New Media and Mass Communication ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3275 (Online) Vol.

11, 2013

www.iiste.org

Citizen Journalism in Nigeria: Possibilities and Challenges

Nnanyelugo Okoro, Ph.D, Senior Lecturer and Head, Department of Mass Communication, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria nnanyelugo05@yahoo.com, 08162575652 Diri, Christian T., Lecturer, Department of Mass Communication, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State,Nigeria, chris_diri@yahoo.com, 08035511278, 08074963616 Odii, Chijioke, Lecturer, Department of Mass Communication, Samuel Adegboyega University, Ogwa, Edo State, Nigeria, divinechiji@yahoo.com, 0803088089 Abstract The study evaluated the possibilities and challenges of citizen journalism in Nigeria and discovered that Citizen Journalism is emerging as a powerful phenomenon across Nigeria as evidenced in popular citizen journalism websites. The Sahara Reporters, one of such websites, is noted for its timely reports on issues and events have shown in a study conducted by Dare (2011:44) where 86 of the 120 respondents surveyed cited the Sahara reporters as a source of breaking news. By its interactivity and ability to deliver news in split seconds, citizen journalism has posed a serious challenge to the mainstream media in Nigeria. However, in as much as citizen journalism in Nigeria has broadened peoples access to a variety of news, this study suggests that during emergencies, citizen journalists should not spread news or post pictures that may hamper life-saving assignments such as rescue operations. The need therefore to sensitize Nigerian citizen journalists on proper use of this emerging brand of journalism is both obvious and urgent. DOI: 10.7176/NMMC.v11p1 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7176/NMMC.v11p1

1.

Introduction

The concept of citizen journalism (also known as "public", "participatory", "democratic", "guerrilla or "street" journalism) is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information (Zuckerman, E. 2009). The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires. Participatory journalism uses what Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis (2011) call a publish, then filter model instead of the traditional filter, then publish model. Citizen journalism should not be confused with community journalism or civic journalism, both of which are practised by professional journalists. Collaborative journalism is also a separate concept and is the practice of professional and non-professional journalists working together. Citizen journalism is a specific form of both citizen media and user-generated content. In other words, citizen input to media content often first goes past traditional media gatekeepers. However, the content could later be locked out by media gatekeepers when it is found to be unworthy of the standards of the media organization. Some of the features of the model, according to Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis (2011), include discussion groups, user-generated content, weblogs (blogs), collaborative publishing, peer-to-peer systems, and Web syndication. As is by now obvious, although participatory journalism allows the participation of news users in the news-making process, the process is still controlled by professional journalists within mainstream institutional journalistic structures. As could be seen in recent times, new technologies such as social networking and media-sharing websites, in addition to the increasing prevalence of cellular phones have made citizen journalism more accessible to people worldwide. Due to the availability of technology, citizens can often report breaking news more quickly than traditional media reporters. Notable examples of citizen journalism reporting from major world events are the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Critics of the phenomenon, including professional journalists, claim that citizen journalism is unregulated, too subjective, amateurish, and haphazard in quality and coverage.

New Media and Mass Communication ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3275 (Online) Vol.11, 2013

