Citizen Journalism: A Solution to the Crisis of Traditional Journalism

Barış Çoban

doi:10.6667/interface.28.2025.239

Citizen Journalism: A Solution to the Crisis of Traditional Journalism

Barış Çoban

Abstract

This article delves into the transformative role of citizen journalism in addressing the crisis faced by traditional journalism, particularly within Turkey’s socio-political landscape. It underscores the decline of editorial independence as a critical factor contributing to the erosion of public trust in mainstream media. In the face of these challenges, citizen journalism has emerged as a decentralised and democratic alternative, empowering individuals to engage in news production and distribution. The study, focusing on the Occupy Gezi movement as a case study, illustrates how citizen journalists, leveraging social media, have transcended geographical and social barriers to reporting on issues resonating with global audiences. By examining the evolution of activist citizen journalism before, during, and after Occupy Gezi, the article highlights the importance of grassroots participation, authenticity, and immediacy in redefining journalistic practices. It argues that citizen journalism fosters a more participatory media environment, inviting the collective narratives of ordinary citizens to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of news events. This study also underscores the crucial role of media literacy among the public, making the audience feel responsible and engaged in actively participating in and critically engaging with news production, ensuring a vibrant and pluralistic media ecosystem. The findings of this study are crucial for the future of journalism, particularly in Turkey’s socio-political landscape.

Keywords

Citizen Journalism, Alternative Media, Digital Activism, Occupy Movements

Full Text:

PDF

References

Allan, S. (2013). Citizen Witnessing: Revisioning Journalism in Times of Crisis. Cambridge: Polity.

Althusser, L. (2000). İdeoloji ve Devletin İdeolojik Aygıtları. İstanbul: İletişim.

Ashcroft, B. (2001). Post-colonial Transformation. London: Routledge.

Ataman, B. & Çoban, B. (2015). “Gezi Direnişi’nde Alternatif Yeni Medya ve Çapulcu Yurttaş Muhabirler”. Direniş Çağında Türkiye’de Alternatif Medya (Der. B. Çoban & B. Ataman). İstanbul: Kafka Kitap.

Ataman, B. & Çoban, B. (2018). Counter-surveillance and alternative new media in Turkey. Information, Communication and Society, 21/7, pp. 1014-1029.

Atkinson, J. (2015). Alternatif Medya ve Direniş Siyaseti. İstanbul: Kafka Kitap.

Atton, C. & Hamilton, J. F. (2008). Alternative Journalism, London: Sage.

Bailey, O., Cammaerts, B., & Carpentier, N. (2008). Understanding alternative media. London: Open University Press.

Beckett, C. & Mansell, R. (2008). Crossing Boundaries: New Media and Networked Journalism. Communication, Culture and Critique, 1 (1): 92–104.

Benjamin, W. (1998). Understanding Brecht. London: Verso.

Bennett, L. (2017). Who are the people? Communication, power, and the rise of anti-democratic politics. ORF, TEXTE (4–23). Wien: ORF-Druckerei.

Bonefeld, W. (1994). “Human Practice and Perversion: Between Autonomy and Structure”. Common Sense. N. 15.

Bowman, S. & Willis, C. (2003). We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information. Reston. VA: The Media Center at the American Press Institute. http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php

Carroll, W. K., & Hackett, R. A. (2006). Democratic media activism through the lens of social movement theory. Media, Culture & Society, 28(1), 83-104

Castells, M. (2008). Enformasyon Çağı: Ekonomi Toplum ve Kültür I-II-III. İstanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Y.

Castells, M. (2013). İsyan ve Umut Ağları: İnternet Çağında Toplumsal Hareketler. İstanbul: Koç Üniversitesi Y.

Çoban, B. & Ataman, B. (2015). Türkiye’de Alternatif Medya. İstanbul: Kafka.

Downing, J. & Ford, T., Gil, G., Stein, L. (2001). Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Eco, U. (1989). The Open Work. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Forde, S. (2011). Challenging the News. London: Palgrave.

Gerbaudo, P. (2012). Tweets and Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto Press.

Habermas, J. (1989). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Hansen, M. (2004). “Room for Play: Benjamin’s Gamble with Cinema”. October Magazine V. 109.

Hansen, M. (2008). “Benjamin’s Aura”. Critical Inquiry, N. 34.

Kang, J. (2014) Benjamin and the Media. Cambridge: Polity.

Klein, N. (2001). “Reclaiming the Commons”. New Left Review, N. 9.

Laclau, E. (1977). Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory. London: New Left Books.

Langlois, A. & Dubois, F. (2016). Otonom Medya. İstanbul: Kafka Kitap.

Lievrouw, L. (2011). Alternative and Activist New Media. Cambridge: Polity.

Melucci, A. (1996). The Playing Self: Person and Meaning in a Planetary System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Meraz, S. & Papacharissi, Z. (2013). Networked gatekeeping and networked framing on #egypt. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 18(2), 138-166.

Negt, O. & Kluge, A. (1993). Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

NY: Peter Lang.

Poell, T. & Rajagopalan, S. (2015). Connecting activists and journalists. Journalism Studies, 16(5), 719-733.

Radsch, C. (2016). Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital dissidence and political change. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Rodriguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the Mediascape - An International Study of Citizens’ Media. Catskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Rambukkana, N. (2015). #HashtagPublics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks. New York: Peter Lang.

Rodriguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the Mediascape. Hampton Press.

Rodriguez, C. (2014). A Latin American approach to citizen journalism. In E. Thorsen &

Rosen, J. (2008). A Most Useful Definition of Citizen Journalism. Pressthink. Retrieved from http://archive.pressthink.org/2008/07/14/a_most_useful_d.html

Ruppert, E., Isin, E. (2015). Being Digital Citizens. London: Rowman & Littlefield.

Russell, A. (2011). Networked: A contemporary history of news in transition. Cambridge: Polity.

S. Allan (Eds.), Citizen journalism. Global perspectives, Vol. 2 (pp. 199–210). New York,

Shirky, C. (2011). “The political power of social media”. Foreign Affairs, 90(1), 28–41.

Starbird, K. (2017). Examining the Alternative Media Ecosystem through the Production of Alternative Narratives of Mass Shooting Events on Twitter. Proceeding of ICWSM, (230–239). https://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/Alt_Narratives_ICWSM17-CameraReady.pdf

Taylor, C. (1992). The Ethics of Authenticity. London: Harvard University Press.

Tüfekçi, Z. (2018). Twitter and tear gas. Yale University Press.

van Dijk, J. (2012). The Network Society. London: Sage.

Wall, M. (2015). Citizen journalism. Digital Journalism, 3 (6): 797–813.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6667/interface.28.2025.239

Refbacks

There are currently no refbacks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.