What to do with the audience. About the pros and cons, usefulness and feasibility of citizen journalism

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WHAT TO DO WITH THE AUDIENCE

About the pros and cons, usefulness and feasibility of citizen journalism

Nina Janssens nina.janssens@hotmail.com 6036937 27-06-2014 Mr Ph.D. B.G.M. de Waal Mr S. Scholz

Media Studies: Television and Cross-Media Studies University of Amsterdam

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After five months of collecting, reading, analyzing, interviewing, writing and editing, my thesis is finally finished. I would like to thank my supervisor Martijn de Waal, who has put a lot of time and thought in this thesis, for his recurrent feedback and positive encouragement. I also would like to thank the journalists, Merel Schut, Bas de Vries, Mark Vos and the editorial office of WUZ, for the time they gave me to interview them and for the interesting contributions to the research.

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ABSTRACT

The interactive environment has changed the relationship between journalists and their audience. Nowadays the audience has the possibilities to participate in every phase of the process of news production and is more involved and interactive than before. How are the professional journalists dealing with the development that can be called citizen journalism and how can they benefit? And what do the developments mean for the societal functions of journalism? This thesis examines the debate about citizen journalism, four Dutch examples and the point of view of four professional journalists. It seems that citizen journalists can indeed improve journalism in several ways, but collaboration is the key word. Only in cooperation with professional journalists, journalism can benefit and uphold its democratic and qualitative function. It also seems that citizen journalism has changed the process of news production, as well as the set-up of editorial offices. Professional journalists more and more recognize and adapt to the abilities of citizens, which are augmented in the interactive environment.

KEYWORDS

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1. INTRODUCTION

In 2012, on September 21, the small village of Haren turned into a battlefield. A fifteen-year-old girl had (accidentally) sent an open invitation on Facebook to celebrate her birthday. Not only her friends, but also 30.000 unknown people announced to join. Although the party was cancelled immediately and the neighbourhood was shut off, still thousands of people travelled to the little village in Groningen. It resulted in riots, hospitalizations, arrests and a plundered supermarket. ‘Project Haren’ (called after the movie Project X, about a party that also got out of control) had the country it its grip since early September and there was a lot of attention in the media. Also that night many people stayed informed and watched the live stream that several news platforms broadcasted. Reporting that night however wasn’t easy. It wasn't clear what was going to happen and where, press conferences weren’t given, injuries and deaths were neither confirmed nor denied and reporters were harassed by rioting youth. In the meantime, the news source @HarenLive1_{, a newly, that night created Twitter account, was} able to continue reporting. The account was an initiative of seven students with no background in journalism. Five of them watched the live stream, one person kept in touch with people on the ground and the last one wrote messages for Twitter. They sent about 100 tweets and gathered almost 12.000 followers that evening. Apparently, the Twitter account of the amateur journalists was found as newsworthy as other (based) news outlets.

This example shows how technological developments and especially the advent of the Internet brought lots of changes in the media environment. The possibilities for interactivity and participation, among other things, make the audience more active and involved than before. This is also visible in the field of journalism. The relationship between journalists and their audience has significantly changed. The audience is able to raise their voices for example by giving live reports of an event on Twitter, but also by giving smaller contributions like commenting on news websites, uploading photo’s for the weather report, or crowdsourcing information. Not only the professional journalist makes journalistic work and it is not only the professional journalist from whom citizens get their first hand news. This developing scale of user contributions to the news can be called ‘citizen journalism’. Moreover, this social development, the appearance of citizen journalism, is the main topic of this master thesis. It’s important and relevant to examine this development, because it’s a current topic and it concerns many people: a lot is already written about the changes in journalism and pros and cons are alternating. Some people are optimistic about the

1_{Now called @OnrustBrigade}

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democratization for citizens. Others don’t agree on the usefulness of citizens being part of the news process, they argue that the quality decreases for example. However, there are examples where journalism involves citizens and benefits from the changing role of the audience. These examples are able to anticipate both the advantages and the disadvantages of citizen journalism and profit from it. In other words, these examples don’t see citizen journalism and professional journalism as opposites, but to what extent they can be complementary. In the next chapters I will examine what citizen journalism is and how it can be approached. The research question is:

What has changed in the relationship between journalists and their audience in the interactive environment and how can this changing relationship be deployed in favour of journalism?

There are three sets of sub questions to support the main one. First professional journalism will be addressed. How is it defined and what is its function in society? Second the interactive environment will be analysed. What has changed compared to the traditional environment of journalism and how does it enable citizens to become active in journalism? And third: to what extent can journalism benefit from the rise of the interactive environment and what does it mean for its societal functions? To answer these questions the thesis is split up in six chapters in which I will pay attention to both theoretical aspects of the research questions, as well as empirical ones by studying four case studies of citizen journalism in The Netherlands.

In the second chapter the theoretical framework will be examined concerning the rise of an interactive environment that allows citizens to participate in the process of news production. The debate on (citizen) journalism is the centre of attention. Literature is studied, several theorists are discussed, pros and cons are analysed and a definition of (citizen) journalism is composed. In other words, a clear overview of the debate about the advent of citizen journalism will be given. In this overview, a division will be made between the idealistic and empirical arguments. It is meant to show how citizen journalism works in theory. From that framework I will turn to the practice of citizen journalism in The Netherlands by looking at a number of case studies and evaluating the ways in which they relate to professional journalism. In the third chapter the methodology will be clarified, which is used in the fourth chapter to analyse citizen journalism working in practice. That fourth chapter contains the analyses of the content and interfaces of four Dutch examples with citizens involved in the process of news production. Keeping the debate in mind, the examples will show what criteria are necessary for a successful journalistic initiative with citizens. What are effective approaches to deploy citizen journalism? What do, or are the citizens allowed to do and in which way? And how does journalism (or: the news product)

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benefit from it? It’s interesting to mention here that several initiatives don’t exist anymore. Why didn’t these initiatives succeed as expected? The fifth chapter includes the analysis of interviews with professional journalists who are dealing with citizen journalism. What do they think of the citizen journalists, their influence and feasibility? And what do they think of the debate about this topic? This meta-analysis is useful to explain in what way the changing relationship between journalists and their audience (a.k.a. the citizen journalists) can be deployed in favour of journalism. A conclusion follows at the end.