www.iiste.org

Mark Glaser, a freelance journalist who frequently writes on new media issues, said in 2006 that the idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as YouTube. In the pre-internet era, mainstream media like television, radio and newspapers used to be the primary sources of news. That situation is changing as news websites, most of which are hosted by the major media companies, are now competing sources of news. Alternative news sources on the Internet, like websites featuring user-generated content (USG), blogs, social networking sites and wikis are also gaining momentum. Like mainstream media, these sites offer a wide variety of news. Some of the news articles on these sites are original reporting of local events and disasters, contributed by audiences or users and some of them are commentaries on entertainment and news stories appearing in mainstream media elsewhere. Citizen journalism is also a growing voice comprising blogs and social media that analyse and debate issues and stories appearing in mainstream media. Such commentaries and debates generally keep stories alive much longer than the original publishers. Some scholars are of the view that this is emerging to be one of the most important functions of citizen journalism. Also, with no ethics and media laws to worry about, unlike journalists in the mainstream media, citizen journalists can offer unmediated and anonymous debates and analyses of issues. Some scholars see this as the fundamental problem of citizen journalism: the ability to hide behind anonymity and present opinions or false information as facts into the media. At a time when Nigerians used the internet to mobilise protests against the removal of fuel subsidy, the findings of a recent academic research released by Oxford University found that citizen journalism is on the slow but gradual rise in Nigeria and that the traditional media are waking up to it. The study, which had Sahara Reporters as its case study placed Sahara Reporters, the citizen journalism website, as Nigeria's first leading citizen website. The research conducted by Sunday Dare, a Nigerian Journalist, who earlier had studied media and public policy at Harvard University took a first objective stab at the theory and practice of citizen journalism in Nigeria; how far it has come, what impact it is making in terms of advancing democratic rights and institutions, and even how it has given the people voice and a platform to query their government. The study revealed that Sahara Reporters scored high in blazing the trail, especially exposing corruption and combining advocacy journalism with mainstream journalism. The research project entitled The Rise of Citizen Journalism in Nigeria A Case Study of Sahara Reporters' argued that the emergence of Sahara Reporters was fuelled by the interactive and investigative vacuum left by the traditional media in Nigeria. On the basis of the foregoing, this study therefore is an attempt at a holistic inquiry into the state of citizen journalism in Nigeria. Problem Citizen journalism generally epitomizes the belief that the experiences of people personally involved with an issue present a differentand often more completepicture of events than can be derived from the perspective of an outsider. Due to limitations of access and timeand in some cases ulterior motives to present just one side of a storytraditional reporting risks at least the perception of being skewed. By granting access to anyone to cover the news, citizen journalism presents a more personal, nuanced view of events and has the potential to cultivate communities of people with a common interest. Through blogs and other avenues, citizen journalists have broken stories about political corruption, police brutality, and other issues of concern to local and national communities. Within the Nigerian context, this study investigates the extent to which the thinking that participation by readers in citizen journalism improves the quality of the news and the extent to which such participation increases the trust that the community has in the news. Does citizen journalism force contributors to think objectively, ask probing questions and work to understand the context so that their representation of events is useful to others? Do the activities of citizen journalists get people involved in new ways with the world around them; making them form a deeper connection with the subjects of their investigations? These critical questions form the problem canvas of our investigation. 2.

New Media and Mass Communication ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3275 (Online) Vol.11, 2013

