Impact of Citizen Journalism, New Media and Social Media on Reportage

Citizen journalism and new media are complimentary


One of the most significant outcomes of the influence of internet on news reporting and delivery is the emergence of citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is participatory journalism whereby an individual, who is not a professional journalist and was never formally trained in journalism, reports on news or events using the power of interactive digital media. This form of journalism is the manifestation of empowerment that the new media has enabled, allowing the common man to crash through the glass ceiling that differentiated professional newsmen from those that depended on news broadcasters and publishers for their daily news feed (Revis, Layla. 10 Nov. 2011. Mashable.com.)


Citizen journalism is definitely making a major difference to the way news is obtained and distributed around the world. The advances made in digital technologies covering internet services, have radically increased the common man’s capability to access, store, and distribute news and events. What used to be the exclusive preserve of a selected few journalists in media houses, has now broken through the glass ceiling and leveled the playfield of journalism for anybody with the right attributes, to participate and excel in. Moreover, the spectacular advances in cellphone technology has simplified video recording to a level where it is now considered child’s play to record any event or incident and share it in the new media.


Arab Spring – result of citizen journalism riding on new media


The most remarkable outcomes of the power of citizen journalism in recent times was witnessed across large parts of the middle-east, where dictators, ruling since the seventies, began to be toppled, one after another, amidst popular outrage against their misrule. All these dictators were hardened military men, who have been entrenched in power since decades and ran their countries with an iron hand. They were known to be unusually harsh toward any and all forms of dissidence and generally looked too strong to be overthrown by any popular uprising that looked quite unlikely in their subdued societies (Toameh, Abu Khaled. 15 Jan. 2011JPost.com).


As far as these despots were concerned, everything seemed to be in place as long there was no scope for information about their misrule to flow freely among their countrymen. The overwhelming majority of people in all these countries had no clue of what the masses felt about their leaders’ misdeeds. Their only source of information, the state-run media, just parroted a single-dimensional version of information that only highlighted the make-believe ‘virtues’ of the rulers, despite the stark difference with the situation on the ground. They only knew that speaking against the ruling dispensation would invite trouble that could wreck their lives (Pintak, Lawrence. Spring 2007. ArabMediaSociety.com).


However, things began changing at the turn of the century when the internet began to make its presence felt across the world. Information flowed freely in the form of not merely written reports that needed reading but also in pictures and video recordings. The case of the entrenched dictators got further weakened by the international financial crisis that saw people coming out into the streets even in the US and EU. It wasn’t long before the new media savvy Arab youth, seized the opportunity to hit the streets spontaneously and in such large numbers that most dictators were caught off guard and fell hard (Ben-Meir, Alon. 08 Nov. 2011. Huffingtonpost.com Blog).


New media tools enabled the Abu Ghraib horror story to be circulated


One of the most disgraceful chapters of US involvement in Iraq was the story of sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners of war by US prison guards inside the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. The shameful event would probably not have come out in public had it not been for the fact that it was vividly recorded in video and leaked out to the media. It was not conventional journalism and reporting that told the world about the Abu Ghraib horror story but citizen journalism by insiders in the US army, who had access to these videos and images. It prompted an embarrassed US president, George W. Bush, to say that it was ‘un-American’ and ‘unacceptable’ (O’Neill, Brendan. 13 May 2004. Spiked-online.com).


Interestingly, much before CBS became the first media outlet to broadcast the sensational images of the horrific events in the Abu Ghraib prison (O’Neill, Brendan. 13 May 2004.), the media had sat on the information feed that had been regularly and steadily made available. In fact, it wasn’t just CBS that had received the damaging images of debauchery within the US military operating in Iraq, but a few other leading media houses as well. It is still not clear why they delayed the broadcast of such a critical event which they were fed on a platter so to say, but the feeds kept coming in through email, a new media tool, and were just too much in too quick time to be ignored for whatever reasons (Ricchiardi, Sherry. Aug-Sep 2004. AJR.org).


One of the US Army prison guards charged with playing a major role in the Abu Ghraib prison fiasco, was Staff Sergeant Frederick, a reservist who was assigned the role of a prison guard. His family as well as those of the other solders facing charges of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib, were aware of the incident and are even suspected to have seen the dirty pictures. His father, Ivan Frederick, suspected the prison guards including his son, merely followed orders and would be made the fall guys of this disgraceful incident if nothing was done to stop it.


A little over a month after he contacted CBS with his side of the story and probably evidence of the incident, this media outlet became the first to break the news about the Abu Ghraib story (O’Neill, Brendan. 13 May 2004). Clearly, it was a typical case of the triumph of citizen journalism driving on new media tools, which brought the story of Abu Ghraib out for the public. CBS never disclosed where they got the feed from but popular perception in the media was that disgruntled elements in the military and Pentagon were handing out the feed to the media. Connie Coyne of the Salt Lake Tribune summed up this perception when she said, “The leakers are driving the story” (O’Neill, Brendan. 13 May 2004.)


