Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives

The 2008 US presidential election marked a historic shift in American politics through the election of Barack Obama. One of the key characteristics of this campaign was the coming of age of the Internet, which is explored by Fiedler in Chapter 17. His discussion begins with the occasion on which Obama encountered Mayhill Fowler, a citizen journalist, at a campaign fundraising event that was off-limits to the mainstream press. Obama’s off-the-cuff remarks about the reasons why some working-class voters might feel embittered about politics, dutifully relayed by Fowler in a blog, sparked news headlines around the world. This was a crisis of an unusual sort for the Obama campaign to address, one that helped to reveal the changing nature of election campaigns in the age of the Internet.

Author: Tom Fiedler

The 2007 Australian federal election, in contrast, will be remembered for more peaceful reasons, most notably the incumbent prime minister losing his seat and the increasingly significant role of citizen media during the campaign. In Chapter 16 Bruns, Wilson, and Saunders explore the tension that developed between bloggers and mainstream media such as The Australian, with the latter attacking citizen journalists for having the audacity to criticize its election analysts. Experiences from the authors’ involvement in the hyperlocal citizen journalism project, Youdecide2007, are also shared. Based on this experiment, the chapter concludes with a proposal to “transcend the stale ‘pro-am’ dichotomy” by putting forth a concept of “journalism as social networking.” The authors here highlight four dimensions in which they argue “professional practice is changing to accommodate citizen-generated content.”

Authors: Axel Bruns, Jason Wilson, and Barry Saunders

Peaceful protests are in stark contrast to some of the practices uncovered during the 2007 Kenyan presidential election crisis by Zuckerman (Chapter 15). He reveals how bloggers took on the role of reporters in documenting the election process and mapping the violence that ensued following the disputed result, providing a crucial source of information following the government’s ban on live media. However, citizen media and text messaging were also used in a more sinister way to mobilize different ethnic groups against each other. Attempts at moderating such hateful content led Kenya’s leading bulletin board site to shut down, while the government decided to block bulk text messages. Technologies “useful for reporting and peacemaking,” Zuckerman warns, “are also useful for rumor mongering and incitement to violence.”

Author: Ethan Zuckerman