www.iiste.org

Literature Review 3.1 Historical Perspectives of Citizen Journalism The idea that average citizens can engage in the act of journalism has a long history dating back to early experiments of this journalistic genre in the United States. The modern citizen journalist movement emerged after journalists themselves began to question the predictability of their coverage of such events as the 1988 U.S. presidential election. Those journalists became part of the public, or civic, journalism movement, a countermeasure against the eroding trust in the news media and widespread public disillusionment with politics and civic affairs. Initially, discussions of public journalism focused on promoting journalism that was "for the people" by changing the way professional reporters did their work. According to Leonard Witt, however, early public journalism efforts were, "often part of 'special projects' that were expensive, time-consuming and episodic. Too often these projects dealt with an issue and moved on. Professional journalists were driving the discussion. They would have the goal of doing a story on welfare-to-work (or the environment, or traffic problems, or the economy), and then they would recruit a cross-section of citizens and chronicle their points of view. By 2003, in fact, the movement seemed to be petering out, with the Pew Center for Civic Journalism closing its doors. With modern technology however citizen journalism movement has found new life as the average person can now capture news and distribute it globally. As Yochai Benkler has noted, the capacity to make meaning to encode and decode humanly meaningful statements and the capacity to communicate ones meaning around the world, are held by, or readily available to, at least many hundreds of millions of users around the globe. Professor Mary-Rose Papandrea, a constitutional law professor at Boston College, notes in her article, Citizen Journalism and the Reporters Privilege, that: In many ways, the definition of journalist has now come full circle. When the First Amendment was adopted, freedom of the press referred quite literally to the freedom to publish using a printing press, rather than the freedom of organized entities engaged in the publishing business. The printers of 1775 did not exclusively publish newspapers; instead, in order to survive financially they dedicated most of their efforts printing materials for paying clients. The newspapers and pamphlets of the American Revolutionary era were predominantly partisan and became even more so through the turn of the century. They engaged in little news gathering and instead were predominantly vehicles for opinion. Clearly, the passage of the term journalism into common usage in the 1830s occurred at roughly the same time that newspapers, using high speed rotary steam presses, began mass circulation throughout the eastern United States. Using the printing press, newspapers could distribute exact copies to large numbers of readers at a low incremental cost. In addition, the rapidly increasing demand for advertising for brand- name products fuelled the creation of publications subsidized in large part by advertising revenue. It was not until the late nineteenth century that the concept of the press morphed into a description of individuals and companies engaged in an often competitive commercial media enterprise. In 1999, activists in Seattle created a response to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting being held there. These activists understood that the only way they could get into the corporate media was by blocking the streets. And then, the scant 60 seconds of coverage would show them being carted off by the police, but without any context to explain why they were protesting. They knew they had to create an alternative media model. Since then, the Indy media movement has experienced exponential growth, and IMCs have been created in over 200 cities all over the world. Simultaneously, journalism that was "by the people" began to flourish, enabled by emerging internet and networking technologies, such as weblogs, chat rooms, message boards, wikis and mobile computing. A relatively new development is the use of convergent polls, allowing editorials and opinions to be submitted and voted on. Overtime, the poll converges on the most broadly accepted editorials and opinions. In South Korea, Ohmy News became popular and commercially successful with the motto:"Every Citizen is a Reporter." Founded by Oh Yeon-ho on February 22, 2000, it has a staff of some 40-plus traditional reporters and editors who write about 20% of its content, with the rest coming from other freelance contributors who are mostly ordinary citizens. Ohmy News now has an estimated 50,000 contributors, and has been credited with transforming South Korea's conservative political environment. In 2000, The Raven launched a Web television station aimed at participatory journalism, reporting on events in the Daytona Beach area. In 2001, ThemeParkInsider.com became the first online publication to win a major journalism award for a feature that was reported and written entirely by readers, earning an Online Journalism Award from the Online News Association and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism for its "Accident Watch" section, where readers tracked injury accidents at theme parks and shared accident prevention tips. 3

3.

New Media and Mass Communication ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3275 (Online) Vol.11, 2013

