The beginning of 2013 was a bad moment for newspapers in Sao Paulo, Brazil`s largest city. Big media groups were promoting large layoffs – that lead, for instance, to the closing of 46 year old Jornal da Tarde, where I used to work. Besides that, there was a bad vibe in the newsrooms, where the amount of work had increased for the remaining journalists, already tired of exhausting shifts and afraid of the next cuts. Smaller teams had greater difficulties on going to the street. That background can explain, partially, the way legacy media has faced the first street protests in the middle of the year, first about the raise on the bus fares. The initial reaction on the opinion section of the main two newspapers in Sao Paulo was to treat the movement as a distress to drivers, due to the closure of streets and avenues and the traffic generated. Worse than that, the same op-eds asked for a firm police intervention to clear the streets. By then, the logic was of the “groups of youngsters causing havoc that would be relegated to a footnote and soon be dispersed by the police”.

Facts proved them wrong, and a series of small protests soon became the country`s largest popular movement since president Fernando Collor de Mello`s impeachment in the 90s. Police`s violent reaction also hit journalists. Big media then started to change its focus on the movement. However, it had already lost ground to a new form of communication. Using their mobile cameras plugged to laptops` batteries, a simple app – the Chinese Twitcasting, that allows livefeed on Twitter or Facebook easily – and a shopping cart with a computer providing wi-fi, Midia Ninja (or Ninja Media) provided a new and intense view of the protests, from the insider`s point of view. The nonstop and shaky camera was close to police bombs` explosions, the reaction of protesters and gathered thousands of viewers. One of the most symbolic images of this period was the one of legacy media reporters transmitting on the top of buildings whil Ninja Media had its feet on the ground and side by side with protesters. Could they be what is expected as civic journalism?

Ninja stands for Independent Narratives Journalism and Action. It has emerged during the 2013 protests, but it is linked to an older cultural collective called Fora do Eixo (Out of the Axis). Its home page indicates their objective: “New technologies and new forms of using technology have opened the way for new sharing spaces, in which people do not only passive absorb information, people produce and exchange information. In this new context, of networks connected to streets, multimedia citizens emerge with the capacity of make its own opinions and share it in the virtual world.” The group includes some journalists, but also many activists. It works on an open participation basis – anyone interested can join in, previously providing personal data, skills and resources – and also on the concept of collective authorship, where many texts are signed not by a person, but by the group.

 

They soon called legacy media attention. The first reactions, however, were harsh. Many of my journalist friends on social media were diminishing Ninja Media’s role, classifying them as “a bunch of guys living with their parents that take journalism for just going out in the streets with their cameras on”. Some other bureaus went after Out of the Axis, digging accusations of fraud. The group also had a drawback when granted access to interview Rio de Janeiro`s mayor Eduardo Campos – in which they were considered underprepared, with no previous research to contradict numbers presented by the politician. This, for some time, was the argument used by legacy media to try to reassure its importance in the digital ecosystem, as well the the defence of an alleged impartiality that is, in theory, inherent to the profession.

Ninja Media takes sides on the stories, as Bruno Torturra, one of its creators, made clear. “Our main role is to reclaim for journalism and communications their activist role as the public’s eyes and to offer information that is increasingly qualified to defend democracy,” he said in a 2013 interview. This engagement he defends can be seen as one of the basis of civic journalism. From a point of view, traditional journalism can also be considered based on opinions and sides – of what subject gets in and which ones are out, what goes to the headlines and whats is drowned in the footnotes, which side goes to the lead and so forth. That is not the only problem Ninja Media and legacy media share. In that same interview, when asked about fact checking, Torturra answered accountability could be exercised by their followers on the web. Personally, and as a journalist, the “publish first and check later” policy that has also taken part of the media in the digital age seems more a problem than a solution, or a losing game, as it adds very little in terms of meaningful information.

Problems apart, Ninja Media left their mark on traditional journalism, which, after being “shaken” technologically, returned to the streets more camera savvy and vibrant. A formal change that may not be able to solve the activity`s bigger problems, but at least showed some need to go after new formats and ways to tell a story.  Ninja Media also tried to approach new journalistic enterprises, as Ponte, a collective of reporters dedicated to cover human rights and security issues. There is also, however, the financial problem of backing up new media enterprises, as points out Elizabeth Lorenzotti, researcher from Sao Paulo University (USP). “I think it breaks up with a (journalism) model that`s been suffering for a long time, but the way of financing these collectives is still under experimentation and needs better structuring.”