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2. WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY AND HOW?

Citizen journalism in theory

2.1 Things are changing

The developments in journalism involve many people and several articles and books are already written about the changing environment. Not everyone has the same opinion about the advantages of citizens involved in the production of news and not everyone agrees on what should be the future of journalism. However, it’s interesting to see that there are two different approaches in the debate. Normative and idealistic arguments are set up against empiric ones. In this chapter an overview of the debate will be given and an oversight of the developments, to show what is going on. Furthermore it will be discussed, what (citizen) journalism really is and comprises.

2.1.1 Traditional journalism

The traditional idea of journalism is that journalists serve as agents between politics and society. They inform citizens about issues at stake in the democratic society, make them aware and keep them involved. Next to that, an original thought is that journalists are autonomous. They work independently and decide on their own what is relevant to share. As Bart Brouwers states: “Journalism is truth seeking storytelling aimed at citizens, which is editorially independent” (78). Deuze and Bardoel add to this: “Journalism, as it can be seen traditionally or classically, is all about giving a critical account of daily events, […] of serving as a resource for participating in the politics and culture of (a democratic) society” (12). Lewis, Kaufhold and Lasorsa explain the role of traditional journalism as that of a gatekeeper, a guardian for society:

That journalistic attitude of autonomous expertise has long been part of the profession’s ideology, which generally has incorporated five ideal-typical traits: public service, objectivity, autonomy, immediacy, and ethics. The implicit thread running through each is that professional journalists derive much of their sense of purpose through their control of information in their various roles as watchdog, gatekeeper, and guardian for society. (165)

Journalists were in direct control of the information flow and that’s why they fitted in the role as gatekeeper. McQuail defines gatekeeping as “the process by which selections are made in media work, especially decisions whether or not to admit a particular news story to pass

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through the ‘gates’ of a news medium into the news channels” (213). The gatekeeping role stood for quality and neutrality (Domingo et al 326). In other words, the process of news production, through different phases like collecting, analyzing and reporting to editing and distributing, was in hands of the journalists. The audience was only able to discuss the disseminated news afterwards. Professional journalists also work according to a journalistic method that entails qualitative codes set up by chief editors and other important figures. This method contains traditional values of and ideals about the journalistic profession and is also a manner to protect the ‘craft’ (Witschge 121). For example, journalists should never be prejudiced or biased and all sides of a story have to be considered before reported. Objectivity, neutrality and reliability seem to be the key terms. Gilad Lotan et al state that: “..objectivity has represented an ideal that a story or piece of information stands on its own regardless of the reporter” (1400).Philip Mitchell adds that the responsibility of journalists is based on awareness of the expectations and suppositions of the audience, transparency of the news process and clarity about in what way words of sources are interpreted (3/4).

2.1.2 Technological changes

However, this traditional idea is under criticism. The advent of the Internet changed the role of the audience and simultaneously that of the professional journalists. Nowadays, citizens have several possibilities to participate in the process of news production. For instance almost everyone has a mobile phone with a camera that enables them to be the first person filming a burning house around the corner. Almost everyone has direct access to the Internet, on which they can upload their video and subsequently share it with people all over the world. Whereas in the past the audience was only active in the discussing phase, nowadays they can participate in every phase. The phase of discussing is even expanded because of the Internet. Most of the news organisations have their news items gathered on websites and give the audience the possibility to immediately respond to these articles and discuss them with complete strangers. In other words the technological changes brought along an interactive environment that changed the attitude of citizens and moreover the relationship between journalists and their audience.

2.1.3 A changing relationship

Deuze and Bardoel examine this changing relationship between journalists and the audience on three levels. The first level is technological. As already mentioned, technological convergence is clearly the prime drive, due to all the possibilities of the Internet. The advent of the Internet and other technological developments affected the role of the professional journalist and the audience a lot. Nowadays, the professional journalists aren’t the only

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sources from whom citizens get their first hand news, because on the Internet news sources can be found anywhere. Deuze states that today’s citizens are ‘monitorial’. They scan “all kinds of news and information sources for the topics that matter to him personally” (1). According to Axel Bruns this means that professional journalists can no longer be gatekeepers: “We have entered a massively multi-channel environment in which ‘keeping the gates’ to save users from the flood of information is no longer possible” (Bruns, News

Produsage 4). Gatekeeping is, according to Bruns, a newsgathering practice that belongs to

the old media like print and broadcast. With the advent of the Internet and other new media, the journalists can better accept the role of gatewatcher and help citizens filter what has already published elsewhere. “Gatewatchers may be seen as publicising news items which suit their and their audiences’ mythic construction of the world” (Bruns, Gatewatching, Not

Gatekeeping 6). In this sense, the journalist can be seen as a guide, who leads the citizens

through the overload of information that Web 2.0 brings along (Bardoel and Deuze 6). Besides, the audience isn’t just absorbing information passively, but it’s willing to participate actively. To interpret this Bruns uses the term ‘produser’, an aggregation of the words producer and user (Bruns, News Produsage 9). Jay Rosen even goes further and speaks of ‘the people formerly known as the audience’: “Think of passengers on your ship who got a boat of their own. The writing readers. The viewers who picked up a camera” (quote found on his website). In the case of journalism, produsers are more and more able to join the process of news production. The audience can extend its position. They do not only receive the news, but can be part of the journalistic process by contributing eyewitness reports, uploading photos, crowdsourcing information and distributing news across several social media websites. Alfred Hermida, Seth C. Lewis and Rodrigo Zamith argue in their article that the social media platforms potentially increase the number of actors involved in the production of news (8). Mark Deuze calls this blurring distinction between journalists and the public ‘liquid journalism’:

Such a liquid journalism truly works in the service of the network society, deeply respects the rights and privileges of each and every consumer-citizen to be a maker and user of his own news, and enthusiastically embraces its role as, to paraphrase James Carey, an amplifier of the conversation society has with itself. (1)