Disaster reporting gets sharper with new media tools


The earthquake that hit Japan in March 2011, measured 8.9 on the Richter scale and triggered a devastating Tsunami in addition to causing serious damage to a nuclear reactor that exploded and began spreading radiation. In many ways, it was a multidimensional catastrophe that happened almost simultaneously and caused death and destruction on a massive scale. The disaster was intensively reported in the new media platform, YouTube, which reported uploads of over 9,000 videos of the earthquake and over 7,000 videos of the Tsunami within hours of the disaster (Ross, Ron. 24 Nov. 2012. TheLatest.com,) let alone the eventual number that could have been many times over.


The stark difference between these real time reportages and those that we used to get in the days prior to the emergence of the new media and citizen journalism could only be seen to be believed. In the words of Eileen Brown, a social media specialist, even 2004 seem to be in the distant past when we compare the respective coverage of the Tsunami that shook the Indian Ocean region during that year, and the one that hit Japan in 2011. Ms. Brown goes on to compare an ethical dimension of such real time reporting of disasters and wonders if it has been able to increase people’s feelings toward the victims of such disasters (Brown, Eileen. 11 Mar. 2011. EileenBrown.Wordpress.com.)


It is quite distressing to see the immediate aftermath of a disaster site and every individual that witnesses it, is going to be deeply affected by such scenes of despair, pain and heartbreak. However, there are many others, like the action-oriented pragmatic realists, who also see these pictures and initiate relief action for the victims of the disaster. In a disaster of the scale of Japan 2011 or the Indian Ocean region in 2004, even a difference of a few minutes could end up getting vital relief to scores of hapless victims crying out for help. The difference in reaction time for relief operations in Japan with those of earlier tragedies, show the critical role that citizen journalism has played in disaster reporting.


New media’s coverage of Haiti’s colossal disaster helps relief efforts


In January 2010 the tiny Caribbean nation of Haiti suffered the worst urban disaster in history – a catastrophic earthquake of 7 magnitude wreaked havoc, death and destruction on the impoverished country with the highest population density in the Americas. The epicenter of the deadly earthquake was barely 16 miles from the bustling capital city of Port-au-Prince with a population of 1.3 million. The unfortunate city took a direct hit from the killer quake which let loose a barrage of over 50 aftershock quakes of well over 4 magnitude on average. The subsequent devastation was massive with over 220,000 dead, over 300,000 injured, around 190,000 homes destroyed and over 1.5 million people rendered homeless (Haiti Earthquake Facts and Figures. DEC.org.uk).


It is obvious from the scale of death and destruction that official communication lines, operating on conventional modes and largely dependent on land-based infrastructure, were non-functional immediately after the quake. This was when social media stepped in to provide invaluable information on the scale of the disaster and the destruction it left behind. Twitterfeeds updated recipients with up-to-date information while the live blogs of some of the top media outlets also began publishing vital information about what was going on in Haiti. It wasn’t long before the mainline media began utilizing the combined services of the social media along with whatever their field correspondents at the disaster site could provide (Bunz, Mercedes. 14 Jan.2010. Guardian.co.uk.)


There is no doubt that traditional journalism was in no position to swing into action in a desolate disaster site like Haiti but citizen journalism, or whatever one may have called it at the hour of need, did not wait for the ‘big boys’ of multi-million dollar media companies to come with their teams to cover the crisis. Interestingly, the big media outlets themselves have used this highly effective form of communication to run the story as it unfolded. Innumerable Youtube uploads, Tweeterfeeds, Facebook updates and calls on Skype told the world about what was happening in Haiti even as the world struggled to reach the devastated country (MacLeod, Lewis. 22 Jan. 2010. BBC.co.uk.)


Terrorists took advantage of new media in Mumbai attack


On 26 November 2009, a group of heavily armed terrorists on a suicide mission, entered the city of Mumbai, the largest metropolitan city in India, located on its western coast, facing the Arabian Sea. They came by the porous sea route from Pakistan and let loose a reign of terror, death and mayhem that paralyzed the commercial and financial capital of India for nearly 70 hours. At the end of the carnage, over 171 innocent people were dead and over 230 were injured. Nine out of the ten terrorists of the group were shot dead by Indian security forces while one was caught alive. The entire episode was reported live by the Indian media that later drew heavy criticism from both the common people as well as the government as this relentless coverage was utilized by the terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan to make it more difficult for the Indian anti-terror commandos to subdue the terrorists (Pepper, Daniel. 23 Dec. 2008. McClatchy.)