 

Take your pick of any of the major events of 2014 and you would be hard-pressed to choose one that did not involve citizen journalism. This past year, ordinary individuals often equipped with nothing more than cell phone cameras reported on and at times changed the course of national and international affairs. From the streets of Ferguson came footage of billowing tear gas and heavily militarized riot police; from Crimea, reports of troops bearing Russian equipment and uniforms sans insignia. In the case of Eric Garner’s death, it was the act of citizen journalism itself – the recording of the illegal chokehold by a bystander – that turned what would otherwise have been yet another tragic killing into a flashpoint for national outrage.

But citizen journalism in the digital age consists of more than the creation of content by non-professional sources. It is the generation, but also aggregation, proliferation, and editing of material by ordinary citizens, often to increase the visibility of what might not – or for political reasons, cannot – be covered by traditional media outlets. The sheer quantity of content that is uploaded onto the Internet every day is phenomenal and has made the attention of users a commodity even more coveted than before. In addition to playing the role of reporters, the citizen journalist must also add the positions of editor, marketer, and due to the temporal persistence and ease of retrieval of information, curator to their civic roles. In a media ecosystem where the propagation of information is just as important as the initial content, these latter titles are the ones most commonly adopted by the average netizen. Every upvote on Reddit, every like and share on Facebook is a small yet crucial act of citizen journalism that when summated, results in the spread of national dialogue. And if you were to peruse my Facebook wall, you would find, among everyday banalities, a static and carefully pruned selection of articles which offer great insight on social issues, many of which came to my attention after being shared by friends.

Much of netizen journalism is therefore reporting on reporting, or rather, the facilitation of the spread of existing information, and a prime example of this would be chinaSMACK. Its spectrum of coverage consists of anything from regional Chinese news events to national controversies to popular blog posts and reactions of Chinese netizens to world events. It is noteworthy that none of the content that it generates is original, save for the occasional article summary; the site is dedicated almost exclusively to English translations of Chinese articles and netizen comments. Its role is that of an indispensible middleman who collects and formats information so that it may bridge two separate social spheres. It mirrors what we all do when we share and promote articles with the intention of making our friends better informed.

The obvious downside to all of this, however, is the dreaded confinement in the echo chamber. If aggregators such as chinaSMACK are to be neutral parties, they must carefully choose to translate articles and comments from differing viewpoints. Similarly, if all my friends are of a certain political disposition, it’s awfully easy to only see articles that I would inherently agree with. Productive dialogue would thus be stifled. The diversity of the Internet provides certain checks to this – the opposing views are out there, if only we would seek them out. How to encourage people to do so remains the question.

An overly broad definition of citizen journalism is reporting and investigation performed by a member of a group about or pertaining to the group to which they are a member of. There are several key attributes which can be applied to narrow this definition to something
smaller, but more useful.

Topics:
The first way in which we can narrow the definition is by restricting the topic to items relevant to current events, policy, or government. While a discussion of the arts could very well fall under the category of citizen journalism, current events, policy,
and government tend to be more impactful.

Amateur:
Another way to narrow the definition is to restrict the space to authors who are not professional. It is entirely possible that someone became a professional journalist because a particular issue was important to them, and their writings would be considered citizen journalism. However, amateur journalism has the property that the author is deeply invested in the issue which they are documenting, not because they are making a profit.

This leaves us with the following definition: Citizen Journalism is reporting or investigation performed by a non-professional individual on a topic pertaining to current events, government, or policy. Importantly I do not see it vital to restrict medium. The
citizen journalist can use the medium of their choice, be it video, listicle, song, tweet, or public art, or traditional article; their works may be more effective in a medium native to their community. Nor do I restrict locality; citizen journalists can report on matters
relevant to a local or global stage.

A particular instance of citizen journalism I found compelling was twitter activity during the Boston Marathon bombing. In the days after it was a very confusing period of time with poor dissemination of information from mainstream media.

Citizen Journalists took part in two major ways:

1) Reddit Investigators
The Reddit community took full force in trying to investigate and locate the bomber. There were many amateur investigators who were launching theories about who they thought did it, working with very little information. They ended up strongly pushing that Sunil Tripathi, a missing Brown student, was one of the bombers. Mainstream media ended up picking this up and also pushing out the same narrative. It ended up being incorrect, but I think that it raises very interesting questions about how investigations should be held. The Redditors were able to construct a very compelling narrative and argument that the public took seriously. Government investigators, with more resources available as well as access to information ultimately properly identified the perps, but big questions on how investigations are run and reported on have been raised, and now demand an answer. Should Citizen journalists engage in public investigations at Mass scale? Should their efforts receive more support?

