WJEC-3 Syndicate Report, July 5, 2013, Mechelen, Belgium

5(b). Citizen Journalism and Civic Journalism

Meeting summary report by rapporteurs Karlijn Goossen, Academy of Journalism and

Communication Ede Christian University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands, and Evert van Voorst,

Department of Journalism,Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands; syndicate

expert/background report author Laura Ahva, School of Communication, Media and Theatre

University of Tampere, Finland; chairs Dan Gillmor, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass

Communication, Arizona State University, USA, and Donica Mensing, Reynolds School of

Journalism, University of Nevada, USA; and team members.*

Nineteen journalism educators representing every continent debated the issues in this popular

group. The discussion focused on the role of citizens in journalism education.

The main question was how educators can best teach the important role that citizens play in

journalism today.

During the first session of the syndicate, the following topics were discussed:

1. Students must be community oriented: they must engage in online and real-life

communities at different levels. Thus, students need to get off campus much more and reach

out to communities, including existing communities and developing communities of which

journalism is no part.

2. In communities, students need to be facilitators, organizers, cultivators and intermediaries

in civic and civil conversations.

3. In their community roles, they should apply their knowledge and skills from other fields,

such as computer science, business (start-up knowledge), sociology and anthropology.

4. They should be aware of the skewed, unbalanced use of social media (often higher

educated, higher income) by citizens and/or communities.

5. Students need a curriculum that builds not so much on today’s tools and technologies, but

develops and works with enduring concepts, such as ethics, participation/ engagement,

community analysis, media literacy and research.

Recommendations

Given that the process and outcome of journalism now includes the audience at every level,

journalism educators need to incorporate that reality in the classroom and the lab.

Accordingly, the group concluded with the following five recommendations

on the role and application of citizen journalism and civic journalism in global journalism

education:

1. Promote a collaborative spirit within a team and between citizens and journalists. This

entails an attitude of openness, transparency and not rushing (taking one’s time) when

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doing citizen/civic journalism. It also means students need to go out into real

communities and meet/work/communicate with real people and recognize that the public

may not see the practice of journalism the same way that journalists do.

2. Familiarize the students with civic and public journalism theories and embed research

in practice. Teach students to analyze existing participatory practices and to learn from

them.

3. Pay attention to ethical guidelines for the use of social media and ethics of community

engagement. The use of social media while producing journalism will vary from

beginning to end, from crowd-sourcing and publicizing and from simple to very complex

projects.

4. Teach students conceptual tools so they understand the dynamics of communities and

skills to facilitate community engagement. And make students aware of their own and

potential networks and communities.

5. Inspire faculty and students to think and act entrepreneurially since so many projects of

this type will be start-ups.

*Additional Citizen and Civic Journalism participants: Kouamivi Amouzouvi, Le Changement,

Togo; Abdellatif Bensfia, Institut Supérieur de l’Information et de la Communication, ISIC,

Morocco; Laura Silvia Battaglia, Catholic University Milan, Italy; David Domingo, Université

libre de Bruxelles, Belgium; Balogou Donko, Haut Autorite de Láudiovisuel et de la

Communication, Togo; Marina Ghersetti, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; August Grant,

University of South Carolina, USA; Marenet Jordaan, University of Pretoria, South Africa;

Claudia Alicia Lerma Noriega, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico; Thabani Mpofu, National

University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe; Deirdre O’Neill, Leeds Trinity University,

United Kingdom; Julie Posetti, University of Wollongong, Australia; Marilyn Sarow, Winthrop

University, USA; Charles Self, The University of Oklahoma, USA; Elanie Steyn, University of

Oklahoma, USA; Jan van der Stoep, Christelijke Hogeschool Ede, the Netherlands.