Midway through the crisis, the government of India had alerted social media users to avoid uploading data on the activities of the security forces battling the terrorists. It was felt by the hapless government at that point of time that the terrorists would surely utilize any information about the movement of the security forces. It is another matter that a large number of people continued to upload data not merely about where to help the injured or how to offer blood but even where and how the security forces were battling the terrorists. Analysis of usage of a number of Black Berry phones seized from some of the dead terrorists revealed that they had tracked British media reports on the events in Mumbai (McElroy, Damien. 28 Nov. 2008. Telegraph.co.uk.)


The horrific incident in Mumbai and the Indian mainstream media’s coverage of it has drawn a lot of criticism about the ways of the newly liberalized media in India. The officers who supervised the security operations were certain that the 24 hour coverage of the terrorist siege of the city’s downtown business district had benefited the attackers during the first couple of days and delayed the counter-terror operation. It’s not all about the 24 hour coverage by India’s mainstream media that was being questioned here but the point of convergence of traditional and new media that seemed to have allowed the terrorists, equipped with Black Berry phones, a new media tool, to continue with the mayhem longer than what the security forces imagined (Chandran, Rina. 05 Dec. 2008. In.Reuters.com.)


In the case of Mumbai, it was not any shortfall in the dissemination of information that was questioned; rather it was about how much of the information that the media picked up, and eventually streamed live on real time. Here, it was not so much the citizen journalist’s output that was ahead of time but it was the mainstream media that was in the thick of things and was picking up everything that unfolded in those 3 days of death and destruction. Unlike in other natural disaster situations where the feed of the citizen journalists through new media tools, reaches the mainstream media, here it was the other way round – the mainstream media’s real time report was picked up by the holed-up terrorists with the new media tool, Black Berry phones.


This is another dimension of the power and reach of the new media and social media that could not have occurred to us if it was not for the event in Mumbai and the peculiar situation it created for the security forces that were chasing the terrorists. The debate on the damaging role of the Indian media had touched raw nerves especially with so many innocent people dead. Can this lack of ethics shown by the India media while covering this dreadful event be compared to the lapse on the part of the security forces in charge of defending the Indian west coast? After all, this lapse had cost the nation dearly as it allowed the ten heavily armed Fedayeen terrorists to sneak into Mumbai, and cause all the mayhem. (Monahan, Tom and Stainbrook, Mark. Nov. 2012. PoliceChiefMagazine.org.)


New media and social media would require checks and balances


The crisis in Mumbai is an eye opener in terms of the ethical dimension of the use of new media and social media. Till the time there are stricter cyber laws to regulate the content on the internet it is the responsible citizenry that has to be accountable for what is published on the new media and shared on the social media. There is no doubt that the internet is still a wilderness in terms of regulation and a lot of the discipline that is found on many genres of websites and blogs are self-imposed. For example, the comments section under a news report where readers respond to the report, editorial opinion or feature story, on the online versions of most mainstream media outlets, are generally well moderated. There is also scope for a respondent to mark any response as unacceptable and ask for its deletion.


Similarly, sharing specific links on Facebook accounts should be done with a sense of responsibility. If the content is controversial, we need to make sure that before we share it with friends on the network we first try to understand their preferences. In fact, Facebook offers the option to disallow posts from specific users on your wall without the poster knowing about it. This is precisely the kind of regulation that is compatible to the spirit of transparency and interactivity that the new media offers. For proper self regulation to evolve, renowned and reputable sites ought to undertake discourses to educate citizen journalists to exercise judgment better (Medley, Anne. 13. Jan 2012 PBS.org.)


One of the biggest drawbacks of new media and social media content is that most of the content it shares, is not verified when the events are reported on mainstream media. The sheer volume and speed at which the content is generated, doesn’t leave any time for proper validation. During the Haiti crisis in the aftermath of the massive quake in 2010, CNN segregated new media news feeds into those it could verify and those that it couldn’t (Bunz, Mercedes. 14 Jan.2010. Guardian.co.uk.) It was a need-of-the-hour innovation as the lack of verified information flowing out from Haiti was few and far between while there was a lot of information that went out through the new media platforms like YouTube, Tweeter and Facebook.


Going by the speed at which new media feeds are gaining acceptance in mainstream media, it won’t be long before the process of integration reaches a logical conclusion. The process of journalism is obviously going to be redefined as most mainstream media outlets appear to be seriously pursuing integration of citizen journalism as a desirable aspect of future journalism. Validation of content is too minor an issue to scuttle any progress in that direction. Most media houses have the infrastructure and resources to validate all the news feed that they receive. The advantages of citizen journalism should not merely be seen in the context of crises but should also be seen as a process of maximizing the effectiveness of the media (Thornton, Patrick. 08 Feb. 2009. Pat throntonFiles.com.)


