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This article analyzes the term 'citizen journalism' against the backdrop of the Arab uprisings in order to show how it overlooks the local context of digital media practices. The first part examines videos emanating from Syria to illustrate how they blur the lines between acts of witnessing, reporting, and lobbying, as well as between professional and amateur productions, and civic and violent intentions. The second part highlights the genealogies of citizenship and journalism in an Arab context and cautions against assumptions about their universality. The article argues that the oscillation of Western narratives between hopes about digital media's role in democratization in the Arab World and fears about their use in terrorism circumscribe the theorization of digital media practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines journalists' changing sourcing practices in the context of an emerging media ecology initiated by processes of globalization, digitization, commercialism and concentration. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube provide the means to access a more diverse range of sources, including civil society organizations and ordinary citizens. We developed a quantitative content analysis to examine to what extent Belgian news coverage showed signs of diverse sourcing practices during the 2011 uprisings in three Arab countries. We analysed a total sample of 1121 news items about the street protests in Syria, Egypt and Tunisia, in four Belgian newspapers (two popular and two quality dailies) and two Belgian broadcasters (the public broadcaster VRT and the commercial channel VTM). The analysis shows that ordinary citizens and non-mainstream groups are important news sources and that social media platforms are consulted relatively often compared to everyday foreign news coverage. In terms of inter-media differences, the findings show that broadcasters' dependency on video footage and eyewitness accounts is reflected in their use of ordinary citizen sources and amateur footage. Moreover, the analysis confirms that quality newspapers display more diverse and more innovative sourcing practices than popular newspapers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2009 protests in Iran and the 2011 Arab uprisings took place in complex and fast evolving media ecologies. The BBC's Persian and Arabic language services, which reach millions, drew heavily on content created by ordinary citizens to cover events. This paper traces the flow of this content through the news process to examine how collaboration between newsrooms and citizen journalists changed from 2009 to 2011. The article argues that participation in the news process hinges on the congruence between newsroom practices, and the practices of those producing content on the streets. Such congruence requires mutual knowledge of broadcasting requirements. It finds that by 2011 journalists felt more comfortable and effective integrating user-generated content (UGC) into their news output. Importantly, UGC creators appear to have taken on board the broadcaster's editorial requirements, making them savvier content creators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The latest wave of revolutions that has swept the Arab world and Egypt has given rise to new forms of citizen journalism that have met the pressing need for instantaneous updates on protests as well as filled the gap left by traditional news agencies targeted by oppressive regimes. This form of citizen media is characterized by using amateur yet innovative forms of journalism. It operates on a low budget and utilizes social media as a platform and network builder. This paper analyzes this phenomenon by examining the case of the Facebook-launched Rassd News Network in Egypt, a citizen journalist network that had the largest audience base during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. The paper conducts a qualitative textual analysis of the discourse utilized by Rassd during the onset of the revolution guided by Gamson's collective action frames. It also discusses the reasons behind the network's success as well as the challenges that such initiatives face, including their ability to survive competition with bigger, wealthier, and more credible news agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the use of amateur video footage to broadcast news about the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011. The author describes how the use of mobile phones and lightweight video cameras eluded the censorship that was being enforced by regimes in the region, explores how citizen-journalism has impacted the mainstream media, and analyzes how civic engagement is produced by media. She also discusses videos that depict insurgents in Syria dancing the traditional folk dance dabkeh and how it contrasts the violence and terror in the country.