This is a clear instance of citizen journalism. A community of concerned citizens looked through and performed a mass amateur investigation. While the medium was Reddit, users were writing detailed articles trying to piece it all together.

2) Event Reporters
The Reddit, Twitter, and personal Facebook networks were instrumental in disseminating information on where police were enforcing blockades, the shooting at MIT, and the chase through Watertown.  While mainstream journalism was focused on the larger picture for a broader audience, the citizen journalists were more focused on information that was immediately pertinent to their community. Personally, I spent a lot of time tweeting/posting to Facebook information from the police scanners. Friends in the Stata center were posting pictures from the Stata center, which locked down after the Collier shooting. This social dissemination of information was not only more relevant to me, but faster and more trustworthy on agenda (my friend only wants to tell me that she is safe, not perpetuate islamophobia).

This is another clear cut case of citizen journalism; amateurs reporting on current events and government responses.

 

The reason that I chose this example is that it is the first time that I really deeply felt that civic organization could do much better than reputable journalism. The nimbleness, lack of ulterior motive, and legitimate care to disseminate the information was very unique. It can be hard to appreciate the strength of modern information networks and the role of citizen journalists, but tragic events like the Boston Marathon Bombings highlight their strengths as well as shortcomings. There are numerous examples which bear similarity, such as the use of twitter in Egypt during the Arab Spring. But the Marathon Bombings were compelling because it was tangible; I was a part of it.

People who stream live video from their mobile phones can be a compelling example of citizen journalism. But it is not always clear if and when a live streamer can actually be called a citizen journalist. Just because someone pulls out their phone and starts streaming, does that make them a citizen journalist? It depends on what they are streaming.

I would argue that acts of citizen journalism can often be identified by asking the following question: is the person recording something in the public interest, with the goal of sharing it with an audience now or in the future? This is not meant to be an exhaustive definition, but it does seem to be a useful rule of thumb for articulating what activities might count as citizen journalism. For example, if you are at home and decide to live stream your cat, this almost certainly is not in the public interest. But if you are at a demonstration I would argue that you are indeed a citizen journalist because what you are streaming is very likely in the public interest, and streaming it demonstrates the intent to share it with an audience.

As an act of citizen journalism, live streaming has been especially compelling when used to document recent events in the US, including the community reaction in Ferguson after the grand jury decision was announced, and the widespread protests in New York after the death of Eric Garner. It is a unique medium because it is highly authentic, raw, uncut, and unprocessed. It allows the viewer to see events happen in real time through the eyes of a participant. In some ways it occupies the highest sense of technological immediacy which has resulted from faster internet speeds, pervasive data connection, and the increasingly sophisticated technology crammed into smart phones. It’s as close as you can get to being there without actually being there.

And apparently I’m not the only person who finds them compelling. Based on media reports and my own informal tally of view counts, within 12 hours of the grand jury announcement live streamers using UStream and LiveStream in Ferguson racked up 4.8 million views. New York Magazine detailed some of this activity, and some of the streamers, in an article entitled “Is Livestreaming the Future of Media, or the Future of Activism?” (Chen 2014).

Live streaming is also compelling because it is a textbook example of what Elihu Katz called disintermediation. It cuts out the middleman that is mainstream media coverage. The big news outlet coverage of Ferguson has been criticized for its lack of understanding of the community and their portrayal of events, not least by streamers and community members themselves. As Chen noted in the New York Magazine article, “The live-streamers’ other main adversary is the mainstream media. Many protesters in Ferguson can expound for hours about the problems with the media, from its obsession with ‘riot porn’ to its credulousness of the police perspective.”

In my personal experience, watching live video of Ferguson from a news helicopter circling overhead was almost completely uninformative. It told me nothing about what was really happening, and felt weirdly removed from the very real and important events that were unfolding on the ground. But watching people gathered in anticipation of bad news and listening to the announcement through the windows of a car, watching the community start to process what the decision meant, and watching people interact with police and each other through live streaming video was extremely informative and emotionally moving. Elise Thorburn touches on the difference is this perspective in her analysis of live streamers from the Montreal student demonstrations: “For those unable to attend the demos, for those at far remove from Montreal, or for those impeded by mobility issues or familial responsibilities, the live stream gave viewers insight into the motivations, ideas, analysis, and politics of the strikers and demonstrators; and these went far beyond the mainstream media’s reliance on government platitudes and shocking images of rioters smashing windows or running from tear-gas-happy police” (Thorburn 2014, 56).