Citizen journalism has broken many a myth that surrounded the news media industry. By its very nature, based on interactivity allowing empowered use of tools that can define and redefine dissemination of information, it has to adapt to a better managed and regulated environment. The remarkable interventions in crises during the last few years, has showed the enormous potential of citizen journalism in redefining the future of journalism. It now has to evolve faster from a domain of amateurs to a fast evolving platform where it can integrate easily with mainstream media. Apparently, the free flow of unverified information especially, if it is of critical nature, like in the case of Mumbai, has to be brought under some kind of regulation (Leggio, Jennifer. 28 Nov. 2008. ZDNet.com.)

References

1. Revis, Layla. 10 Nov. 2011. “How Citizen Journalism is Shaping Media and Democracy.” Mashable.com. < http://mashable.com/2011/11/10/citizen-journalism-democracy/>


2. Ben-Meir, Alon. "The Arab Spring: A New Era in Transforming Globe." Huffingtonpost.com Blog. The Huffington Post. 08 Nov. 2011. Web. 23 Nov. 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alon-benmeir/the-arab-spring-a-new-era_b_1082577.html?ref=world>


3. O’Neill, Brendan. 13 May 2004. “Leaking self-doubt.” Spiked-online.com. 23 Nov.2012. <http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/0000000CA521.htm>


4. Ricchiardi, Sherry. Aug-Sep 2004. “Missed Signals.” AJR.org 23 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=3716>


5. Toameh, Abu Khaled. 15 Jan. 2011. “Analysis: A warning to Arab dictators.” JPost.com. 23 Nov 2012. <http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=203717>


6. Pintak, Lawrence. Spring 2007. “I Hope One Day I May Publish Freely: Tunisian journalist, Sihem Bensedrine.” 24 Nov.12. ArabMediaSociety.com <http://www.arabmediasociety.com/countries/index.php?c_article=59>


7. Ross, Ron. 24 Nov. 2012. “Lessons learnt from reporting of Japanese disaster.” TheLatest.com. 24 Nov. 2012. <http://www.the-latest.com/three-lessons-learned-citizen-journalists-covering-japanese-earthquake>


8. Brown, Eileen. 11 Mar. 2011. “Citizen journalists: Disaster reporting. Good or Bad. EileenBrown.Wordpress.com. <http://eileenbrown.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/citizen-journalists-disaster-reporting-good-or-bad/>


9. “Haiti Earthquake Facts and Figures.” DEC.org.uk. 24 Nov.2012. <http://www.dec.org.uk/haiti-earthquake-facts-and-figures>


10. Medley, Anne. 13. Jan 2012. “Why Training Citizen Journalists is so Important After the Arab Spring.” PBS.org. <http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2012/01/why-training-citizen-journalists-is-so-important-after-the-arab-spring013.html>


11. Bunz, Mercedes. 14 Jan.2010. “In Haiti earthquake coverage, social media gives victim a voice” Guardian.co.uk. 24 Nov. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/jan/14/socialnetworking-haiti>


12. MacLeod, Lewis. “New media vital in breaking Haiti earthquake story.” 22 Jan. 2010. BBC.co.uk. 24 Nov. 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/worldagenda/2010/01/100122_worldagenda_haiti_monitoring.shtml>


13. Pepper, Daniel. 23 Dec. 2008. “Indians condemn media coverage of Mumbai Attack.” McClatchy. <http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/12/23/58383/indians-condemn-media-coverage.html>


14. McElroy, Damien. 28 Nov. 2008. “Mumbai attacks: Terrorists monitored British websites using Black Berry phones.” Telegraph.co.uk. 24 Nov. 2012 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3534599/Mumbai-attacks-Terrorists-monitored-coverage-on-UK-websites-using-BlackBerry-phones-bombay-india.html>


15. Chandran, Rina. 05 Dec. 2008. “Indian media under fire for Mumbai attacks coverage.” In.Reuters.com. <http://in.reuters.com/article/2008/12/05/idINIndia-36891720081205>


16. Monahan, Tom and Stainbrook, Mark. Nov. 2012. “Learning from the lessons of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack.” PoliceChiefMagazine.org. <http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=2309&issue_id=22011>


17. Leggio, Jennifer. 28 Nov. 2008. “Mumbai attack coverage demonstrates (good and bad) maturation point of social media.” ZDNet.com. <http://www.zdnet.com/blog/feeds/mumbai-attack-coverage-demonstrates-good-and-bad-maturation-point-of-social-media/339>

18. Thornton, Patrick. 08 Feb. 2009. “Citizen journalists will bring the what, while professionals bring the why.” Pat throntonFiles.com <http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/2009/02/08/citizen-journalists-will-bring-the-what-while-professionals-bring-the-why/>