Laura Bashraheel

Saudi Gazette

 

JEDDAH – With social media galvanizing social change in Saudi Arabia, citizen journalism’s role has become more apparent and is considered an indication that Saudis are coming out of their cultural cocoons and appreciating the changes and their implications on society. However, the question remains: Is citizen journalism credible and can it replace traditional media? Also, do people actually trust it?



The concept of citizen journalism is simple: A citizen plays an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. Citizen journalism, as a form of alternative media, presents a “radical challenge to the professionalized and institutionalized practices of the mainstream media.” The term became popular after protests in 1999 where activists in Seattle, Washington created a response to the World Trade Organization meeting being held there. In the Saudi Arabia, however, the term is mostly associated with the Arab Spring and Jeddah floods.



In many cases, such as during the Arab Spring, journalists can be banned or censored by regimes and individuals that don’t want stories to be reported. So, citizen journalists armed with camera phones are often the sole source of information. When they report something, this information could work as a lead to traditional media, with TV news and national newspapers running stories based on reports filed by citizen journalists.



Hayat Al-Ghamdi, a journalist with Al-Hayat newspaper believes that citizen journalism contributed to raising the ceiling on the freedom of press in traditional media in the Kingdom. “Some Saudi newspapers, which are highly professional, have embraced citizen journalism and even devoted weekly pages to cover how media is changing and being reformed by citizen journalists in an attempt to monitor what is happening on the streets,” she said.



However, she argued that traditional media could be more credible but the efforts of the citizen journalist shouldn’t go to waste especially considering the fact that they usually document news with video and photographic evidence.



According to statistics released by the Social Clinic, a social business consultancy and digital agency based in Jeddah, Twitter has a total of five million active users in the Kingdom. Also, the Kingdom accounts for 30 percent of all Arabic content on Twitter; users in the Kingdom send over 50 million tweets per month.



Al-Ghamdi also believes that Twitter and YouTube are at the forefront of media available to the citizen journalist.



“It is a powerful source of news and recent studies show that 30 percent of the information published by the traditional media is sourced from citizen journalists who used Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to publish the news,” she explained.



Despite the success of citizen journalism, many argue that it lacks credibility and can’t be trusted as the main source of news. Regardless, citizen journalist and electronic newspapers pose a challenge to traditional journalism.



“I think that citizen journalism was the reason why the traditional press turned its focus to their online editions. Traditional journalism is not the main source of news, especially with the rise of social networking sites, but being a licensed official media outlet insures that it remains the most objective and credible news source,” Al-Ghamdi said.



In her opinion, Al-Ghamdi believes that the citizen journalist is a social activist and a politician who could be biased against other activists and is not required to comply by the same ethics a journalist must uphold when reporting.



According to blogger Khaled Yeslam, traditional media is still the most credible source of news but the mixed signals many official governmental bodies give on important issues has created an opportunity for rumors to spread. He cited examples of electronic newspapers which are known to spread rumors and false news.



“I think that the average reader will depend on traditional media to follow real estate news, for example, but will depend on Twitter to follow up on accidents or incidents such as the case of Lama Al-Rouqi, the child who fell into an artesian well,” he said.



Yeslam, who is known for expressing his opinion and criticizing social issues and governmental bodies, considers the micro-blogging website Twitter to be a source of news especially when it comes from official accounts or from well-known personalities.



“New media is a challenge to traditional journalism in that the latter does not provide freedom of opinion,” Yeslam said while adding that although a high number of people use Twitter, they only represent a small portion of society. “Twitter is a reflection of the youth who come from the middle class. It is considered an index but it’s not the whole truth. We still continue to create public opinion through hashtags, which is an unfair index.”