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- Intercultural New MediaPublication . Mutsvairo, Bruce; Salgado, Susana
- Is citizen journalism dead? An examination of recent developments in the fieldPublication . Mutsvairo, Bruce; Salgado, SusanaThe reliance on untrained reporters with limited or no understanding of journalistic standards has become increasingly widespread particularly in less democratic environments and these practices have impacted news gathering and reporting. There however has been some debate about the conceivability, capacity, reliability and acceptability of citizen journalists due to the lack of the professional standards associated with the profession. Even so, diverse forms of citizen journalism continue to emerge and develop in several countries in the Global South, such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique, examined in-depth in our study of the current frameworks, trends, practices and principles of citizen journalism in Africa. Buoyed by what appears like a slump in global citizen journalism research, we identify specific cases to rethink the concept, seeking to theoretically contribute to new directions on the phenomenon’s role in African societies. Our analysis suggests that a reconceptualization of citizen journalism is imperative thanks to several factors, including improved access to the Internet and changing attitudes toward political dissent and participation, citizen journalism in Africa is taking new directions.
- Citizen journalism: Revisiting the concept and developmentsPublication . Min, Seong Jae; Salgado, Susana; Mutsvairo, BruceThe inception of modern citizen journalism takes its roots in the early 2000s, with users appropriating social media platforms and blogs to report, distribute, and consume news. In many places, these digital tools gave a new voice to those long denied by the authoritarian control of the media landscape (Sheen et al., 2024). In historicizing citizen journalism, Hughes (2011) argues that printing of pamphlets backing American colonies’ independence from Britain was a defining moment for citizen journalism practice, suggesting that the press freedom clause of the First Amendment of the US in 1791 was in fact to protect citizen journalists because at that time there were no professional journalists. Scholars such as Miller (2019) and Matheson (2014), however, consider citizen journalism as a relatively new phenomenon, which gained momentum in the late 1990s and early 2000s thanks to the ubiquity of digital technology. Other scholars like Blaagard (2019) dispute appeals to confine citizen journalism to technological networks, preferring to link it to its embodied and political roots.