Everything that happens in the world daily directly depends on the participation of every citizen. The same applies to the reporting. Participation of ordinary citizens and their contribution in a time of crisis is what project COSMIC explores.

Everything about COSMIC, citizen journalists and media you can read in our interview with project member - Assist. Prof. Dr. Lemi Baruh at Koc University.

Q: What inspired you to launch this research and what are your expectations from the study?

A: The research project “Contribution of Social Media in Crisis Management” (COSMIC) is a EUfunded project from the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme. The project is multifaceted, focusing on various issues regarding the utilization of ICTs during various forms of emergencies and crises and one of our end goals is to produce guidelines that can help improve communication between various stakeholders that may be involved in an emergency or a crisis. And, starting with the initial stages of our project, we investigated how members of the public, as social activists, volunteers, and reporters, would fit into this equation.

Of course, what inspired us to focus on citizen journalism is the growing body of literature which suggests that citizen journalism has tremendous potential to challenge the monopoly that mainstream media has over gatekeeping, agenda setting and sense making functions. During emergencies and crises, this potential becomes all the more crucial because of the ability of citizens to provide witness accounts that would not be otherwise accessible. Indeed, in many of the recent crises we analyzed, and particularly during political crises, such as Gezi Protests in Istanbul, Euromaidan in Ukraine and recent incidents in Ferguson, U.S., we can observe that mainstream media are themselves becoming part of the crisis. Trust in mainstream media is low. For example, our own data from an online survey has shown that only 6% of the respondents reported using online news sources affiliated with mainstream media to get information about the Gezi Protests. This does not mean, of course, that there are not important challenges. For example, throughout our project, we have completed several case studies of recent emergencies suggesting that reliability of information is a crucial impediment.

Q: Do you find citizen journalists trustworthy comparing to journalists when it comes to reporting of disasters and crisis?

A: Based on findings from our COSMIC project, I would personally say that it is not a question of whether journalists or citizen journalists are more trustworthy. The key is finding a way to improve how both are utilized by the public to get access to information. Given the pace with which news develop, particularly during emergencies and crises, both forms of journalism are prone to similar problems. On the one hand, when citizen journalists do away with the logic of fact-checking and adopt what has been called as “publish, then filter” logic, the chances that rumors and false information will quickly diffuse increase. However, we can see that this is not just a problem that citizen journalism suffers from. For example, in the aftermath of the Boston Bombings there were a few instances when mainstream media picked up rumors about the potential culprits from social media without engaging in sufficient fact-checking. The key will be to develop approaches that can help information verification as efficiently as possible. Projects like The Friend of a Friend (FOAF) and the SIOC (Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities), for example, may assist information gathering and verification efforts. As a side note, I should also indicate that increasing the collaboration between journalists and citizen journalists is key to addressing problems regarding misinformation. For example, relatively recently, Alexis C. Madrigal, senior editor in The Atlantic, crosschecked information disseminated online about Hurricane Sandy and shared with the public whether a piece of information was real, fake, or unverified.

Q: Current media trends are unthinkable without tech tools and gadgets. Are these the factors which brought reporting closer to ordinary citizens?

A: Certainly, technology may have made it easier both to capture and publish. But emergence of citizen journalism can, at least to some extent, be considered as a result of what has been named as a “democratic deficit” inherent in mainstream media. In other words, the tools and gadgets play an important role in helping actualize a will that has existed among many media users. For example, in interviews we conducted with citizen journalists for the COSMIC project, we have seen repeatedly that citizen journalists often allude to the need to challenge mainstream media not only in terms of the information they provide (or fail to provide) but also in terms of journalistic conventions such as the inverted pyramid.

Q: How do you see Turkish media and information system today and is there a cooperation between mainstream and citizen journalism?

A: Turkey was recently ranked by Reporters without Borders 154th out of 180 countries in terms of press freedom. Particularly since 1990’s we have seen a significant commercialization of the media market, with a few corporations controlling majority of media outlets. Most of these corporations are conglomerates with significant investments in various sectors such as energy, making them more or less dependent on a clientelist relationship with the government. Another important factor that fed the growth of a corporate-clientelist system during 1990s was the declining power of trade unions, leaving journalists with little job security. Also important to note is the increasing press-party parallelism in Turkey and the consequent polarization of the press.

In many respects, that’s why I think during the Gezi Protests, the crisis was not simply a political crisis but also a crisis of media in the sense that the protestors were highly vocal about issues related to press freedom and harshly criticized (in fact protested) mass media for lack of and bias in coverage of the protests. During the protests, and still, social media, alternative news sources and citizen journalism have been playing a crucial role in creating a space for political engagement not controlled by corporatist-clientelist logic. Movements like 140Journos illustrate how citizen journalist platforms can fill a void by not only providing information but also curating and verifying information flowing from citizens.

In terms of the cooperation between citizen journalists and mainstream media, my personal observation is that in Turkey we see very much of the same problems that are seen elsewhere. It is an uneasy relationship at best. Often, mainstream media do not take citizen journalism seriously, are quick to dismiss citizen journalist content as misinformation. There have been several instances within which high profile professional journalists claimed journalistic authority over citizen journalism and questioned the legitimacy of their activities. At the same time, I think there is now some realization in mainstream media that shunning user-generated content is not a feasible strategy in the long run. There are efforts by various media companies to incorporate user-generated content and connect with users via social media. It remains to be seen how this trend will influence the relationship between citizens and commercial media institutions and whether media institutions will be able to treat users outside the “users-as-consumers” paradigm.

Q: Is there currently some citizen journalism training or workshop in Turkey?

A: There have been and there are multiple training programs. Many of these programs are offered as part of “new media” or “social media” certificate or continuous education programs by universities. In some cases universities are also collaborating with citizen journalism platforms. For example, since 2011, Istanbul Bilgi University is coordinating a “New Media School” with 140Journos.

Footnote :

The research findings mentioned in this interview are based on research emanating from the Contribution Of Social Media In Crisis management (COSMIC) project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 312737). The views in this interview are those of the interviewee alone and are in no way intended to reflect those of the European Union.