BENGALURU: With the intrusion of smartphones everyone finds it really feasible to share idea with the rest of the world using popular mediums such as social media. It has become a necessary tool to connect with masses and empower citizens to narrate their stories like never before as a journalist. You get instant reactions from every nook and corner of the world within seconds about any incident happening at other part of the globe which gave flavor to ‘Citizen Journalism’; source, Timesofindia.indiatimes.com.  

Citizen journalism came into existence around a century ago and with the advent of new technologies it has become more popular and easier to touch larger mass. History has the evidence that confirms the use of citizen journalism for instance, 1963 Zapruder film based on the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the 1991 beating by Los Angeles police of Rodney King and the events of the Arab Spring. "In each case, a new technology prompted us to be aware that citizens can contribute to journalism in certain ways. In the shift we are seeing since 2004, citizen media is becoming fully integrated to journalism." said Valerie Belair-Gagnon, Head, Yale University Information Society Project.

On the other hand, Jeff Achen, Executive Editor at UpTake infers that citizen journalism is democratizing news media by giving example of recent truck attack in Nice, France. Achen trains citizen journalists and also says that,” Media can't be everywhere, but there is something with a citizen telling their own story from their own perspective which can be very valuable." He also comments that citizen journalism will augment traditional media by holding powerful institutions like the police accountable. On the other hand, platforms such as Twitter and Facebook serve as a source of excitement and encouragement for citizens. "With the legacy media, some of the news can feel manufactured and manipulated. It can feel corporate sponsored. Everyone is going to make it a routine. They will take out their cellphones whenever a police officer pulls over and does something" to bear witness to the facts," he further added.

With the ability to reach larger masses citizens can bring out transformative social changes. “Powerful as the videos are for mobilizing activists, they may be more powerful in bringing new participants into the racial justice movement,” said Ethan Zuckerman, Director, The Center for Civic Media.

One of the popular videos, Reynolds video is perfect example of how citizen journalism is bringing out change in perception of media, according to Dan Gillmor, Professor, Arizona State University and author of a book on citizen journalism. He further added that, “Reynolds changed our ‘perception of media’ with the shocking and heartbreaking real-time web video of the last minutes of Philando Castile's life. Her video was a three-faceted act: witnessing, activism and journalism and showed the velocity of change is accelerating in citizen news production.” Gillmor and other media experts had raised questions over the role of Facebook when it took down Reynolds videos without restoring it. He further added that, “Facebook hasn't given a plausible explanation for its initial removal of Reynolds' video. The point is that the video remains visible because Facebook allows it to be visible. But Reynolds taught us that we all have an obligation to witness and record some things even if we are not directly part of what's happening.”

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