Citizen participation and remediation from a cross media perspective

Conference: ECREA Annual Conference

Dates: 12-15 November 2014

Abstract:

Citizens – be they victims, bystanders, or emergency professionals - are today actively participating in crisis news reporting, through publishing eyewitness accounts, commentary, crowdsourcing and fact checking information. Established professional values are being recast in this rapidly evolving relationship between journalists, elite sources and citizens. Examples abound where ordinary citizens have acted in journalistic ways – for example to document unfolding natural disasters, wars and conflicts, mapping human rights abuses, or challenged misuse of corporate or political power. Eyewitnesses are increasingly using their mobile phones to capture and instantly disseminating news. Activists are using the internet to mobilise protests, and drawing attention to their causes by communicating directly with other citizens. The rapid rise of websites facilitating photo and video sharing as well as social networking, coupled with widespread mobile internet, has simplified access to publishing tools for ordinary citizens across the world. In so doing, it has precipitated a disruptive shift in how, and by whom, global information flow is controlled. Scholarly literature concerning online journalism and social media has surged in recent years. Many of these publications discuss the renewed relationship between professional journalists and their audiences – conceptualised in varying ways not only as “citizen journalism” (see Thorsen & Allan, 2009; 2014) or the industry preferred “user-generated content”, but as “citizen witnessing” (Allan, 2013), “networked journalism” (see Beckett, 2008), “participatory journalism” (see Singer et al, 2011), “liquid journalism” (see Deuze, 2008) and “ambient journalism” (see Hermida, 2010). Common for these concepts is an emphasis on active participation of citizens in news work and civic life. This is not restricted to news organisations facilitating online spaces for citizens to engage in public debate, but includes our rethinking of journalism practice in light of the enhanced interconnectivity fostered by forms of internet use. This paper will examine the potentially potent nature of such citizen participation in news-work and how related communication flow is operationalized from a cross-media perspective. It will draw on an in-depth critique of three different case studies, namely the Trafigura scandal in 2009, the killing of Gaddafi in 2011, and finally the crash landing of Flight 214 at San Francisco airport in 2013. Through each of these examples, the paper will examine how citizen participation is engendered, harnessed and remediated through a range of different, and arguably interconnected, media.

Source: Manual