Technological possibilities shouldn’t be mixed up with social realities according to Bardoel and Deuze. They state that the technological developments have to be linked to social-cultural developments; the second level. Individualisation and ‘time-space distantiation’ are indeed sociological trends that have to be considered too. According to Bardoel and Deuze a new type of citizen emerges, a citizen that can be seen as a heterogeneous individual instead of

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part of a homogeneous collective. At the same time these citizens can be part of several (virtual) communities on global, local or special interest basis, because of the blurring boundaries. The new citizens “belong – thanks to the death of distance and the increased span of control caused by new technologies – to many communities – big and small, near or distant – at the same time” (8). In combination with Web 2.0 these citizens brought even bigger changes to the journalistic field. Nowadays users are able to interact and collaborate and are part of the Generation C, the generation of content creators (Bruns, News Produsage 17/18). Next to this, these aspects can be linked to the third level, the level of journalistic profession. “The public […] is liberating itself by means of individualisation” (9) and the paternalistic characteristics of journalism are old-fashioned. Bardoel and Deuze prefer “..a new, more pragmatic arrangement [that] leads to a new emancipation of the information user […] Journalism will become a profession that provides services not to collectives, but first and foremost to individuals, and not only in their capacity as citizens, but also as consumers, employees and clients” (7-9). The news user is emancipating and demanding a more egalitarian position in process of news production (Costera Meijer 225). The hierarchical communication system of one to many, with the journalist as sender and the audience as receiver, is antiquated. Nowadays, many can inform many and receivers can be senders as well. Dan Gillmor predicts in his book that citizen journalists break down the monopoly of the ‘Big Media’. Instead of one-way traffic, a dialogue is arising (13). It’s clear that the balance of power between professional journalists and their audience is shifting. The relationship they have nowadays can be called horizontal and bottom-up, instead of vertical and top-down. According to Lindsay Palmer, a ‘symbiotic relationship’ is increasing (368).

2.1.4 A changing definition

Since the relationship between the journalists and the audience is shifting, the definition of journalism is also affected. Different definitions of citizen journalism gradually came up, which show different forms and scales of public commitment. In 1999, Jay Rosen already came up with the concept of ‘public journalism’. By this he meant, inter alia, that people should be addressed “as citizens, potential participants in public affairs, rather than victims or spectators” (quoted in Kurpius 855-6). “The basic idea is that when citizens and journalists closely collaborate, participate in meetings and debates and publicly discuss relevant information, this would benefit the local community and would do justice to the important democratic role of journalism in society” (Tom Bakker 4). News should be handled as a conversation instead of a lecture (Domingo et al 327). A change in the relationship between journalists and their audience is already made. In between should it be noticed that journalists and citizens have always cooperated:

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Of course, user contribution to the news product has been around for far longer than the Web itself (e.g., in the form of letters to the editor), but in the online environment something fundamentally different has emerged: The ease of accessing, creating, and sharing digital information has created the right conditions for commons-based peer production across a range of media—including journalism and the online newspaper. (Lewis, Kaufhold and Lasorsa 165)

Due to the technological developments the cooperation intensifies and improves. The citizens are even able to participate actively. The term ‘participatory journalism’ makes this clear. Domingo et al state that: “This model implies that some of the institutionalised communication functions of agencies and journalistic media can be performed by individual society members and organisations, while others still lie in the hands of the communication institutions” (331). The citizens are partly involved in the process of news production by the institutions. Of the same level is the term ‘user-generated journalism’ (Lewis, Kaufhold and Lasorsa 8), which points out the use of user-generated content for journalistic practices. Jackie Harrison examined the content that citizen journalists provide for the BBC Hub and states that there are four types of user-generated content: “First a form of unsolicited news story: second a form of solicited content for specific extant news stories; third a form of expeditious content for specific items and features, and fourth a form of audience watchdog content” (1). A different approach in defining citizens turning into news produsers is that of ‘alternative journalism’ and ‘amateur journalism’. These terms are used to make a distinction between the practices of citizens and professionals (van Hooven 21) and mainstream media (Coyer 166). Dan Gillmor describes this development as democratic and uses the term ‘grassroots journalism’, considering it to be journalism by the people, for the people: “News was being produced by regular people who had something to say and show, and not solely by the “official” news organizations that had traditionally decided how the first draft of history would look” (10).

When considering the opportunities the changes in journalism bring along, theorists came up with the concept of ‘network journalism’. Bregtje van der Haak, Michael Parks and Manuel Castells use this term in their article. They argue that future journalists have to be networked: “The notion of the isolated journalist working alone, whether toiling at his desk in a newsroom or reporting from a crime scene or a disaster, is obsolete. Every journalist becomes a node in a network.” (2927). One person can’t do all the journalistic activities by him/herself. Deuze and Bardoel also state that the future journalist has to be networked, open and responsive (14). There should be “convergence between the core competences and functions of journalists and the civic potential of online journalism” (1). This can be linked to the concept Bruns writes about, of ‘Pro-Am journalism’. By this he means that both professional (industrial production) and amateur (community produsage) have valuable

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contributions and should collaborate (Bruns, News Produsage 16). Finally a variant should be mentioned of the citizen journalist working solely, without any help or interference of professional journalism.

It appears that there’s not one overall concept to grasp the developments in journalism dealing with an active audience. However, the term used in this thesis is ‘citizen journalism’, because it covers the examination of the changing relationship between journalists and the audience the most. The definition of citizen journalism adopted in this thesis is inspired by Jay Rosen, who states that: “When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another, that’s citizen journalism” (quoted in Lewis, Kaufhold and Lasorsa 166). He’s quite ground breaking by saying that there’s no audience, as in passively receiving the news, anymore. It should be considered that not every citizen is as active as he pretends. A more to the point definition is the one of Watson, who states: “Citizen journalism involves the activities of members of the public in contributing to the production and distribution of news items in society” (quoted in van Hooven 20). Luke Goode adds: “‘Citizen journalism’ refers to a range of web-based [italics NJ] practices whereby ‘ordinary’ users engage in journalistic practices. Citizen journalism includes practices such as current affairs-based blogging, photo and video sharing, and posting eyewitness commentary on current events” (1288). In other words the term citizen journalism covers different levels and the term should not be taken too literally:

To some extent, the term is a misnomer; it implies that professional journalists are not also citizens (meaning in this context, invested in the future political and societal course of their country), and it equates the news-related activities of “citizen journalists” with the journalism committed by professional staff in the news industry – strictly speaking, both these assumptions are incorrect. (Bruns and Highfield 4)

For Lewis, Goode and this thesis, the term is considered as a citizen contribution, no matter how big and in whatever phase of the process of news production. If it is in the phase of collecting, or in the phase of analyzing, reporting, editing or discussing it can already be considered as citizen journalism. Also the phase of distributing counts. As Bart Brouwers states, not only producing is easier for citizens, but also publishing. It’s not necessary to have a press, a fleet of lorries or expensive licenses to distribute anymore. Instead it’s enough to have a Twitter account to be a publisher of news (Brouwers 52). Thus what should be added, and what Luke Goode already touched on, is that these citizen journalistic activities happen in the interactive environment. Otherwise there is no difference compared to the former relationship between journalists and the audience.

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2.2 Pros and cons

The previous paragraphs showed some of the context in which (the definition of) citizen journalism developed. As already mentioned a lot is written about the advantages and/ or disadvantages of this upcoming phenomenon. A division can be made between broader and more detailed arguments. Some people consider citizen journalism as a development and theorize about the effect it has on society and the function of journalism in general (paragraph 2.2.1 Democratic function of journalism). Others are more pragmatic and theorize about the effect citizen journalism has on the news produced (paragraph 2.2.2 Quality of journalism). Furthermore, a division can be made between idealistically and empirical arguments in the debate about citizen journalism. Some authors are ‘guru’s’ that have ideals when considering citizen involvement, they argue in favour or against citizen journalism. Others have done empirical research on the content or on the way professional journalistic organizations dealt with e.g. citizen journalism. Which shaped their arguments. In the third paragraph these arguments will be revised to come up with criteria that will be used to analyze the examples of citizen journalism in chapter four.

2.2.1 Democratic function of journalism

Citizens interfering in the process of news production; it is argued to be a democratic development. Citizens are empowered, because they can raise their voices (Costera Meijer 225). Irene Costera Meijer argues that the audience asks for an extension of the democratic function of journalism (224). Hermida, Lewis and Zamith argue that “social media allow for new relations that potentially disrupt hierarchical structures and erode the traditional distinction between the producer and consumer of news and information (6). Dan Gillmor is one of the most well known proponents of this democratization process. He is the author of the book We Media and states that “the journalism-as-lecture model, in which organizations tell the audience what the news is and the audience either buys it or doesn’t [turns] into some-thing bottom-up, interactive, and democratic” (125/126). A more dialogical kind of journalism is deriving (Witschge 119; Hermida, Lewis and Zamith 21). Domingo et al consider this changing relationship between journalists and the audience, to be a more reciprocal relationship (327). Philip M. Napoli also argues in favor of the democratic function of citizen journalism and calls it an egalitarian process. Masses can share information with masses, instead of being receivers of traditional one-way disseminated information (508/9). Moreover, it is argued that the empowerment of citizen journalists also leads to influence on the agenda setting of news. Considerations of professional journalists about what is important to report, is affected by efforts and interests of the active citizens. Alfred

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Hermida et al also researched the influence of the audience on the agenda setting, by examining which sources on Twitter radio maker Andy Carvin used for his reporting about the Arab Spring. They state that sources are influential: “The interplay between journalists and sources is a significant factor in affecting what and who makes the news. Sources help to shape how events and issues are reported, influencing the public’s understanding of the world” (2). Previously journalists only used some elite sources, which were in this way ascending the ‘hierarchy of credibility’. Hermida et al argue in their article that Web 2.0 disrupts these hierarchical structures and prove that the alternative voices of citizens using Twitter are replacing the elite sources: “In his coverage, Carvin gave a higher priority to the messages from citizens who were expressing their demands for social change, recording and sharing their experiences on Twitter” (19). In other words, citizen journalists are getting more influential. Jackie Harrison also researched this statement and studied citizen journalists (voluntarily) working for the BBC hub, a user generated content desk of the BBC. She came to the conclusion that the news agenda is indeed influenced by citizen journalists and witnessed the soft news agenda, with mainly human-interest topics growing (255). Gabe Mythen also examined the influence of citizens involved in the process of news production and noticed that the presentation of news is more populistic than before. It has changed since the advent of citizen journalism. The news agenda now is “more concerned with reporting drama and sensation than factual or political news” (52).

However, some theorists don’t agree with these arguments. Tamara Witschge researched this democratic topic. She interviewed several professional journalists and asked them for their opinion about citizen journalism. What she deduces from these interviews is that “the dominant discourse on user participation does not value audience contribution in the news process as a great democratising feature” (120). The contributions of citizen journalists are just seen as ‘fill up’ (Witschge 123). Luke Goode argues that the democratization is just an imagination, fed by several characteristics. For example, “the factors which shape the news agenda – commercial and ideological influences, journalistic routines, constraints, professional norms and news values – are relatively non-transparent to audience” (1292). Goode analyzed several websites with citizen journalistic practices and concluded by saying that there is a ‘fallacy of neutrality’. Citizen journalists have to deal with moderators, ‘hardwired’ hierarchies and “editorial staff whose role is actually to select, filter or edit citizen-generated material before it is published online” (1302/3). In this way, the work of professionals is actually influencing the input of the citizens. Hermida and Thurman concluded the same after studying the integration of user-generated content within British newspaper websites. The user contributions seemed to be framed by norms and values of others: “The value in user participation becomes not just the content itself, but how it is sifted, organised and presented by professional journalists” (13). Anna Maria Johnson and Henrik

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Örnebring examined the relationship between journalists and the audience by analyzing the degree of participation and the type of content the citizen journalists provided on online newspaper websites. They call citizen journalism paradoxical, because it can both be seen as empowering as an ‘interactive illusion’:

