Citizen media

Citizen media, also called guerrilla, networked, participatory, street, or open-sourced journalism, form a phenomenon in which anyone can create news content, with or without a journalism background. Citizen journalists gather, develop, distribute, and share news, upending the long-established journalist-audience relationship. The fast growth of the internet and even more rapid proliferation of social media have created a citizen-media boom, with forms ranging from personal blogs, vlogs, and citizen-managed websites and podcasts to pirate-radio broadcasts and a range of print products. The essence of citizen journalism is that the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and press guarantee that anyone can be a journalist.

Background

Since the invention of the printing press in 1448, non-professional writers have shared information, particularly about perceived injustices, through pamphlets and brochures. These earliest forms of citizen media could be shared only with a limited audience after a long, expensive production process. Pamphleteering became prevalent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but it was not until the twenty-first century that speed, lowered costs, and global reach allowed for rapid growth. In the internet age, information can be shared within seconds.

For the past several decades, the lines between strictly professional journalism and consumer journalism have blurred. This shift can be traced to one accidental citizen journalist, Abraham Zapruder, who video-recorded the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. He sold his 26-second clip to Life Magazine, and it was later moved to the National Archives. Citizen media went on to achieve international prominence during subsequent crises, as in 2001, when terrorists attacked New York City and the Pentagon. It has also become evidence, such as when teenager Darnella Frazier used her mobile phone to record and share the murder of George Floyd under the knee of police officer Derek Chauvin. Her video challenged the police account of Floyd’s death.

Opinions differ on when the term “citizen journalism” was first used. Some say it rose to prominence during the late 1990s when blogging was in its infancy, while others claim that it was first used during the Asian tsunami of 2004. However, it was not until the 2005 London bombings that those affected sent their images and personal accounts to mass media, which increased awareness of the value of citizen media when professional journalists could not be present in real time.

Overview

The four main types of citizen media are print, broadcast, internet, and photo. Printed citizen media include newsletters, independent ’zines, and posters, while broadcast citizen media appears largely on independent or social media platforms. The internet is the most common place to display the work of citizen journalists, who can work independently or in conjunction with professional journalists. The latter relationship is most often evidenced through the comments section on published articles or when professional journalists employ crowdsourcing, asking the public to contribute information about an important topic.

The generation and consumption of news has been significantly altered by citizen media. Proponents say citizen media could lead to more democratic, transparent reporting of news, increase the diversity of perspectives, help develop more local, ground-level coverage, and counteract censorship. Critics lament the lack of fact-checking, accuracy, reliability, and quality as well as the loss of livelihood for the professional journalist and undermined ethical standards and accountability. Rapid spread of misinformation has been another primary complaint.

Citizen media have also permanently altered the pace at which news is shared. In times of disaster, citizen-produced news is almost immediately available, usually within minutes of an occurrence. Citizen journalists often view themselves as citizen activists and part of the story. People affected by disasters regularly email pictures and videos taken on their mobile phones and provide personal accounts to mainstream media. Very few are paid for their work. Citizen journalists have been assassinated in retaliation for their work in censorship-heavy areas of the world. However, despite the notable risks, citizen media can have monumental political and societal impacts, as evidenced in Egypt in 2011 during the Arab Spring, when activists used Facebook to organize against longstanding President Hosni Mubarak, who eventually was removed from office.

The social media giant Twitter (renamed X in 2022) also played a key role in citizen media’s rise, beginning in 2009 when it was used to coordinate post-election protests in Iran. Wiki journalism, available on websites such as Wikipedia—where anyone can edit, remove, or add content—is an example of unfinished, developing citizen media.

There is extreme financial pressure on mainstream media, especially the newspaper industry, where jobs have been cut in mass quantities and both mainstream and local publications have closed. Surviving platforms have now in many ways accepted citizen media, often incorporating it into their own offerings as extensions to their work. However, this has brought its own issues. CNN’s iReport, for example, publishes unedited uploaded content as long as it qualifies as news and not advertising and meets taste and decency standards. However, it leaves editorial gatekeeping to the audience. For example, in October 2008, an anonymous source on iReport said that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack and was rushed to a hospital. Apple stocks fell to a seventeen-month low within minutes and only recovered when an Apple spokesperson strongly denied the report and halted the story. The anonymity of the author prevented accountability, which is a frequent knock against citizen media.

Another common complaint is that citizen media can lead to propaganda and self-promotion by governments and political candidates. For example, in 2006 senators were caught enhancing their Wikipedia entries. The George W. Bush administration used citizen media to promote its Iraq policies by targeting and granting privileges to influential bloggers. Critics believe that untrained citizen journalists are more vulnerable to such lures. Donald Trump's use of social media was a defining characteristic of his presidential campaigns in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections and of his overall political strategy. He regularly used platforms like Twitter and Truth Social to communicate directly with the public, bypassing traditional media channels. Trump's use of sometimes false statements led to debates about the role of social media and citizen journalists in spreading misinformation.

Despite these problems, citizen media have continued to gain in popularity. As citizen media have flourished, so has quality control, with many citizen-media websites now employing professional editors, establishing editorial guidelines, and, as a result, attracting more advertisers. Still, experts advise audiences to evaluate content carefully to avoid becoming passive information recipients.

However, citizen media still largely complement rather than supplant legacy media, which have become “mutualized news organizations,” a term the Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger coined. Many mainstream media outlets have content-sharing agreements with citizen media. Judith Högerl of the Austria Press Agency has studied the relationship between citizen media and the press and concluded that the information tsunami from new media has made traditional media’s impact as agenda setters and gatekeepers more important than ever.

Enormous potential exists to build more partnerships between traditional media and citizen content creators, and those who are wise will embrace them, experts say. With fully staffed news organizations unlikely to return any time soon, newsrooms should pay their journalists fairly and instruct them to work with citizen journalists as a long-term investment in democracy.

Bibliography

Högerl, Judith. “An Agency Full of Citizens? How News Agencies Cope with Citizen Journalism: Their Concerns and Strategies.” Reuters Institute Journalist Fellows’ Papers, reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/agency-full-citizens-how-news-agencies-cope-citizen-journalism-their-concerns-and. Accessed 17 July 2023.

Jurrat, Nadine. “Mapping Digital Media: Citizen Journalism and the Internet—An Overview.” Open Society Foundations, Apr. 2011, www.opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/mapping-digital-media-citizen-journalism-and-internet. Accessed 17 July 2017.

Lee, Edmund, and Hsu, Tiffany. “BuzzFeed to Acquire HuffPost from Verizon Media.” The New York Times, 19 Nov. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/business/media/buzzfeed-huffpost.html. Accessed 17 July 2023.

Leonatti, Andrew. “Citizen Journalism Laws.” Find Law, 30 June 2021, www.findlaw.com/civic-engagement/citizen-journalism.html. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

Nave, Ryan. “Citizen Journalism but Make It Equitable.”Nieman Lab, 2023, www.niemanlab.org/2022/12/citizen-journalism-but-make-it-equitable/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

Thibert, Audrey. "Conduct in Conflict: Engagement with Citizen Journalists in War Zones." Center for Journalism Ethics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 3 Jan. 2024, ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/2024/01/03/conduct-in-conflict-engagement-with-citizen-journalists-in-war-zones/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.