Alice Hall & Rovinj Allen

CITIZEN JOURNALISM AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

EGYPT PROTESTS

WHO?The Egyptian Citizens

WHAT?Protest to remove the ruler Hosni Mubarak

WHERE?

The protests erupted in Cairo and around Egypt

WHEN?

Tuesday 25th January 2011 and is still on going

WHY?Poverty, rising prices, social exclusion, anger over corruption, personal enrichment among political elite this stopped young people from being able to work. This was due to Mubarak's ruling in a National Democratic Party for 30 years. He controlled political power through a mixture of constitutional manipulation, repression and rigged elections, cronyism (favoured people) and he backed powerful foreign allies.

CITIZEN JOURNALISM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XnhHzs91MY&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults

WHAT IS CITIZEN JOURNALISM?Citizen journalism is collection and analysis of news by the public, via videos, phones, pictures, blogs etc.

HOW WOULD THE MEDIA HAVE REPORTED THE EVENT WITHOUT THE INCLUSION OF CITIZEN JOURNALISM FOOTAGE?

They would not be in the action

The news would not be instantaneous

There would not be any personal accounts

The report could be bias

The news would not be as entertaining or interesting

IMPACT

You could see the protesting crowd from space

Violent protests spread around the whole of Egypt

20 YEARS AGO…http://www.bottlebrushpress.com/antivietnamwarprotests.htmlVietnam war

Then..- Hardly any reports as they

could not get first hand footage safely. This is due to them not being able to send out journalist safely and there was not citizen journalism to capture the war happening there and then.

- They would not have publicised the negatives of the war such as protesting as they would not want other people to join the protesting ‘bandwagon.’

Now.. - There would have to be

many reports and the war would be seen through first hand footage from journalist sent to the warzone and citizen journalists.

- Social networks e.g. twitter have allowed people to now protest/state their opinion world wide easily and other people can ‘re-tweet’ and continue the ‘trending’ topic.

- Better technology now

CONFLICTWere there any issues with regards to political aspects of the event?

Social networking was accelerating the protests therefore the people in power blocked it.

Mubarak was in power for 30 years. He took advantage of his power, he manipulated people, repressed people and rigged elections. He caused poverty, rising prices and social exclusion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/15/egypt-media-revolution-mubarak-lies?INTCMP=SRCH

BIAS

SOCIAL MEDIA - USAGE

Citizen Journalism

Twitter was still being used despite being blocked from within Egypt

What have they got to hide?

http://blog.travelreportage.com/2011/01/25/jan-25-2011-revolution-day-in-egypt/

SOCIAL MEDIA - BLOCKED

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/26/egypt-blocks-social-media-websites

http://news.yahoo.com/egyptians-protest-anger-mounts-over-blogger-arrest-202854686.html

SOCIAL MEDIA – FIGHTS BACK

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_blocked_in_egypt.php

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12332850

THEORISTS – STEVE OUTING11 layers of citizen journalism

“Citizen journalism isn’t one simple concept that can be applied universally by all news organizations. It’s much more complex, with many potential variations.”

http://www.slideshare.net/kleblond/11-layers-of-citizen-journalism-by-steve-outing

THEORISTS – DAN GILLMOR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLHxyKwsxZ8

CONCLUSION

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8288167/Egypt-protests-live.html

To conclude, throughout the Egypt protests and until today, citizen journalism has help news reports in many ways. Without the help of citizen journalism we would have only seen the bias side of the story “talking about the youth movement in offensive terms and accusing it of being influenced by Iran, US or Israel.”We wouldn’t have heard or seen the negatives such as the clip shown of the man being shot and the brutal force that the police were using on civilians as read in some tweets.With citizen journalism we are given an inside view to a story we do not know much about and it allows us to see the situation from the point of view of someone living in it. Citizen journalism gave the citizens a voice and let them have freedom of speech. Unfortunately, even though Mubarak's ruling is over, Egyptians are still protesting for more as shown in this clip..

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11 LAYERS EXPLAINED1. Public comments subject to policing - Allowing the public to add comments to posts. They can praise, criticise and more importantly add to

what has been said. 2. Citizen Written Side bars - This is when a post is published and in a side bar, the public are allowed to write about their own

experiences and add pictures if necessary. 3. Open source reporting - A collaboration between a professional and their readers. E.g. using the readers questions in an

interview. 4. Inviting citizens to blog on newspaper websites (self explanatory) 5. Newsroom citizen ‘transparency’ blogs- Blogs that allow the reader to comment on professional blogs, offering public commentary on how the

news is performing. 6. The stand alone citizen blog- Citizens can post about anything, tends to be local news.

But it is watched and edited ‘editorial integrity), the report can be from new pets to council meeting suggestions

7. The stand alone citizen blog – unedited - The same as 6 but unedited, however the news owners still have the power to remove posts and public

can highlight if they’re unacceptable. 8. Print edition- A print edition of number 7, a newspaper inside the local newspaper with citizens news in 9. Hybrid news - Profession and citizen news on the site just in separate areas 10. Integrating news - Professional and citizen together (this has not been done yet) 11. Wiki news - Wikipedia in its news form. Info only able to be given by the public, useful for obituaries.

DAN GILLMOR RELATED TO EGYPT> No longer traditional media - we are now creating and showing media easily e.g. blogsEGYPT – Tweets and blogs shown on here. > Why is citizen journalism important? - “because its good for any community you care about” “news is a conversation rather than a lecture helping people to deal with the world in a better way” This helps people understand the world better and understand different view point. EGYPT – we could see what was going on through the minds of those affected rather than just journalist which could have been bias. > What can traditional news media learn from citizen journalism? “People who are writing blogs have a different world view” “ traditional news can learn a lot from the people in the community not just their official sources” EGYPT – We could see what the government was trying to cover up, so even when official sources couldn’t access Egypt, we still could.