The ‘we write, you read’-principle still rules the newsroom and UGC is placed within this

framework. Media professionals control the management of the production process, and this confirms the conclusion that media organizations are not willing (nor institutionally able) to release power over the production process to the user. (128/ 141)

What they also witnessed was that citizen journalists were able to join some of the phases of the process of news production, while others were under complete control of professional journalists (141). Citizen journalists didn’t have the freedom to do all the things they wanted. Furthermore citizen journalists were dependent of the mainstream media (the professionals). They need the mainstream media for input, because that’s where they get their background information. It’s harder for to get first-hand information, when someone isn’t a ‘real’ journalist (Bruns, News Produsage 11). Also for the output, for the wider dissemination of ideas, citizen journalists need the mainstream media. The impact of reports by citizen journalists is bigger when it manages to filter back into mainstream media coverage (Bruns,

News Produsage 14; van Dijck 53). From political economic point of view, another inequality

between citizen and professional journalists can be mentioned. While citizen journalists work for free, professional journalists get paid for their work and copyright laws protect their work. The contributions of citizen journalists are unpaid and can be used by everyone (Palmer 375). In other words, the relationship between journalists and the public is changing, but this relationship isn’t that democratic, influencing and equal all the time. However, the democratic function of journalism can be considered extended by the advent of participating and involved citizen journalists. Journalism doesn’t only function as an agent between politics and society that informs citizens about issues at stake in the democratic society and makes them aware of it; journalism also actively involves them in it. Nowadays citizens can raise their voices and participate actively in a democratic society - among other things - thanks to the developments in the journalistic area. Thus can be concluded that journalism can acquire an extra democratic dimension.

2.2.2 Quality of journalism

A more detailed and pragmatic perspective on citizen journalism is that of the effect these journalists have on the news produced. Several theorists argue that this content enlarges the quality of the news. Tim O’Reilly, the man who made the term Web 2.0 popular, already

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stated: “One of the key lessons of the Web 2.0 era is this: Users add value” (quote found on his website). Thus according to O’Reilly the user-generated content they bring along is equally valuable. According to Bruns citizen journalists can extend the breadth of journalistic coverage by reporting. Journalists don’t have as much knowledge as specialists have and they also don’t know what is going on a hyperlocal level (Bruns, News Produsage 7). Furthermore, it’s also a general thought that citizen journalism makes journalism better. For example the ‘adding of colour’ and personal touch bring authenticity. This can be seen as a great advantage (Witschge 126). Also citizen journalists can “improve the depth of journalistic coverage by offering more a detailed evaluation of current affairs, incorporating a greater variety of critical voices and thereby achieving a more multiperspectival coverage of the news” (Bruns, News Produsage 8). According to Mythen this broadening of voices and issues is the greatest promise of citizen journalism (55). Tom Bakker states that: “It is argued that increased participation of citizens is a welcome contribution for public discourse, because it allows for more diverse, open and interactive information and discussions” (2). Also in the phase of news collection, citizen journalists can bring more voices. Van der Haak, Parks and Castells state: “The unearthing and collecting of information by citizen journalists exponentially increases the ability to know multiple dimensions of an evolving reality, on a global scale, with local specificity” (2928).

Carpenter did a quantitative content analysis to inventory the diversity of the contributions of citizen journalists for online newspapers and she concluded that: “Based on the findings from a quantitative content analysis (n = 962), online citizen journalism articles were more likely to feature a greater diversity of topics, information from outside sources and multimedia and interactive features. The findings suggest online citizen journalism content adds to the diversity of information available in the marketplace” (1). Also Hermida, Lewis and Zamith, who - as already mentioned before - examined what sources on Twitter radio maker Carvin used for his reporting about the Arab Spring, came to a similar conclusion and stated that “the results lend some support to the premise that social media serve as a means to broaden the range of voices in the news. In his coverage, Carvin gave a higher priority to the messages from citizens who were expressing their demands for social change, recording and sharing their experiences on Twitter. Such an approach to reporting could be considered as a more representative form of journalism..” (19).

An other positive thing is that citizen journalists support the professional journalists, by sourcing or reporting information. Van der Haak, Parks and Castells state in their article that journalism shouldn’t be considered like it’s in crisis, but that the developments should be considered as something positive:

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The networked journalism of the digital age is not a threat to the independence and quality of professional journalism, but a liberation from strict corporate control. It is an opportunity for journalists to each excel in a unique way, and for society to benefit, both from an endless expansion of information, and from meaningful interpretation of this information in a world characterized by informed bewilderment. (2935)

The overall thought is that citizen journalists bring up more diversity, breadth and depth to the table. However, not everyone is that positive about citizen journalists involved in the process of news production. Bruns states that citizen journalists just commit random acts of journalism. They only focus on specific issues, which they personally find interesting. They contribute “news and commentary only occasionally and on selected topics rather than achieving a comprehensive coverage of the news” (Bruns, News Produsage 2). Next to that, he states that citizen journalists have another style over coverage. Most of the time they just provide an opinion or give commentary on events. This is because they don’t have the equipment and skills to gain access to and report from events as they happen (Bruns, News

Produsage 3). In other words, the long-standing journalistic method and ethics are under

pressure. Mythen examines in his article “the range of effects that citizen journalism has on the production and presentation of risk information” (45) and he has his concerns about objectivity, ethics and distortion: “Politicised citizen journalists have rallied against the tendency within professional journalism to produce black and white accounts of news events that gloss over the grey areas that might otherwise be productively debated” (49; Bruns, News

Produsage 3). Hermida, Lewis and Zamith are also concerned with the objectivity that is

challenged (19) and Andrew Keen summarized the consequences as follows:

This blurring of lines between the audience and the author, between fact and fiction, between invention and reality further obscures objectivity. The cult of the amateur has made it increasingly difficult to determine the difference between reader and writer, between artist and spin doctor, between art and advertisement, between amateur and expert. The result? The decline of the quality and reliability of the information we receive, thereby distorting, if not outrightly corrupting, our national civic conversation. (quoted in Tom Bakker 3)

