen Journalism: An Account of Structural Limitations and the Political Economy of Participatory Content Creation,” Usher demonstrates that large, corporate news media are much better positioned to take advantage of the structures of the internet (via distribution patterns, social media dynamics and even social discovery) and sees little evidence that citizen content can be heard in any meaningful way without amplification by larger mainstream news outlets. Her model counters widespread belief that social media have leveled the playing field and everyone can have an equal opportunity to report from anywhere. Instead, she traces how appropriation of such content happens with the complicity of corporate media companies, themselves driven by a profit motive and operating within an internet system dominated by similar commercial values.

A Right to Practice Journalism

Just as Lefebvre (1996) and Harvey (1996/2016) have argued that ordinary people have a right to the city—a right that must be claimed and to which opposition will inevitably come from elite institutions and power holders—research in this special issue illustrates how citizen journalism can introduce and perhaps sustain the idea that citizens have a right to a news narrative. Attempts to facilitate citizen claims to this right are often by nature political as they encourage ordinary people to identify and publicly share the realities of their lives as shaped by inequalities and injustices. In exercising their right to a narrative, citizens must develop their own voices. The awakening of awareness and the development of a voice can help citizens ultimately speak in ways that may decenter dominant news discourses (Bock 2011; Chouliaraki 2014).

Using participant observation and interviews, Ann Luce, Daniel Jackson and Einar Thorsen examine citizen journalism training aimed at disabled and homeless citizens. “Citizen Journalism at the Margins” traces how these participants learn how to activate their own voices through citizen journalism programs connected with a disability charity and a homeless organization in the United Kingdom. The researchers—all university professors—designed the program, mentored participants and hosted at their university some of the training. Their assessment found participants initially expressed fear of claiming their public voice, believing that those with control over their access to government resources might retaliate against any negative content members of these marginalized communities produced. In addition, some participants initially expressed doubts about their abilities to even produce journalism; however, with training, many overcame those fears. This suggests that the belief marginalized citizens will be able to easily self-activate as citizen journalists by watching a video on their own, etc. is problematic. Here, some participants ultimately achieved self-efficacy as the training helped them gain not just skills but the confidence to use their own voices to speak as members of their communities.

The challenge to the status quo that bringing images and words of ordinary people’s struggles to public attention is particularly evident in “‘Shared Photography’: (Photo)journalism and Political Mobilisation in Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas” by Alice Baroni and Andrea Mayr, as well as in “Citizen Health Journalism: Negotiating Between Political Engagement and Professional Identity in a Media Training Program for Healthcare Workers” by Stuart Davis. In both cases, the authors delve into citizen training programs taking place in the favelas of Rio that emphasize dialogue, interaction and collaboration based on Paulo Freire’s conscientization concept. These articles highlight the ways citizen participation in journalism can be taught as a means of activating residents who are disenfranchised and facing daily security threats. Working within an ethnographic approach, Baroni and Mayr provide a social-semiotic lens to examine favela-based citizen photojournalism, revealing the types of content this sort of approach may produce. In a separate project in the favelas that draws on participant observation and document analysis, Davis explores how an effort to train healthcare workers as citizen journalists that asks them to limit their focus to healthcare issues does not go the way the initiators planned as the workers opt not to be led to the trainers’ goals. His article shows that even a program with an activist foundation does not necessarily mean the target community will follow the intended direction; in other words, overly controlled participation may disconnect citizens from well-intended training programs.

Managing the Process

While much research demonstrates that if citizens are to produce content that is meaningful to them and/or outsiders, they need to benefit from the sort of educational scaffolding described in the projects above, it is often assumed by traditional news organizations that citizen journalists will train themselves by viewing online instructional materials, for example, or that they will somehow develop journalistic competencies through even less-structured means such as absorbing norms through their personal usage of social media. Citizen journalists’ reliance on these explicit and implicit forms of training are discussed in “Training or Improvisation? Citizen Journalists and Their Educational Backgrounds—a Comparative View” by Michal Kus, Tobias Eberwein, Colin Porlezza and Sergio Splendore. Interviewing citizen journalists in Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, these researchers found many tend to create their own practices and values, suggesting citizen contributors would ultimately benefit from more structured training.

