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The rise of civil societies contributed to the manifestation of democratic process. Civil society nurtures the emergence of active citizen in political decision-making, involvement in social issues and engagement in the ideas of creating a prosperous society. Currently, utilizing information and communication technology (ICT) and accessing internet to form virtual community is a new trend of civic engagement in the political issues. This paper discusses the activity of civil society in conjunction with the used of ICT to form social network.

As violence spiked in Mexico in clashes between drug trafficking organizations and law enforcement, news media were systematically silenced by cartels and cowed legitimate governments. Reliable information on street battles and their consequences ceased to flow through traditional channels to an anxious citizenry on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border 10 miles from McAllen, Texas. In Reynosa, Tamaulipas, a noted "plaza" territory contested by the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, ordinary citizens became journalists in 2010, reporting under the umbrella of the pioneer #ReynosaFollow hashtag on the Twitter social media platform. This gave frightened citizens a sense of anonymity and security in disseminating their real-time warnings to others, serving as the modern-day "underground presses" of the past signaling danger and injustice. Twitter and #ReynosaFollow have gained notoriety in mainstream media on the U.S. side of the border as useful and important news sources in territory that reporters no longer cover on a daily basis out of fear for their lives. This article chronicles how citizen journalism has developed in heavily censured states of Mexico where frequent gun battles and brutal murders still occur. Special emphasis is given to a case study of Twitter in the city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas.

Arab citizens have adopted the blogging technology of the internet to create a venue for alternate viewpoints in a manner similar to their global counterparts. Initially a handful of bloggers, writing mostly in English and reflecting a Western flavour in their content, initiated the Arab blogosphere. They have since been joined by thousands of Arabic blogs. Their impact has been noted, whether directly on politics and media or in their ability to enable civil society by providing instant networking and expanding the space for freedom of expression. They have also created an unexpected challenge to their governments, causing inconsistent reactions. This article analyzes the region's laws, regulations and the methods used to govern those nationals who choose to join the growing number of global citizen journalists, and how they often learn to defy those rules. The primary focus has been the case of Egypt's blogs due to their influential role in the regional blogosphere.

Preface -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Table -- Chapter 1: Introduction: Cyberactivism and Social Movements -- The Research Question -- Refuting Technological Determinism and the Formality of Political Inquiry -- Background and the Case Study: Egypt's Bloggers and the Tactical Repertoire of Cyberactivism -- Pioneering the Cyberactivist Repertoire: The Evolution of Blogs and Social Networking -- Facebook -- Twitter -- Conceptual Framework and Theoretical Apparatus -- Social Movement -- Mechanisms -- Cyberactivism -- Social Constructivism and the Role of Dominant Communication Forms

With the increase in citizen-generated news, the need to understand how individual predispositions interact with news sources to influence perceptions of news credibility becomes increasingly important. Using a web-based experiment, this study examines the influences individual predispositions toward the media and politics have on perceived credibility of mainstream and citizen journalism. Analyzing data drawn from a representative sample of the U.S. adult population, results indicate that media skepticism and political cynicism interact, such that cynics and skeptics perceive citizen journalism as more credible, while non-cynics and non-skeptics think mainstream journalism is more credible.

This book will shed light on the growing phenomenon of cyberactivism in the Arab world, with a special focus on the Egyptian political blogosphere and its role in paving the way to democratization and socio-political change in Egypt, which culminated in Egypt's historical popular revolution

Using the case of the Xiamen anti-paraxylene (PX) plant movement, this article investigates the evolving phenomenon of citizen journalism with Chinese characteristics in the information age, with a focus on ICT-empowered environmental activism and the implications of citizen journalists on China's sociopolitical development. It is argued that enhanced public participation and environmental rights defences are developing effectively in China. The increase in alternative information available online through internet-mediated bloggers as well as citizen journalists is posing a formidable challenge to both the Communist Party of China's propaganda-filled media environment and its effective governance. Furthermore, the net's sociopolitical impact in China will be shaped and determined less by the intrinsic nature of the internet itself than by the underlying political dynamics of public opinion, civil participation, citizen journalism and cyber-activism. (GIGA/China)

This study examines the extent to which professional journalism adopts and uses citizen journalism, such as user-generated content (UGC) and user-submitted stories (USS), at the individual, organizational, and community levels. In doing so, the study adopts a web-based survey of top U.S. news editors ( n = 142) coupled with U.S. Census Data. The study reveals that experience as online journalists and online staff size play roles in the adoption and use of UGC. The study also finds that community structural pluralism is related to the adoption and use of news stories written together by professional and citizen journalists.

