Authors
Bruce Mutsvairo, Simon Columbus, Iris Leijendekker
Publication date
2012
Conference
International Symposium on Online Journalism, Austin, TX
Description
Citizen journalism is emerging as a powerful phenomenon across Africa. The rise of digitally-networked technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones is reshaping reporting across the continent. This change is technological–with social media platforms enabling new forms of publishing, receiving, and discussing stories–as well as cultural–with idiosyncratic conventions emerging on these platforms. This study surveys the ethical beliefs of citizen journalists in several sub-Saharan African countries. We find that they are driven by a sense of social responsibility and a wish to inform their readers and the general public. Citizen journalists show a clear antiauthoritarian strain and an antipathy towards government regulation, yet most see themselves as subject to the same ethics that guide traditional journalism. We then investigate the implications of these ethics for the emerging networked public sphere. The emergence of a digitally-networked public sphere has been hailed as a revival of bottom-up democracy in the West, but its consequences for African countries are rather ambiguous. We therefore set out to disentangle the possible relationship between citizen journalism and the emerging networked public sphere.
Scholar articles
B Mutsvairo, S Columbus, I Leijendekker - Retrieved August, 2012