Citizen Journalism.

Credit: https://www.makingallvoicescount.org/blog/citizen-journalism-philippines-public-pressure-public-accountability/

Citizen journalism is a topic I have conflicted feelings about. On one hand, it can give first-hand accounts of scenario’s we wouldn’t otherwise see, usually through the use of the internet. On the other hand, the internet – believe it or not – gets it wrong on occasion. We’ve all seen or heard some absurd thing through the internet, it’s not unlikely that at least half of those things are untrue. In this post I am going to look at the positives and the negatives of citizen journalism.

To start, citizen journalism has been used to propagate change in many positive ways. In the Philippines, The Institute for War and Peace reporting has been helping to train and engage people with their local government and key financial issues (Gavrili, 2016). assisting the in honing their investigative and journalistic skills, they are learning how to analysis and disseminate news and use their voices to call for change.

One example of this is the footbridge of North Kotabato, where everyday people would have to wade through water half a meter high because the footbridge had no drainage, and would fill to the brim with filthy water filled with rotten food and rubbish (Gavrili, 2016). This bridge was fixed in the beginning of 2016 largely due to the work of Citizen Journalist. I would argue that this is a very positive impact of Citizen Journalism. It is a great way for people to have their voices heard, and needs for their community met; citizen journalism gives power to the people.

On the other hand – and this might come as a surprise – the internet has a tendency towards exaggeration, confusion and lies. Also, citizen journalists are not professionally trained, and as a result can work unethically, even if unintentionally.

Take the issue of CELUP, an Instagram based in Indonesia that encouraged its users to take candid photos of couples showing public displays of affection and sending them to the account, where they would be posted without the couple’s consent (Arthen, 2018). With the recent spike in religious conservatism in Indonesia, these posts on CELUP inspired a lot of hate towards the individuals pictured.

Citizen Journalism has the chance to be a great tool for the everyday person, helping evoke change and betterment for one’s own community through the first-hand experiences of those wo are reporting. It can come at a price of the everyday persons right to privacy like those in Indonesia who were subjected to online abuse. I would love to see more instances of citizen journalism used for positive change within smaller communities like the one in North Kotabato, where the passion and commitment of a few people changed their communities for the better.