www.iiste.org

During the 2004 U.S. presidential election, both the Democratic and Republican parties issued press credentials to citizen bloggers covering the convention, marking a new level of influence and credibility for non-traditional journalists. Some bloggers also began watchdogging the work of conventional journalists, monitoring their work for biases and inaccuracies. A recent trend in citizen journalism has been the emergence of what blogger Jeff Jarvis terms hyper-local journalism, as online news sites invite contributions from local residents of their subscription areas, who often report on topics that conventional newspapers tend to ignore. "We are the traditional journalism model turned upside down," explains Mary Lou Fulton, the publisher of the Northwest Voice in Bakersfield, California. "Instead of being the gatekeeper, telling people that what's important to them 'isn't news,' we're just opening up the gates and letting people come on in. We are a better community newspaper for having thousands of readers who serve as the eyes and ears for the Voice, rather than having everything filtered through the views of a small group of reporters and editors." 3.2 Citizen Journalism in Africa Indeed, much of the research on African citizen journalism, as demonstrated by studies consists of case studies on political crises (in Kenya: Mkinen and Kuira, 2008; Goldstein and Rotich, 2008; Zuckerman, 2009; in Zimbabwe: Moyo, 2009). The total body of research remains small although useful Africa-specific normative frameworks for the analysis of citizen journalism are supplied by Banda (2010) and a few others. A comprehensive literature review is provided by Mutsvairo and Columbus (2012). In Africa more than elsewhere, participation in citizen journalism hinges on scarce access to information and communications technologies (ICTs) (Walton, 2011); consequently, citizen journalists can be expected to be mostly better off, higher educated, and living in urban areas. Over the last decade, the growing adoption of mobile phones has vastly increased access to ICTs for many Africans, and they have been noted as a key technology for citizen journalists in Africa (Banda, 2010; Oteku et al., 2010); most recently, Internet- enabled mobile phones also enable increasing access to the latter medium. Despite these advances, citizen journalists in Africa today are often experienced ICT users with extensive experience in using social media. Blogs and Twitter are commonly used outlets for citizen journalists, as well as the social network Facebook; but uses of mass SMS and emails for citizen journalism have also been reported (Moyo, 2009). Reporting news is quite naturally a major part of citizen journalism. Especially in the crisis situations predominantly studied, which come with an absence of reports from traditional media sources, citizen journalists take a role in relaying critical information (Moyo, 2009). In some cases, this involves dedicated research on issues that are ignored or suppressed by mainstream media but Moyo (2009) has also pointed out that this "parallel market of information" can be fraught with falsehoods and uncertainty. However, citizen journalists do not only report news, but also comment on them. Punditry has been noted as a common feature on citizen media outlets (Zuckerman, 2009), as has the expression of emotions, for example by means of political jokes (Moyo, 2009; Oteku et al., 2010). Social media, in particular blogs and fora, also have strong discursive component and have been turned into "spaces for discussion" (Zuckerman, 2009), which in crisis situations serve to connect those in the country with the diaspora. (Moyo, 2009). Mutsvairo and Columbus (2012) have argued that in Africa, citizen journalism takes place counter, parallel to, and interlinked with mainstream journalism, noting a growing convergence between conventional and citizen journalism. Bloggers and micro bloggers take up and link to stories published in the online editions of newspapers (Oteku et al., 2010), but in return traditional media also take leads from citizens, going as far as reprinting blog articles without permission. Tools and practices pioneered by citizen journalists have also found their way into the portfolios of some media publishers, as when journalists write blogs in an explicitly less formal tone or when online editions of newspapers provide platforms for readers to report stories, what Banda (2010) calls "institutional citizen journalism". 3.3 A Look at Citizen Journalism Ethics Whereas journalism ethics have a long tradition and are manifested in the codes of unions, agencies and publishers, the ethical foundations of citizen journalism have been much less explored. Perlmutter and Schoen (2007) found that even among top ranked American political blogs, some of which are professional outlets, few have formal or informal codes of ethics. In the United States, there have been two notable early attempts at creating a 'bloggers' code of ethics'. Blood (2002) focuses on journalistic bloggers and attempts to provide guidelines to raise their credibility. Dube (2003) similarly sees bloggers as comparable to journalists and provides a code of ethics that is adapted from the guidelines of the Society of Professional Journalists, listing advice for honesty and fairness, minimizing harm, and accountability. However, these two early formulations depart little from traditional journalism ethics and are only within limits specific to the medium. A more audacious attempt was formulated by Kuhn (2007), who set out to "identify through a dialogic process those values held most deeply by those who chose to blog 4