The decline of objectivity is even dangerous for the national civic conversation – the democratic function of journalism. Hermida and Thurman interviewed journalistic professionals in the United Kingdom and based their conclusion on this information: “Our study suggests that, in the longer term, established news organizations are shifting towards the retention of a traditional gate-keeping role towards UGC. This fits in with the risk-averse nature of newspapers and reflects editors’ continuing concerns about reputation, trust and legal issues” (354). As discussed above, some scholars argue that citizen journalists increase

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the diversity of stories. However, Johnson and Örnebring actually prove that the content of these journalists isn’t that diversified. They studied the input of citizen journalists and distinguished three types: “information-oriented content, entertainment/ popular culture-oriented content, and personal/ social/ expressive culture-oriented content” (132). By conclusion the authors argue that citizen journalists mostly contribute personal content rather than information-oriented content (127). Besides, not everyone agrees on the notion that the free labour voluntary citizen journalists do, is a positive development. The editing and controlling of legality can be seen as energy consuming for instance (Piet Bakker 250). Thus it seems that citizen journalists can increase the quality, but that their input can only be workable if professional journalists supervise it. Thereby, it seems that citizen journalists don’t always work according to the journalistic method. They don’t consider the same norms and values as professionals do. Objectivity, reliability and neutrality aren’t their key terms when reporting and that’s why not everyone agrees on the utility of citizen journalists.

2.3 Anticipating and complementing

As Bruns already stated in his article: “‘citizen’ or ‘amateur’ journalists are positioned as inherently different from, and possibly in competition with, ‘professional’ journalists” (Bruns,

News Produsage 1). Instead he states that citizen and professional journalists can and should

complement each other. Indeed, if citizen journalists want their in- and output to be meaningful for journalism in general, it needs the help of professionals. Someone who isn’t a ‘real’ journalist doesn’t get first-hand information from, for example, governmental organisations that easy as professionals do (Bruns 11). They also need mainstream media to enlarge the impact of their reports, because the mainstream media achieve wider dissemination (Bruns 14). Mythen is one of the theorists who argues in favour of a combination of the skills of professional journalists with the civic possibilities of citizen journalists (48). Bart Brouwers prospects in his book that if the skills of the journalist are combined with the knowledge of the former audience, it will lead ‘definitely’ to a better supply of information (49). Also Clyde H. Bentley is very positive, considering the opportunities citizen journalism brings in combination with professional journalism: “Citizen journalism is no more a replacement for professional journalism than teabags are a replacement for water. Both can stand comfortably alone, but when combined they produce something quite wonderful” (2). To make a collaboration work, both citizen and journalism in general have to be satisfied. This means that the examples have to anticipate both the advantages and disadvantages. Gillmor states:

The Net is overturning so many of the things we’ve assumed about media and business models that we can scarcely keep up with the changes; it’s difficult to maintain perspective

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amid the shift from a top-down hierarchy to something vastly more democratic and, yes, messy. But we have to try, and making our own news nowhere is that more essential than in that oldest form of information: the news. We will be blessed with new kinds of perspective in this emergent system, and we will learn how to make it work for everyone. (236/7)

In the following chapters it will be examined how citizen journalism works for everyone. As this chapter already showed, especially democratization and quality are important terms when investigating citizen journalistic practices. The interactive environment makes it possible for everyone to get information from all over the world, and to share information with the whole world. This is considered a democratic development. The audience is empowered and influential. However, not everyone agrees on this as it seems. Not every professional journalistic organisation gives their audience as much freedom as prospected. This has much to do with quality. There are different opinions about whether the citizen journalists contribute to the quality of journalistic products or not. Some theorists state that citizen journalists aren’t able to uphold the traditional qualitative conditions, like objectivity, reliability and neutrality. While others think that citizen journalists can indeed increase the quality by bringing diversity, depth and breadth for instance. In the following chapters the democratic and qualitative features of the four examples will be addressed, to get to know in what way citizen journalists can be deployed in favour of journalism.

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3. METHODOLOGY

In the next chapter it will be examined how an (inter)active audience can work in a journalistic environment by analyzing four Dutch citizen journalistic examples. Interesting to mention here, is that some Dutch examples with citizen journalistic practices don’t exist anymore. Skoeps, Unieuws (RTV Utrecht), Happenex, Dorpspleinen (Tubantia), are all short-term examples, which were forced to stop mainly because of financial reasons. However, there are also several examples of citizen journalistic practices that do work successfully. The four examples chosen for the analysis are: Dichtbij, NOS Net, NUjij, and WUZ. These are four of the most well-known Dutch examples of citizen involvement in the process of news production. Moreover, the reason that these examples are chosen is because they represent a diverse range of citizen journalistic contributions and different ways of citizen involvement. To approach these examples both an interface and a content analysis will be done. These sorts of analyses are ways to describe media texts systematically, quantitatively and objective and it is useful to make comparisons between different texts. To do this, two frames with criteria will be applied to all of them. These frames consist aspects from the debate discussed above about the democratic function of journalism and the quality of journalism. The analyses also entail real participation, to get to know and demonstrate what a citizen journalist can do. The articles are all observed for one day in the last week of April and the first part of May 2014: Dichtbij on the 16th of April, NOS Net on the 25th of April, NUjij on the 9th of May and WUZ on the 16th of May.

First the democratic function of journalism will be addressed. For this part of the discussion the interface will be analysed to see what is visible on first sight. What do the examples look like and how do they work? Criteria that are used here are freedom, empowerment, independency, influence and transparency. Questions that belong to these criteria are: Do the citizens have much freedom? What are the things they can do and in what phase? Is it easy to contribute? How is this visible on the website? Are the citizen journalists empowered? Can they be heard? Can this website be seen as empowering? How? Are the citizens independent? Do they work/ participate on their own? How is it visible on the website? And what is actually the role of the professional journalists? Are the citizen journalists influencing the process of news production? Do they influence the agenda setting? Is their input influencing? How is this reflected on the website? Is the news process on this website transparent? Is it clear how the journalistic work is done? How is this reflected on the website? These questions are useful to get to know how and in what extent journalism has

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democratized and what this means for the citizen journalists.

