The erosion of ethics: from citizen journalism to social media
| Pages | 409-421 |
| Date | 11 November 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-01-2019-0014 |
| Published date | 11 November 2019 |
| Author | Jessica Roberts |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
The erosion of ethics: from citizen
journalism to social media
Jessica Roberts
Faculdade de Ciencias Humanas, Universidade Catolica Portuguesa,
Lisbon, Portugal
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to consider the implicationsof the shift from citizen journalist to
social mediauser by examining how ethics are addressed on social mediasites compared to citizen journalism
sites.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper appliesthe framework of a 2012 study of ethics on citizen
journalism sites to social mediasites’guiding documents to compare how they discuss ethics and what they
ask of the users, offering suggestions for how social media sites might imbue users with a sense of their
responsibilitiesand obligations.
Findings –The analysis finds that ethics are largely ignored on social media sites, written in legalistic
languageand framed in negative terms, rather than in terms of responsibilitiesor obligations.
Originality/value –When citizen journalism was subsumed by social media, much of the language –
lacking as it mayhave been –around users’responsibilitiesto each other was lost. This paper suggests social
media sites should seek to raise rather thanlower the barriers to entry, and imbue users with a sense of the
responsibilitythey accept when sharing informationonline.
Keywords Ethics, Social media, Journalism ethics, Codes of ethics, Citizen journalism
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
While amateur reporting that gained national attention can be traced back to George Holliday’s
home video of the beating of Rodney King or even further to Zapruder’sfilm of the Kennedy
motorcade, interest in the phenomenon called “citizen journalism”exploded in the US in the
early 2000s. Around the turn of the twenty-first century, with the growth of blogging platforms,
cheaper and more portable cameras and other tools for recording and sharing information,
citizenjournalismbecamethefocusofagreatdeal of attention from professional journalists,
media critics, academics and the public. Newsrooms began to grapple with competition from
content created for free by citizen journalists, and academics began to examine the practices,
ethics and products of amateur internet users sharing information online.
The enthusiasm about participation in the process of information creation spread to
social media when the first social-networking sites brought the ability to record and share
information to even more users. Social media have grown steadily in reach and become the
dominant means by which many people communicate, get news and share information.
Facebook now claims more than 2 billion monthly active users (of about 3.5 billion people
using the internet worldwide)and in some countries, Facebook is used interchangeably with
“internet.”Citizen journalism has largely faded in public interest and while it remains an
area of interest for academics, it has been overtaken by studies of social media, which now
boasts several journalsdedicated to the subject.
The connections between citizen journalism and social media are significant, however
and provide the basis for this paper. The questions that citizen journalism raised aboutthe
The erosion
of ethics
409
Received27 January 2019
Revised28 March 2019
Accepted10 April 2019
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.17 No. 4, 2019
pp. 409-421
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-01-2019-0014
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