commbox Community, Alternative, Citizen Media

Power is Everywhere: How Stakeholder-Driven Media Build the Future of Watchdog News

Mark Lee Hunter, Luk N. Van Wassenhove, Maria Besiou

Stakeholder Media Project (2016), 161 pp.

"Social or not, we contend that there is substantially more room for commercial practices and enterprises in the independent news space than has generally been recognized. A primary goal of this book is to show journalists and entrepreneurs how they may occupy that space through stakeholder-driven m ... edia. First, in Chapters One and Two we will set out key components of business models. From that base we will distinguish stakeholder-driven media (SDM) from mainstream media (MSM), in particular where their value propositions are concerned. We will then explore current variations on these principles in SDM. At the end of the book we will return to this theme, through outlining SDM enterprises that may soon emerge. Our predictive track record is not perfect, but it’s not bad; in 2010 we predicted that media focused on fact-checking would become a growth sector, and in 2016 there are well over 100 of them around the world. Replace: Fact-checking played a key role in the 2016 U.S. election, too. We also believe that stakeholder-driven media are changing the strategies by which “impact” is achieved in journalism; this is the subject of Chapter Three. The landmark research of David L. Protess and his colleagues showed that investigative journalism achieves reforms most often through a sustained effort involving a coalition of social and institutional forces, and rarely from a single “mobilizing” article or series in any media. Put another way, the broader story – how events play out over time – trumps the scoop; the last word beats the first word. That finding directly inspired our own research into how SDM achieve reform, and sensitized us to why MSM may not always be the ideal vehicle for journalism that seeks to change the world: In practice, MSM rarely stick around for the broader story. Likewise, non-profit investigative journalism centers – who, as we noted, typically rely on MSM to publish their stories – rarely follow their blockbuster stories across the years required to achieve reform or relief for victims. This is considered advocacy, not objective or even credible reporting. In contrast, stakeholder-driven media consider advocacy part of their mission. They exist, precisely, to defend the interests of a community of practice or interest, to help carry through its agenda. That may not make them credible to MSM, but it certainly makes them credible to their users. SDM do not go on to the next story and forget the preceding one. They pursue a story so long as it matters to their stakeholders – their community. They are thus capable of achieving results over time that MSM rarely attain. For that reason, serious journalists are well advised to see how they may collaborate with SDM as well as MSM. Because of stakeholder-driven media, the notion that the attention of MSM is required to set reform agendas is no longer as true as it was when sociologist Michael Lipsky famously described how activists use news media to dramatize their demonstrations and embarrass authorities into action.3 We have studied numerous cases in which SDM, not MSM, determined the outcome. We have seen that the MSM have lost a surprising share of their previous agenda-setting influence, and SDM have gained it. We will show you how, and we will show you how you can capture and wield that influence yourself. We hope you will do it for the benefit of your own community, as well as the rest of the world." (Page 9-10) more

Case Study: Mídia NINJA and the Rise of Citizen Journalism in Brazil

Stuart Davis

In: Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice

Eric Gordon; Paul Mihailidis (eds.)

Cambridge, Mass; London: MIT Press (2016), pp. 527-532

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Democratizing Journalism Through Mobile Media: The Mojo Revolution

Ivo Burum

New York; London: Routledge (2016), xiv, 213 pp.

"Fuelled by a distrust of big media and the development of mobile technologies, the resulting convergence of journalism praxis (professional to alternative), workflows (analogue to multipoint digital) and platforms (PC to mobile), result in a 24-hour always-on content cycle. The information revoluti ... more

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Digital Humanitarians: Citizen Journalists on the Virtual Front Line of Natural and Human-Caused Disasters

Wendy Norris

Journalism Practice, volume 11, issue 2-3 (2016), pp. 213-228

"Eyewitness user-generated content has dominated the study of citizen journalism in crisis and conflict zones. However, the convergence of online networked technologies, like social media, collaborative mapping and real-time information management, gives ordinary people the capacity to commit acts o ... more

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Citizen Media and Public Spaces: Diverse Expressions of Citizenship and Dissent

Mona Baker, Bolette Blaagaard (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2016), xii, 250 pp.

"Citizen Media and Public Spaces presents a pioneering exploration of citizen media as a highly interdisciplinary domain that raises vital political, social and ethical issues relating to conceptions of citizenship and state boundaries, the construction of publics and social imaginaries, processes o ... more

Philippine Community Journalism: Roles, Status and Prospec

Jeremaiah Opiniano, Jasper Emmanuel Arcalas, Mia Rosienna Mallari, Jhoana Paula Tuazon

Grassroots Editor & Community Journalism, issue Spring (2015), pp. 29-36

"This case study examines the current state of community journalism in the Philippines. This paper builds from previous studies, especially those by Filipino community journalism scholar Crispin Maslog, on the community press in the Philippines. The focus of this paper is the community newspaper and ... more

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The Role of Community-Based Media in Strengthening, Preserving, and Promoting Identity and Culture: A Case Study in Eastern Thailand

Pisapat Youkongpun

Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications, volume 1, issue 3 (2015), pp. 197-210

"The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and analyse the role of community-based media in information distribution in the Riverside community, Chanthaburi province, Eastern Thailand. Recently, this strong community has been identified as a cultural tourism destination. The community has started ... more

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Media, Margins and Civic Agency

Heather Savigny, Einar Thorsen, Daniel Jackson, Jenny Alexander (eds.)

