People with different backgrounds has talked about citizen journalism. There is a lot of conceptions and practical applications. From reader’s comments in mainstream newspapers to independent blogs have claimed to themselves the umbrella of citizen journalism. However, what is the fundamental element in this concept? The most common and simpler answer is: “citizen journalism is the journalism made by the citizens”. This is true, but is this a satisfactory answer?
Citizen journalism is not only about procedure – who write the news, but also about the values that guide the journalistic work. It’s not just the journalism made by citizen, but the journalism guided by citizenship values. In fact, citizen journalism should be oriented to defend the citizenship, without other political or economic commitments. The most important is the freedom to produce news outside the market needs and to cover topics with frames from citizenship view.
I recognize that this is a demanding concept, but this is the only way to valorize the ‘citizen’ element. And, with this differentiation, we can understand and criticize better some initiatives made by citizens but sometimes against citizens’ interest.
Furthermore, citizen journalism is always an activity politically engaged. Each citizen journalism initiative has always a cultural challenge. There is at least two ways trough which this challenge happens. First, the citizen journalism usually needs to build news frames about objects already known. Some topics are always covered with the same frame by the mainstream journalism and citizen journalism has tried to show other perspectives. Second, to produce visibility to issues without public attention. Some topics are never covered by the mainstream journalism, but they are important to citizenship and citizen journalism is trying to draw attention to them.
For example, I can cite the remarkable Brazilian case Voz das Comunidades [Community’s Voice], founded by a teenager called Rene Silva in 2005. This initiative was founded as a print newspaper to talk about community issues from favela Morro do Alemão, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The printing was done in a photocopy machine and delivered in the streets. Over time, Voz das Comunidades created an account on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, besides a website. At this moment, there are about 175K followers in Twitter, 36K likers in Facebook.
Voz das Comunidades became known in 2010 when police forces raided Morro do Alemão to expel drug dealers who controlled the region. Rene Silva covered all police operations through Twitter. He was the only source inside the community, exception the police that not always inform correctly on their own actions.
Now, about 20 people are engaged in the project and his founder, Rene Silva, is planning expand it to other favelas in Rio de Janeiro and also other cities. He is an ambassador for more positive favela representation and, because of that, he has worked as consulter to TV shows and one telenovela that talk about the way of life of the favelas’ residents. Rene was also one of four Brazilians that carried the Olympic torch in London.
As Rene Silva said to O Globo newspaper, “there was need to a local newspaper, because the people feared the mainstream media, which was only going to favela when happened shootings and deaths. News about us was always about bad things, news about violence. The normal daily routine was ignored”.
Photo: Laura Marques, Extra
In my point-of-view, the cultural challenges of Voz das Comunidades are, at same time, reframe the issue of violence and to show positive aspects from their neighborhood. Urban violence is over covered and, generally, from the police perspective. People that suffer with violence consequences generally doesn’t have opportunity to explain consequences to their life, what they have to do to keep themselves alive, worries, fears. Voz das Comunidades wants to cover this topic from an inside perspective, from who is living this urban tragedy (see example). They also want to show some positive things that are never covered by the mainstream media, especially positive examples that can inspire others (see history about a popular writer and about a quadriplegic painter).
Finally, Voz das Comunidades is about change minds, is about change the public perception about the life inside the favelas. Sometimes this cultural challenge needs add other perspectives about topics over covered, sometimes it needs to publicize the human richness that grow up in this hard context.