I temi della ricerca riguardano il rapporto fra avvento del web e la modificazione dei processi di formazione di identità personale e sociale, della percezione dello spazio e del tempo, del prosumerismo digitale e delle varie forme di partecipazione ed associazione. Centrale è stata l'analisi del rapporto fra il Web 2.0 e la trasformazione delle forme di comunicazione a vari livelli, sia personali che sociali. Partendo da una analisi dei contesti socio-economici globali che hanno trasformato la società moderna nella società informazionale, è stato impostato un percorso di ricerca che approfondisse gli attuali criteri di strutturazione della propria identità, alla luce dell'avvento dei social network e delle reti virtuali di comunicazione come strumento preferenziale di socializzazione. La realtà delle reti sociali è stata analizzata in un'ottica di aggregazione spontanea mirata tanto alla comunicazione quanto alla tutela dei consumatori, e le trasformazioni portate dal Web 2.0 sono state la chiave di lettura per ridefinire i parametri della partecipazione dal basso generata dalla rete. Per comprendere la portata di tali trasformazioni nel contesto italiano è stato impostato un paragone tra l'uso del web negli Stati Uniti e in Italia, avendo le recente campagne elettorali dimostrato l'importanza del web nella partecipazione politica bottom-up; il percorso di ricerca ha dunque affrontato una comparazione di due casi, quello italiano e quello statunitense, finalizzato a comprendere l'attuale ruolo dell'utente nelle dinamiche di comunicazione mediatica. Per focalizzare al meglio le trasformazioni sociali generate dalla partecipazione on line è stato infine analizzato il caso del citizen journalism, per misurare, attraverso la metodologia dell'etnografia digitale, l'entità delle trasformazioni in corso. Il portale di giornalismo partecipativo YouReporter è stato il contesto privilegiato dove poter verificare le ipotesi iniziali circa le dinamiche di partecipazione, e il supporto di programmi di elaborazione statistica netnografica ha permesso di destrutturare al meglio tali dinamiche. ; The subjects of the research concern the relationship between the growth of the web and the modification of the molding of personal and social identity, the perception of space and time, the digital prosumerism and the various patterns of participation and association. The project delves into the relationship between the Web 2.0 and the transformation of communication at various levels, both personal and social.The project focuses on the steps of the identity growth process, through the social network society, analyzing the social and economical contests that brought modern society to evolve into information society. Social networks have been studied as instruments for both socialization and consumerism, and as contest where to grow a new trend of popular participation. In order to clarify the subject and circumscribe the hypothesis of the research, the project structures a comparison between the use of the web in USA and Italy, with the purpose of understanding the current role of the web user in mass communication. In the research it was important to study the citizen journalism phenomenon in order to verify the hypotheses, through the methodology of digital ethnography, focusing on YouReporter website. Various programs of statistical elaboration supported the study of the "web galaxy", analyzing the contest and destructuring the Web 2.0 reality.

This paper aims to present the advantages and disadvantages of citizen journalism through historical evolution of this phenomenon in Serbia and throughout the world, as well as to present the challenges faced by professional journalists and to open up a space for wider public to debate about the chances and challenges brought by citizen journalism to democratic societies based on the freedom of speech. The questions about regulation, editorial responsibility and transparency of citizen journalism have been debated by many media experts who have been trying to resolve the citizens' participation in a public profession such as journalism. Chat services, forums, blogs, newsletters, emails, video by mobile phones, social networks and citizen journalism on the internet represent a real technological and human revolution of a modern age. According to relevant literature on online content selection and interviews with professional and citizen journalists, it can be concluded that participative journalism cannot jeopardize professional journalism as long as it is treated as citizens' participation in information gathering, exchange and distribution that is relevant to wider public. ; Cilj rada je da kroz istorijat razvoja građanskog novinarstva u svetu i Srbiji prikaže prednosti i nedostatke ove pojave, predstavi izazove sa kojima se suočavaju profesionalni novinari i uputi čitaoce na razmišljanje o šansama i izazovima koje građansko novinarstvo sa sobom nosi u demokratskim društvima koja se temelje na slobodi izražavanja. Pitanja regulacije, uređivačke odgovornosti i transparentnosti građanskog novinarstva predmet su najaktuelnijih debata među medijskim stručnjacima koji nude određena rešenja u vezi sa participacijom građana u jednoj javnoj profesiji kao što je novinarstvo. Čet servisi, forumi, blogovi, bilteni, e-pošta, video zapisi na mobilnim telefonima, društvene mreže, pa samim tim i građansko novinarstvo na Internetu predstavljaju pravu tehnološku i, može se reći, ljudsku revoluciju savremenog doba. Na osnovu literature, praćenja onlajn sadržaja i intervjua sa profesionalnim i građanima novinarima, zaključuje se da građansko novinarstvo ne može da ugrozi profesionalno ukoliko se tretira kao participacija građana u prikupljanju, razmeni i distribuciji informacija od značaja za širu javnost.

The presence of a diversity of information offers citizens access to a range of ideas, expertise and topics. In this study, a measure of content diversity was created to determine whether online citizen journalism and online newspaper publications were serving this function in the USA. Based on the findings from a quantitative content analysis ( n = 962), online citizen journalism articles were more likely to feature a greater diversity of topics, information from outside sources and multimedia and interactive features. The findings suggest online citizen journalism content adds to the diversity of information available in the marketplace.

Communication perspectives are presented on the challenges posed to traditional newspapers by social media and citizen journalism, with special reference to the United States. This is an important topic given the critical role investigative reporting, long the domain of newspapers, plays in fostering democratic practices. New Media and social networking technology are evaluated in terms of their impact on the newspaper enterprise. Alternative scenarios for future developments are examined as are the implications for social values and the role of an informed citizenry in democratic society. Strategic management issues are analyzed, and the possibility is considered that social media can fulfil much of the democracy-enhancing role served traditionally by newspapers.