London: Palgrave Macmillan (2015), xiii, 219 pp.

"This collection brings together new research on contemporary media, politics and power. It explores ways and means through which media can and do empower or dis-empower citizens at the margins that is, how they act as vehicles of, or obstacles to, civic agency and social change." (Publisher descrip ... more

Mapping Information Ecosystems to Support Resilience

Internews (2015), 2 pp.

"This tool is designed to support decision makers in understanding how information contributes to a more connected and resilient community. Whether your community is defined by place, population, issue, or a mix of these, a good understanding of a community's information needs and use are essential ... more

Where Are We Now? UK Hyperlocal Media and Community Journalism in 2015

Damian Radcliffe

Cardiff University, Centre for Community Journalism;Nesta (2015), 36 pp.

"There are more than 400 active hyperlocal websites in the UK, compared with 1,045 local papers. New sites are being uncovered by researchers on a daily basis. One in ten say they use local community websites or apps at least weekly (7 per cent in 2013). 17 per cent of UK internet users use websites ... more

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Digital Age as Ethical Maze: Citizen Journalism Ethics During Crises in Zimbabwe and South Africa

Dumisani Moyo

African Journalism Studies, volume 36, issue 4 (2015), pp. 125-144

"This article discusses citizen journalism ethics in crisis settings. It argues for an ontological critique of citizen journalism ethics where the practice must not be judged in relation to the moral taboos of mainstream journalism. Situating citizen journalism within the broader context of liquid m ... more

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Social media as a heteroglossic discursive space and Kenya's emergent alternative/citizen experiment

George Ogola

African Journalism Studies, volume 36, issue 4 (2015), pp. 66-81

"This article critically reflects on how social media platforms such as Twitter (read here as a heteroglossic text and space) enable and encourage public participation in wider national conversations. The article explores this through the work of key bloggers/activists and citizen journalists, refle ... more

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Citizen Journalism: A Retrospective on What We Know, an Agenda for What We Don’t

Melissa Wall

Digital Journalism, volume 3, issue 6 (2015), pp. 797-813

"This article reviews the state of research on citizen journalism over the past decade. The key areas covered include the ways traditional journalism has responded to this phenomenon from its early criticisms and later clumsy embrace of citizen content; the promises and perils of hyper-local citizen ... more

Comunicación popular, comunitaria y ciudadana: Ejes de investigación y fundamentos teóricos

Cicilia M. Krohling Peruzzo

In: La contribución de América Latina al campo de la comunicación: historia, enfoques teóricos, epistemológicos y tendencias de la investigación

César Bolaño; Delia Crovi Druetta; Gustavo Cimadevilla (eds.)

Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros (2015), pp. 419-445

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1000 Peitschenhiebe: Weil ich sage, was ich denke

Raif Badawi

Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb), Lizenzausg. (2015), 61 pp.

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Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism

Friederike Kind-Kovács, Jessie Labov (eds.)

Oxford; New York: Berghahn (2015), xiii, 366 pp.

"In many ways what is identified today as "cultural globalization" in Eastern Europe has its roots in the Cold War phenomena of samizdat ("do-it-yourself" underground publishing) and tamizdat (publishing abroad). This volume offers a new understanding of how information flowed between East and West ... more

Humanitarianism 2.0

Guillaume Bazerli, Theresa Bean, Angela Crandall et al.

Humanitarianism 2.0 Project (2015), 102 pp.

"The five reports that make up this collection are variously concerned with humanitarian aid, social and cultural evolution, crisis response, the mitigation of cultural divides, and political unrest. The themes that bind them are an international movement towards public safety; a trust-based relatio ... more

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Theorizing Citizenship in Citizen Journalism

Vincent Campbell

Digital Journalism, volume 3, issue 5 (2015), pp. 704-719

"Citizen journalism has become a prominent term referring to a variety of newsgathering and reporting practices conducted via a range of new digital technologies. The scholarly literature on citizen journalism, however, has tended to concentrate on its significance for journalism theory and practice ... more

La televisión desde abajo: Historia, alternatividad y periodismo de contrainformación

Natalia Vinelli

Buenos Aires: Editorial Cooperativa El Río Suena;Colectivo El Topo Blindado (2014), 307 pp.