An example of a more intentional effort to train citizens is seen in “From Audience to Reporter: Training Citizen Contributors at a Citizen News Site Serving a Diverse Community” by Daniela Gerson, Nancy Chen Nien-Tsu, Andrea Wenzel, Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Michael Parks. Taking an action research approach, the authors assess a highly supervised citizen journalism training project in the United States that was created by their university. The goal was to enable a voice for a multi-ethnic community that was lacking both local news media as well as a strong sense of community identity. Situating citizen journalism as part of a local communication infrastructure, this initiative illustrates the amount of support and structure a successful training program may need and provides a template for establishing a long-term community engagement project with civic participation and collective community efficacy at its core.

In “Helping Syrians Tell Their Story to the World: Training Syrian Citizen Journalists Through Connective Journalism,” Mohammad Yousuf and Maureen Taylor draw on interviews to explore how an international NGO provides training for citizen journalists working in Syria to tell their stories of the on-going war in that country. These citizen journalists operate in an exceptionally dangerous arena in which traditional notions of objectivity can make little sense; paradoxically, highly subjective content will be less trusted and less likely to be amplified by global news networks. Applying Lowrey and Gade’s (2011) connective journalism framework to analyze the training program, the authors show the ways citizen journalists adopted more professional practices and in that way became more successful in connecting with global reporting networks in order to share local, authentic voices from their communities. Likewise, the authors argue that training citizens to use a more fact-based style of reporting may ultimately help them build trust across different groups within Syria’s hyper-conflicted society and in that way help keep alive a sense of community that will be necessary to rebuild Syria whenever the conflict ultimately ends.

Conclusion

This special issue has brought together a diverse body of work from around the world, focusing in particular on our understanding of citizens as the potential producers of news in terms of how they interact with mainstream and other forms of news media, what their attitudes and motivations are, and what are some of the most effective means of training the most marginalized to develop their own voices. What have we learned?

• Who citizen journalists are is complex and cannot be answered by merely viewing them all as amateur news content contributors. Articles here identified a range of types of participants, from journalism students wanting to burnish their credentials to retirees hoping to watchdog the community to activists aiming to create meaningful change. Their various motivations for creating news content, and the varying levels of their previous experience, if any, in news production call for a more nuanced understanding by practitioners, trainers and researchers.

• Critical research reminds us that unqualified claims that citizen journalism levels the playing field between amateurs and professionals grossly underestimates the ways news comes to the public’s notice, downplaying the importance of professional amplification. Likewise, the appropriation of citizen media content appears to have been enhanced by the rise of social and other forms of online participatory media.

• Issues surrounding the ethics of working with citizen journalists are increasingly difficult to ignore even as traditional news continues to put citizen reporters into danger in order to score coverage of hard-to-access news. Research has not given enough consideration to this aspect of collaboration.

• Citizen participation is clearly happening in meaningful forms when those opportunities are provided by organizations motivated by civic, at least as much as if not more so, than commercial concerns. In fact, based on the research presented in this issue, an argument can be made that large-scale traditional news organizations may not be the best locations for meaningful citizen participation in the news. That is to say, there may be not enough oxygen in industrial news for authentic participatory citizen journalism to truly breathe.

• A key means of fostering the development of citizen journalism appears to be through establishing on-going, face-to-face training. In other words, some sort of real-world, human-centered scaffolding seems necessary to successfully develop and support public voices, particularly the voices of those who tend to face societal exclusion (Waisbord 2014).

In sum, the research in this special issue suggests that citizen participation in the production of news, whatever it is labeled (citizen journalism, participatory journalism, engagement, etc.), has created new approaches in newsrooms, journalism training projects and journalism research, but that all of these sectors must continue to respond and adapt. Whether pessimists are correct that corporations have already normalized and tamed the threat to their authority or the optimists who present evidence of ever-more sophisticated professional–amateur collaboration does not matter so much as our acceptance that the relationships are, and will permanently remain, fluid and contingent for the foreseeable future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Much appreciation goes to the authors who contributed their work, the reviewers who evaluated it and Journal Editor Bob Franklin who made the special issue possible.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.