I would also argue that streaming video (as well as recorded video) is increasingly thought of as a way to combat the growing power inequality between the state and citizens. There is a line of thinking that police are less likely to harm citizens, especially through the use of illegal force, if they are being recorded. Emily Bell notes that Ramsey Orta, who recorded the illegal chokehold used on Eric Garner, “said he always pulls his phone out if he thinks the police might arrest him, as protection” (Bell 2015). Michael Naimark asks “if a live webcaster knows the number of viewers in real time, could another Rodney King style beating be averted (‘14,556 people are watching you right now!’)?”

It is a very interesting question (for another blog post) as to whether the presence of video recording actually acts as a deterrent to police violence, or is an effective method of accountability when police violence occurs. This idea seems to be part of the Obama administration’s advocating for the use of body cameras on police. Here is one argument that camera footage as evidence doesn’t change the existing pro-police bias. Here is an argument that cameras can reduce abusive police behavior.

As compelling as live streaming video might be, one of the major challenges we face in this rapidly evolving landscape of citizen journalism is finding ways to help and protect live streamers. They are serving a vital function, often streaming from places where the mainstream media is unwilling or unable to go, but they lack all of the benefits that come from being a journalist with an institutional affiliation. As Bell notes, that includes pay, training, union membership, and the added protections that are afforded to the press. How can we properly thank or reward live streamers, and how can we make their cameras more effectively act as shields against state violence?

Bibliography

Bell, Emily. 2015. “Emily Bell’s 2015 Hugh Cudlipp Lecture – Full Text.” The Guardian. Accessed February 14. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/28/emily-bells-2015-hugh-cudlipp-lecture-full-text

Chen, Adrian. 2014. “Is Livestreaming the Future of Media or the Future of Activism?” Daily Intelligencer. Accessed December 15. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/12/livestreaming-the-future-of-media-or-activism.html.

Katz, Elihu. 1988. “Disintermediation: Cutting out the Middle Man.” Intermedia 16 (2): 30.

Naimark, Michael. “All Live Global Video.” http://www.naimark.net/projects/bigprojects/livevideo.html.

Thorburn, Elise Danielle. 2014. “Social Media, Subjectivity, and Surveillance: Moving on From Occupy, the Rise of Live Streaming Video.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 11 (1): 52–63. doi:10.1080/14791420.2013.827356.

How could “Citizen Journalism” be defined? The term refers to two broader concepts, to narrow it I’m going to refer to the ten elements of journalism that Kovach and Rosenstiel enlist in the Introduction of “Elements of Journalism”:

1. Journalism’s first obligation is the truth
2. Its first loyalty is to the citizens
3. Its essences is a discipline of verification
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise
7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and in proportion
9. Its practitioners have and obligation to exercise their personal conscience
10. Citizens, too, have rights and responsibilities when it comes to the news.

With this ten elements its possible to have a better idea of what journalism is and what does it requieres. In essence there’s a strong relation from the journalists and the public, the public trust in what the journalists publish and use that information to participate in the public debates of the society.

In the other hand the citizens are the public actor, not just an individual, but the action of the individual in the collective. So I would define the Citizen Journalism as the active role of the citizens in the process of the news, collecting information, analysing it, and disseminating it to the public. Also one key difference that I find is the backup of an institution, the citizen journalists doesn’t have this backup as the “traditional” ones does.

In Mexico there has been an uprising in citizen journalism during the last years, the “war of drugs” has led to the emergence of new news sites from “El Blog del Narco” (covering confrontations and violence) to new mapping projects of missing people and clandestine graves.

The #PorLosDesaparecidos is a project that tries to map all the 26,000 missing people (Data from 2013, and counting), it is an effort from a group of people in Mexico D.F, they took the database from the National Commission of Human Rights and also allow to more people to register missing people, the result is a crowdsourced map that shows where were reported the missing people, it could help to know in which states are more dangerous, then correlate the information with the political parties in the government and start to trace some history.

I find very interesting the new role that the citizens are playing in democracies, now the power isn’t only in the voting, the use of information with new tools are empowering them, It’s easier to tell a story in new ways, even stories that might not be appearing in traditional news outlets or that could represent a direct confrontation to the government found their way through the citizens.

