Citizen Journalism

It is also called participatory or street journalism. A citizen journalist is a common man playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. Jay Rosen defines citizen journalism as, “when the people formerly known as the audience employs the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another.”

Citizen journalism is the most prominent tool of independent reporting. Here the person who is a citizen journalist enjoys the utmost freedom in editing and publishing the news item. Social networking, blogging, and other new media technologies, in addition to the increased use of smartphones, have raised the popularity of citizen journalism. Occupy Wall Street movement, Arab spring, Delhi rape case, etc., are some notable examples of citizen journalism.