New Media and Mass Communication ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3275 (Online) Vol.11, 2013

www.iiste.org

regardless of the specific functions they perform as bloggers and build a normative code accordingly" (p. 21). He particularly stresses the use of blogs for many-to-many communication, as opposed to the one-to-many communicative fashion of journalistic bloggers in Blood's and Dube's conception. Consequently, Kuhn used a dedicated blog to elicit responses from readers; however, unfortunately his sample size is rather small. Kuhn finds that in his sample, bloggers identified themselves and their readers, rather than society at large, as 'stakeholders' in their blogs; while at the same time they considered blogs as "vehicles for social change, a challenge to our mainstream media, and tools that can be leveraged for political and social gain". In Kuhn's study, bloggers named 'free expression' as the value most important to them with regard to blogging, followed by 'factual truth', followed by transparency, accountability, and minimizing harm to others. Etiquette was mentioned regularly, but ranked as rather unimportant. When asked for imperative "dos", they named providing credits or links to other blogs, being honest and grounding opinion in fact, and disclosing biases as most important for bloggers, whereas knowingly spreading misinformation, posting information unsupported by facts, and violating copyright laws were highlighted as "don'ts" (p. 31). Kuhn particularly notes that the dos and don'ts also include prescriptions to "sustain the discourse on blogs" and "avoid actions that might discourage participation in blog discourse", consistent with his emphasis on dialogue and many-to-many communication (p. 31 and 32). Kuhn's findings tie in with a larger study by Cenite et al (2009), which asked personal and non personal bloggers about their ethical beliefs and corresponding practices. They found that personal bloggers valued attribution most, followed by minimizing harm, truth telling, and accountability. Non personal bloggers valued attribution and truth telling highest, followed by minimizing harm, and accountability (p. 586). Differences between groups were significant for truth telling, valued more highly by non personal bloggers, and minimizing harm, valued more highly by personal bloggers (p. 587). Cenite et al. also found that non personal bloggers engage in ethical practices related to truth telling, accountability, and attribution more than personal bloggers (p. 588). However, the findings of this study are limited by the fact that answers were limited to these four categories, excluding the interactive factor Kuhn (2007) has emphasized. There seems to have been no research specifically on the attitudes and ethical practices of African citizen journalists so far. If mentioned in the literature on ethics at all, citizen journalists are portrayed as negative examples of unethical behaviour. As Kasoma (cited in Tomaselli, 2009) writes, If untrained citizens become journalists, they are oblivious about principles of ethics. This puts the entire media institution at risk with governments. Some authors have noted practices in which citizen journalists differ markedly from professional codes of ethics. For example, Moyo (2009), writing about Zimbabwe, notes that "when the bloggers refer to 'the news in now' or 'unconfirmed reports', they are not necessarily trying to convince the reader that they have done some investigation in the manner professional journalists verify facts, but merely to indicate that the information has been derived from the grapevine and hence suggest that the readers should do their own crosschecking and verification of stories published." Concluding from this observation, Moyo warns that in the absence of any particular ethics, citizen journalists could, by spreading untruths, lead to "panic and disorder". 4. Theoretical Anchor

4.1 Democratic Participant Media Theory This study is anchored on the Democratic Participant Media Theory and the Public Sphere model. The emphasis of this theory is on the basis of society and on the value of horizontal rather than vertical (top-down) communication (McQuail, 1987: 122). The main thrust of the theory lies in its insistence that the existing bureaucracy as well as commercial and professional hegemony in media systems be broken down, so as to guarantee easier media access for all potential users and consumers (Folarin, 2005: 43). McQuail (1983) proposed this theory to take account of many ideas expressed to take care of the needs of citizens. The theory found expression in the 1960s and 1970s in pressure for local and community radio and television. It challenged the dominance of centralised, commercialised, state-controlled and even professionalised media (McQuail 2000: 160). Making a reference to Ezensberger (1970), McQuail notes that the key to applying this theory was seen to lie in the new technology of the times. It favoured media that would be small in scale, non-commercial and often committed to a cause. Participation and interaction were key concepts. The theory has been against the system of parliamentary democracy which has seemed to become detached from its grassroots origins, to impede rather than facilitate movement in political and social life. It also takes 5

