Citizen Journalism
When young Arabs took to the streets of North Africa in 2011 to fight for democracy armed with Internet-connected mobile phones, few, if any, were there to shake the foundations of traditional news reporting. But their YouTube videos and other social media content have become a staple of news coverage from the region. Even the [...] more »
When I see the word “crowdsourcing” used in journalism it’s hard for me not to see it as condescending. Crowdsourcing isn’t bad, and at any level it does allow folks to participate in media, a far better thing than just consuming. But it’s not enough. If the occasional crowdsourced web feature and comment thread are [...] more »
BANGALORE — The weekend before last, black-clad Burmese journalists took to the streets of main city Rangoon to rail against the suspension of two local newspapers by the country’s censorship board. An estimated 300 protesters wore black T-shirts with the logo “Stop Killing the Press” after The Voice Weekly and The Envoy were suspended for [...] more »
Serious North Africa news junkies are likely aware of growing demands for regime change in Sudan. Protests have spread outward from Khartoum, the capital, over the past few weeks. Hundreds of protesters have been arrested, detained, and beaten. If you’re unaware, perhaps it’s because you’ve been busy following elections in Egypt and Libya. Or maybe [...] more »
In 1900, Ladies’ Home Journal published an article containing predictions for the year 2000. Though some of the author’s predictions were accurate — Americans are indeed taller, and photographs are now sent around the world — one key point was missing. The author didn’t imagine that in the new millennium, the very magazine that published [...] more »
When Joplin, Mo., was hit with a massive tornado, I knew my community would react. Even though we’re nearly 250 miles away, many people in Columbia and mid-Missouri are either Joplin natives or have family there. My newsroom’s normally local-focused Facebook page quickly became a clearinghouse for updates about how mid-Missouri could help the tornado-ravaged [...] more »
About seven years ago, Global Press Institute founder Cristi Hegranes was working as a foreign correspondent in Nepal. During a visit to a village in the Eastern part of the country, Hegranes offered a pen and notebook to the matriarch of the village, and asked her to write down her own story. “What she came [...] more »
Even though they’re far away from the center of the action in Cairo, Chinese web users felt the impact of the current demonstrations and political change afoot in Egypt. Chinese users searching for “Egypt” on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, came up empty, and 467 sites were reported inaccessible after a call for a [...] more »
The Maghreb is generally a term used to refer to five countries in North Africa: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. This article explores the current state of the media in the region, and marks the effect that a burgeoning citizen media sphere is having on democracy. It is based on a contribution by the [...] more »
This article was co-authored by Mayur Patel Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the devastating earthquake that shook Haiti last January, killing more than 230,000 people and leaving several million inhabitants of the small island nation homeless. Though natural disasters are common, the humanitarian response this time was different: New media and communications technologies were used [...] more »