Secondly the quality of journalism will be perceived. For this part of the discussion the content will be analysed to see what the citizen journalists come up with. Aspects addressed here are objectivity, reliability, breadth, depth and diversity and the supporting questions are: Is the content with citizen journalists involved objective? Can it be called neutral? Is the input unprejudiced? Is the content with citizen journalists involved reliable? (For example: Are all sides of the story considered? Are no opinions and personal issues announced? Isn’t it a matter of self-promotion or other personal interests?) Is the content with citizen journalists involved extending the journalistic coverage? Is the content specialized or local? Does the content with citizen journalists involved entail a greater variety of voices? And does it contain more detailed evaluation? Do citizen journalists bring more diversity to the table? Does citizen journalism increase the broadening of voices?2_{This analysis will show} if the input of citizen journalists differs from that provided by professional journalists and in what way it can increase the quality. What are advantages? It will also tell something about the long-standing journalistic method and ethics; are they under pressure? If that’s the case, in what way do the professional journalists respond to qualitative disadvantages and possible shortcomings? Can the input (still) be valuable for the journalistic product/ journalism in general? In addition will be examined to what extent the professional and citizen journalists collaborate and complement each other.

In the fifth chapter all these aspects will be analysed and discussed with journalists bound to these examples to see how citizen journalists can be approached in favour of journalism. This method, the interview, is a way of collecting information by having a conversation. This interview method is chosen because the opinions and experiences of the journalists are useful considering this topic. They can come up with information that can’t be retrieved by just looking at the examples. On the basis of a questionnaire the journalists are asked to reflect on the debate (what do they think of citizen journalism) and on the results of the analyses (do they agree and do they have further insights). Questions asked are: Why do the examples approach the citizen journalists in the way they do? Is the democratic function of journalism expanded and (why) is this a positive development? Is the input of citizens valuable, useful and influential? What are advantages and disadvantages? Are the journalistic method and ethics under pressure? Can journalism (still) benefit from these contributions and how? This meta-analysis will show what arguments are important or not considering citizen journalism and how journalism can benefit from citizen journalists.

2_{I’m aware of the ambiguity the term ‘diversity’ brings, because it could also fit within the framework of}

democratization: the broadening of voices is indeed a democratic development. However as the analysis of NOS Net shows, the diversity can increase while the journalistic organisation isn’t that democratized. Using this category as a manner to underline that the quality of journalism increases by a broadening of topics and voices, makes it workable.

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Democratic

function Criteria for interface analysis Consequence for / effect on journalism

Pro/ advantage Con/ disadvantage

Freedom

Do the citizens have much freedom? What are the things they can do and in what phase? Is it easy to contribute? How is this visible on the website?

Empowerment

Are the citizen journalists empowered? Can they be heard? Can this website be seen as empowering? How? Independency

Are the citizens independent? Do they work/ participate on their own? How is it visible on the website?

Influence

Are the citizen journalists influencing the process of news production? Do they influence the agenda setting? How is this reflected on the website?

Transparency

Is the news process on this website transparent? Is it clear how the journalistic work is done? How is this reflected on the website?

Quality Criteria for content analysis Consequence for/ effect on journalism

Objectivity

Is the content with citizen journalists involved objective? Can it be called neutral? Is the input unprejudiced?

Reliability

Is the content with citizen journalists involved reliable? Are all sides of the story considered?

Breadth

Is the content with citizen journalists involved extending the journalistic coverage? Is the content specialized or local?

Depth

Does the content with citizen journalists involved entail a greater variety of voices? And does it contain more detailed evaluation?

Diversity

Do citizen journalists bring more diversity to the table? Does citizen journalism increase the broadening of voices?

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4. THE PEOPLE FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE AUDIENCE

Citizen journalism in practice

4.1 Dichtbij

Dichtbij is a website that provides local news, suggestions for restaurants, vacancies, events and other things to do in the neighbourhood. Dichtbij is an initiative of TMG, a Dutch media company, and was released in June 2011. The input of this website is provided by professional journalists, but local people (and entrepreneurs) can also participate by uploading news, photos, videos and comments. Currently there are some core areas that have their own editorial offices, community managers and photographers. In other regions of the Netherlands news and information is gathered by using hundreds of other trustworthy websites, like news websites or websites of the governmental organization. Bart Brouwers, the initiator of this website wrote in his book that a symbiosis between professionals and the audience is the ultimate goal of Dichtbij (117).

The interface

The homepage of Dichtbij differs per person. By typing a postal code, news from the region concerned is shown. The city chosen for this analysis is Amsterdam, because this is one of the most active regions on Dichtbij. The homepage consists of several news reports, items on the agenda, a list of latest updates and most watched reports, a section ‘post your own news’ which can be done by logging in for a personal profile, a statement question which can be answered with yes or no and news from outside the region (in cooperation with the Telegraaf). Besides that, the website consists several other sections like news, 112, sports, going out & leisure time, births, deaths and marriages, business and health & care. These pages look quite similar, but the overall topic just differs. On every page and on every topic, both professional and citizens journalist can participate by uploading photos, videos and news messages. Citizen journalists can post these contributions once they are logged in and to log in they have to enrol by leaving an email address and choosing a user name and password. This procedure is very approachable and subsequently it’s even easier to post an article. A section has to be chosen and the white boxes have to be filled with a title, a heading and the news report. A video and photos are optional. By pressing the button ‘publish’, the article appears within fifteen minutes on the website. Thus at first sight it seems that the citizen