New Media and Mass Communication ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3275 (Online) Vol.11, 2013

www.iiste.org

exception to a mass society which is over-organised, over-centralised and fails to offer realistic opportunities for individual and minority expression. McQuail (1987: 122) says the central point of a democratic-participant theory lies with the needs, interests and aspirations of the active receiver in a political society. It has to do with the right to relevant information, the right to answer back, the right to use the means of communication for interaction in small-scale settings of community, interest group, sub-culture. Essentially, the theorys cautions that communication should not be left in the hands of professionals alone find practical expression in the structure and general operations of citizen journalism. Orchestrating the tenets of the Democratic Participant Media Theory is the Public Sphere Model. Public Sphere Postulation The public sphere is a virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space. The public sphere is an area in social life where people can get together and freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. In its ideal form, the public sphere is made up of people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state (Habermas, 1991:176). Harbermass work actually relies on a description of a historical moment during the 17th and 18th centuries when coffee houses, societies and salons became the centres of debate, and extends this to an ideal of participation in the public sphere today. Through acts of assembly and dialogue, the public sphere generates opinions and attitudes which serve to affirm or challenge - therefore, to guide - the affairs of state. In ideal terms, the public sphere is the source of public opinion needed to. The public sphere mediates between the private sphere and the Sphere of Public Authority (Habermas, 1991). The private sphere comprises civil society in the narrower sense whereas the Sphere of Public Authority deals with the State, or realm of the police, and the ruling class. The public sphere crosses over both these realms and through the vehicle of public opinion, it puts the state in touch with the needs of society. This area is conceptually distinct from the state: it is a site for the production and circulation of discourses that can in principle be critical of the state (Habermas, 1991). The people themselves came to see the public sphere as a regulatory institution against the authority of the state. The basic belief in public sphere theory is that political action is steered by the public sphere, and that the only legitimate governments are those that listen to the public sphere. 5.

6.

The Status of Citizen Journalism in Nigeria

Citizen journalism is now a popular brand of journalism in Nigeria. This development is attributable to the overwhelming use of the social media the country. Both the political leaders and the electorate in Nigeria use the social media for various reasons. In his study of the rise for citizen journalism in Nigeria a case study of Sahara Reporters, Dare (2011:44) stated that National recognition came for social media when on June 28, 2010, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, launched his Facebook fans page to reach out to the youth and Nigerians with a view to getting feedback on electoral reform and other national issues. He reported that Nigerian politicians employed the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and SMS messaging to advance their campaigns and deliver their manifestos to boost their followership during the countrys 2011 general elections. It is, therefore, not surprising that Webster (2010), cited in UNDP (2010:67) observed that President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria was said to have more Facebook fans than the combined tally of British Prime Minister, David Cameron, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel and South African head of state, Jacob Zuma As a result of the ubiquitous adoption of social media for public communication in Nigeria, citizen journalism has gained currency in the country. Nigerian citizen journalists report events in their localities and comment on national issues, using the social networking sites. Today, there are popular citizen journalism websites in Nigeria. The Sahara Reporters, one of such websites, is noted for its timely reports on issues and events. In a study conducted by Dare (2011:44), 86 of the 120 respondents surveyed cited the Sahara reporters as a source of breaking news. By its interactivity and ability to deliver news in split seconds, citizen journalism has posed a serious challenge to the mainstream media in Nigeria. Before press time, citizen journalists in Nigeria had reported the Dana 6