In a country where the traditional media are too close to the government and where the violence is uprising, it’s important to empower the citizens to participate in the public debates, to encourage them to take action, even if its with a blog post a tweet or a map, I believe that the main goal is to have an conscious society that could speak for it self.

If you start a Google search for “citizen journalism”, mostly it will lead to Bowman and Wills’ definition (maybe just because somebody wrote this on the Wikipedia). My definition is much simpler: it needs to be citizen-driven, and it should be journalism. In particular, the more a activity responses to journalism needs, sticks to journalism value, engage citizen participation, the more compelling it is as a form of citizen journalism. In this sense, I think the best candidate to this time is cameras in everybody’s mobile phones (I will refer them to “Phone Cameras” from now). And here’s why.

1. Phone cameras are journalism
Mobile phone cameras meets with most of the (boring) news value criteria in journalism schools. It is fast (remember the plane in Hudson River?), it is relavant to everyday life, and in most cases, it tells the truth.

[pic: the first twitter photo of the plane landing on Hudson River. Source]

 

2. Phone cameras are pervasive
It cannot be a “compelling” citizen journalism form if its user base only a smallest portion of the population. However, it is not the case in mobile cameras. Even the not-so-smart cellphone can take pictures now, delivering live news from every corners of the world.

[pic: the most popular camera in Flicker 2014. Source]

 

3. Phone cameras are democratic
Mobile Cameras really give power to the people. Those who have power, no matter physical or political, could no longer abuse their power in front the mere possibility that somebody may take up their phone and take a picture. In fact, the action of “taking out the phone” could be a straightforward demonstration that “we are not afraid of you, we are the public.” Mobile camera is the first surveillance technology at the hand of the people.

4. Phone cameras are “authentic”
Mobile Cameras have a natural attribute of being authentic. Seeing a crude picture from middle east(probably from a outdated phone), most people will believe this is the truth and the picture is taken as it is. Strangely, the worse the quality of the photo, the more authentic it seems to be. In this sense, manufacturers should really consider produce phones with worse cameras.

5. Phone cameras provoke actions
When conditions of a city’s infrastructure are shown with crude pictures taking by cellphones, city administration can no longer ignore them; when the cop beating protesters is caught with phone cameras, anger arise among people. The fact that phone cameras can document anything at anytime makes mass social monitoring possible, leading to more sophisticated use such as the promise tracker.

6. Phone cameras are non-professional
Other citizen media ideas often require some expertise, from technology familiarity to communication skills such as writing, and that is why they are (almost) all failed. But phone cameras are the perfect media for non-professionals – no skill needed (even photographic skill), just tap the button. An intellectual or professional media worker gains no advantage in using phone cameras (as shown in #4).

7. Phone cameras makes “professional” journalists
In the same time, ordinary citizens are trained into a habit that is often seen in professional journalists: they quickly pick up scent of news; they share photos as if there’s a deadline pushed by the editors; and in scenes of emergency, they take pictures before they run away or call the police.

[pic: photo showing people taking pictures of an ebola patient, from Reuters]

 

8. Phone cameras set agendas
Agenda setting is considered the modern form of control (by government of ruling class or whatever). But thanks to phone cameras, we gradually stop talking about “big events” or “big figures” in the newspaper, we start to talk about who appears in selfies of whom; who visited which places; and who tasted what food. Citizens’ mind are no longer “void of information” waiting for news agencies to fill in. Somebody may say that there is less civic engagement here, but there is not much in the traditional way too.

[pic: people taking photos of their food. Source]

9. Phone cameras invade privacy
Journalism has always been the enemy to privacy, if you see it as a way of selectively making personal affairs public. Phone cameras are the best tool for making something public without leaving a trace. The new iterations of phone cameras such as narrative clips and google glasses will further ensure that privacy is the least concern.

10. Phone cameras are promising
Unlike most of journalism tools that does not change for a long time, phone cameras evolve constantly. Phones can take picture more rapidly, and can take more pictures in a fixed time; Phone cameras now come with built-in editing tool to make sure that photos are as biased as news; and new attachments such as selfie poles let you take selfies during a parade.

Welcome to Introduction to Civic Media, Spring 2015! Looking forward to having you join our class. You can browse the syllabus (expect this to change). We will provide each of you accounts on this blog as we finalize enrollment.

To get access to this blog (or generally apply to take the course), fill out this Google Form: http://bit.ly/civicmediaclassapp.

Erhardt & Ethan