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journalists have much freedom and that they are empowered. They can join in every phase of the process of news production and they can write about everything they want if they obey a small list of rules the website adopts. The news messages, for example, must have a local character and shouldn’t be written in capital letters only, and also threats and private information isn’t allowed. Next to that, the citizens are quite independent. They can work and participate on their own, without the help or control of the professionals. However once the citizen journalist has published his or her article, it’s the editorial office’s turn. The community manager is able to adapt the layout, to search for grammatical errors and can choose where to sort it. They also check if it’s necessary to do research and make sure that all sides of the story are covered. This part of the process isn’t that transparent, because the citizen journalists are dealing with moderators and “editorial staff whose role is actually to select, filter or edit citizen-generated material before it is published online” (Goode 1302/3). The editorial office watches along, but generally it are the citizen journalists who decide on which page/ section the articles appear. If they think an article fits within the sports section, the article appears on the sports section. The articles also appear in order of time. The newest articles are on top and they descend during the day (and disappear thereafter). In this way there is no difference made between the articles; they are equally relevant and interesting. The citizen journalists are certainly influencing the agenda setting on Dichtbij, because their content influences the website immediately. However, the citizen journalists don’t have the possibility to put their articles on the front page. The professional journalists apparently decide what articles are relevant and interesting enough to show on the homepage. When looking at that homepage it appears to be filled with articles written by professional editors only and citizen journalists are excluded. Besides, the citizen journalist can also not influence the overall style of the website. The font, size and layout are already fixed. Thus all the articles look the same, which makes the website a cohesive entity. It’s also interesting to see the difference in how the professional and the citizen journalists are presented. The professional journalist is called ‘dichtbijredacteur’ (editor), while the citizen journalist is called ‘dichtbij-meeschrijver’ (co-writer) and their articles are called ‘meeschrijfartikelen’ (co-written articles). While both kinds of journalists do in fact the same, their described function differs in degree. The professionals are the ones that carry out the professional work and the citizens are just taking part. They are not presented as equal.

Still, it seems that Dichtbij is quite democratic. The citizen journalists are empowered and use the website as a platform to make hear their voices. They can participate in every phase of the news process and make decisions on their own. Collecting, analyzing and reporting news can all be done without the help of professionals. They can also do the editing for the most part. They can only not decide whether their news article appears on the front-page or not and how their article is going to look like. Citizen journalists can also distribute

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news articles by their own, for example by sharing it on Facebook or Twitter. And lastly Dichtbij has the possibility to react on articles and discuss the news. Not much websites generate this much possibilities and freedom and are this transparent. Professional and citizen journalists are collaborating to fill up the website with news about the neighbourhood. Professionals almost don’t interfere in the business of citizen journalists and vice-versa and together they make a stylistic cohesive entity with only local news articles.

The content

As mentioned above, citizen journalists can report about several topics if it’s local and relevant for the neighbourhood. The articles can be sorted in various sections. It’s striking that the articles the citizen journalists provide are mostly found in the sections sports, going out & leisure time, business and health & care instead of in the section news, 112 or even on the front-page. In the section sports, citizen journalists report about the matches of the local soccer, fencing or karate club. In the section going out & leisure time, most of the citizen journalists write articles about events to come. For example, citizen journalist ‘Publiciteit’

Democratic

function Criteria for interface analysis Consequence for / effect on journalism

Freedom

Do the citizens have much freedom? What are the things they can do and in what phase? Is it easy to contribute? How is this visible on the website?

- citizen journalists can participate in all phases

- it’s easy to contribute - they only have to log in

Empowerment

Are the citizen journalists empowered? Can they be heard? Can this website be seen as empowering? How?

- citizen journalists can write about everything, if it’s local

Independency

Are the citizens independent? Do they work/ participate on their own? How is it visible on the website?

- citizen and professional

journalists work side by side

- professional journalists produce the front-page

Influence

Are the citizen journalists influencing the process of news production? Do they influence the agenda setting? How is this reflected on the website?

- every (local) input is allowed and shown on Dichtbij

Transparency

Is the news process on this website transparent? Is it clear how the journalistic work is done? How is this reflected on the website?

- the journalistic process is clear for the most part

- except for the moderators part

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writes about a musical event that will take place in the Splendor theatre the 29th_{of April and} Bert Schoonhoven writes about a poetry stage in Amsterdam. The section business is also mainly filled with articles about upcoming business events. For example ‘Stichting Cosmicus’ writes about the Olympiad of Durability, an anonymous person about a lecture of MVO and ‘VBAT’ about a design contest called VBAT MEET MARKET. Lastly, in the section health & care, citizen journalists report about several things. Some titles of articles found on this page are: ‘Meet autism in the week of autism’ (by ‘Stichting Hoezo Anders’), ‘Be the boss of your own life .. contact with fellow sufferers helps’ (by ‘De Warmline’), ‘Toothbrush and toothpaste for prosthesis for free at De Tandenpraktijk’ (by Danielle Stolk) and ‘Students of the HvA ‘celebrate’ the global warming on the Damsquare’ (by ‘levedeopwarming’). As it seems the contributions of the citizen journalists are quite diverse, they can be found in in different sections and evidently local, but there also several other interesting things to notice.

First, it is conspicuous that most of the citizen journalists don’t use their own name. Most citizen journalists are writing under the name of an organisation or foundation and a great part even writes anonymously. It seems that they don’t want to be individually tied to the articles they post. Thus it can be interpreted that it isn’t their main intention to be received or treated as recognized journalists. Moreover, most of the articles posted by citizen journalists can better be classified as calls or invitations for events or even as advertisement, rather than news reports. ‘VBAT’ reports about a design contest, initiated by them selves, ‘Stichting Hoezo Anders’ about the week of autism, they initiated them selves and Danielle Stolk is actually advertising for free toothbrushes and pastes - which is even more apparent when she introduces herself in the article as a dentist of De Tandenpraktijk. On the on hand, these articles can be called personal and subjective. The citizen journalists generally write about things they are familiar with and which they find interesting. Some articles are even more announcing than reporting and in these cases it’s not for granted that the citizen journalists were neutral and unprejudiced. Moreover, these articles aren’t reliable per se. Most of the articles written by citizen journalist don’t contain stories considered by all sides; they are written from the point of view of the citizens themselves. Although, the articles can be called specialized, because most of the citizen journalists write about topics they are involved in and informed about. Some citizen journalists even posted only one article. For example ‘Long live global warming’ only wrote that one article about global warming; the topic they are concerned with.

The articles of the citizen journalists are also always local. In this sense the citizen journalists are extending the breadth of journalistic coverage. As Axel Bruns stated, they can do that “by reporting (first hand) from areas which mainstream journalism is now too underresourced and inflexible to cover – this includes analysis in specialist fields such as economics and psephology, as well as reporting about issues which have been ignored by the

What to do with the audience. About the pros and cons, usefulness and feasibility of citizen journalism