New Media and Mass Communication ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3275 (Online) Vol.11, 2013

www.iiste.org

airline crash of June 3, 2012, which claimed the lives of over 150 passengers on board. Not only did the social media give timely report of the plane crash, they also gave the audience the opportunity to ask questions and exchange views on the national calamity. This challenge posed by citizen journalism appears to have forced the traditional media in Nigeria to embrace citizen brand of journalism. However, experts have called the genre of citizen journalism practiced by the mainstream media in Nigeria to question. In his study of citizen journalism off-line, with a focus on the Nigerian punch model, Salawu (2011:192) found that, despite the newspapers claim of creating an opportunity for readers to create their own news, the punchs model of citizen journalism was still with some limitations. According to him, compared with online citizen journalism, especially one that is done through blogs, the punch model is with inadequacies. In the model, the professionals in charge of the page would still play the role of gatekeepers. He explained that the professionals would determine what stories to go public and what should not go. Even, for those that would go public, some editing would have been done on the stories, thereby robbing them of their originality, and in a way distorting the actual reports of the contributors. The above picture painted by Salawu is different form CNNS brand of citizen journalism tagged ireport. In the ireport, stories retain their originality; there is no sort of distortion. As a result, credit or blame goes to the contributor of a story in ireport. 7. Criticisms of Citizen Journalism in Nigeria

Citizen journalism has been criticized by its opponents in Nigeria. Some of the critics believe that citizen journalism lacks veracity. Dare (2011:44) found that only 33 respondents of the 120 surveyed trusted Sahara reporters. This, according to him, shows that most Nigerians do not believe stories from citizen journalists. It is believed in some quarters that they spread false hood. Other critics argue that citizen journalism fuels civil unrest, political instability and ethno-religious crisis. This angle of criticism peaked during the nationwide protests that greeted the removal of fuel subsidy in January 2012. It was believed in some quarters that citizen journalists misinformed the activists, making them to gang up against the government. However, that was perceived, the aim of the protest was partially achieved as there was a huge reduction in the pump price of fuel. Again, citizen journalism has also been criticized for trivializing issues of national interest, including national calamities. There was an outcry; especially by national leaders against the conduct of citizen journalists during the Dana Airline crash of June 03, 2012. It was said that while rescue operators were sweating profusely to see if there could be any survivors, citizen journalists were busy taking and uploading gory pictures to their friends. It is suggested that during emergencies, citizen journalists should not spread the news or pictures that may hamper rescue operations. 8. Conclusion

This study has critically analyzed the state of citizen journalism in Nigeria. It is clear from the study that citizen journalism is growing rapidly in the country. Therefore, the need to sensitize Nigerian citizen journalists on proper use of citizen journalism is just obvious.

References Banda, F. (2010). Citizen Journalism and Democracy in Africa. Grahams town, South Africa: Highway Africa. Blood, R. (2002). The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice On Creating And Maintaining Your Blog. New York, NY: Basic Books. Bowman, S. and Willis, C. "We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information." 2003, The Media Centre at the American Press Institute. 7

New Media and Mass Communication ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3275 (Online) Vol.11, 2013

www.iiste.org

Case, J. A. "Recovering the Radical: Biocybernetic Subversion in Guerrilla Video Primer." Paper presented at the NCA 93rd Annual Convention, Chicago, IL, November 14, 2007. Cenite, M., Detenber, B. H., Koh, A. W. K., Lim, A. L. H., & Soon, N. E. (2009). Doing the right thing online: a survey of bloggers' ethical beliefs and practices. New Media and Society, 11(4), 575-597. Dare, s. (2011). The rise of citizen journalism in Nigeria the case of sahara reporter. http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/about/article/the-rise-of -citizen-journalism-Innigeria.html. Dube, J. (2003). A bloggers' code of ethics. Retrieved from: http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php Folarin, B. (2005). Theories of Mass Communication, An Introductory. Text, Ibadan; Stirling-Horden Publishers (Nig). Ltd. Habermas, J. 1962/1989/1991. The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of Bourgeois Society. (trans. Thoman Burger with Frederick Lawrence). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kuhn, M. (2007). Interactivity and Prioritizing the Human: A Code of Blogging Ethics. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22(1), 18-36. Mkinen M. & Kuira, M.W. (2008). Social Media and Postelection Crisis in Kenya. The International Journal of Press/Politics 13(3): 328-335. Mark Glaser (September 27, 2006). "Your Guide to Citizen Journalism". Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved March 22, 2009. McQuail, D. (1983). With the benefit of hindsight: Reflections on uses and gratifications research. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 1, 177193. McQuail, D. (1987). Mass Communication Theory. London: Sage Publications. McQuail D (2000). Media Performance: Mass Communication and the Public Interest. New York: Sage Moyo, D. (2009). Citizen Journalism and the Parallel Market of Information in Zimbabwes 2008 Election. Journalism Studies 10(4): 551-567. Mutsvairo, B. & Columbus, S. (2012). Emerging Patterns and Trends in Citizen Journalism in Africa: A Case of Zimbabwe. Central European Journal of Communication, 5(1). [forthcoming]. News and Information. http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/; accessed September 11, Papandrea, Mary-Rose. "Citizen Journalism and the Reporters Privilege." Boston College Law School (Minnesota Law Review, Vol. 91). 2007. Retrieved January 7, 2007. Perlmutter, D. D. & Schoen, M. (2007). "If I Break a Rule, What Do I Do, Fire Myself?" Ethics Codes of Independent Blogs. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22(1), 37-48. Online Journalism Review, August 8 2003 Oteku, V., de Bastion, G., Schtz, R., & Bierhals, G. (2010). From the Birds Eye to the Grassroots View. Working paper, newthinking communications. Salwu, A. (2011). Citizen journalism off-line: the (Nigerian) punchs model. http://www.ec.ubu.pt/ec/09/2011mai-10.pdf. Tamara Witschge (27). "Street journalists versus 'ailing journalists'?". openDemocracy - free thinking for the world. openDemocracy Ltd. Retrieved 21 May 2012. Tomaselli, K. G. (2009). (Afri)Ethics, Communitarianism and Libertarianism. International Communication Gazette, 71(7), 577-594. 2003 University of Southern California's Online Journalism Review UNDP (2010). A baseline readiness assessment of the Nigerian media as forum for citizen engagement in the 2011 election. http://www.ng.undp.org/dgd/media-report-baseline-survey-october-2010pdf. (retrieved on may 3,2012). Walton, M. (2011). Mobilizing African Publics. Information Technologies & International Development 7(2): 47-50. Webster, D. (2010). Goodluck jonathan: the facebook president.http:articles.cnn.com/2010-10-01/tech/goodluck.jonathan.facebook.profile-1-facebook-fans-popula-socialnetwork-site-nigerian-president?s=pm:TECH. Wikipedia. Public Sphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_ sphere (Retrieved on September 4, 2009). Wikipedia. Citizen Journalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism (Retrieved on November 25, 2007). Zuckerman, E. (2009). Citizen Media and the Kenyan Electoral Crisis. In S. Allan & E. Thorsen (eds.), Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives. New York, NY: Peter

This academic article was published by The International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (IISTE). The IISTE is a pioneer in the Open Access Publishing service based in the U.S. and Europe. The aim of the institute is Accelerating Global Knowledge Sharing. More information about the publisher can be found in the IISTEs homepage: http://www.iiste.org CALL FOR PAPERS The IISTE is currently hosting more than 30 peer-reviewed academic journals and collaborating with academic institutions around the world. Theres no deadline for submission. Prospective authors of IISTE journals can find the submission instruction on the following page: http://www.iiste.org/Journals/ The IISTE editorial team promises to the review and publish all the qualified submissions in a fast manner. All the journals articles are available online to the readers all over the world without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. Printed version of the journals is also available upon request of readers and authors. IISTE Knowledge Sharing Partners EBSCO, Index Copernicus, Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, JournalTOCS, PKP Open Archives Harvester, Bielefeld Academic Search Engine, Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek EZB, Open J-Gate, OCLC WorldCat, Universe Digtial Library , NewJour, Google Scholar