Citizen Journalism and Election Monitoring in Nigeria

In contemporary times, the advent of advanced multimedia technologies and the new media in communication has provided a platform for citizen to gather, report and disseminate their own news content, share and debate on issues that affect the society with others, making them to serve dual-purpose of being both the receiver and the sender of news and information. Citizen journalism has been tested in some part of the world and is seen as a panacea to the repression and undue censorship of the press in many countries thus engendering democracy. Some other school of thought believe that citizen journalism was birthed as a result of the failure of the conventional media to independently carrying out its responsibility as the societal watchdog and the fourth estate of the realm without pandering to the wishes and sensibilities of the government. The study therefore, examines the impact of citizen journalism in the deepening of democracy in Nigeria. This study explored the democratic participant media theory and collected data using the document review template as its research instrument. Findings revealed that notwithstanding the immense contribution of citizen journalism to the unfettered access to information by the citizenry

2017

One intriguing development about the growth of social media is that they have broadened the scope of airing both local and national news particularly about government activities the world over. A succinct observation about the Nigerian media landscape also reveals that they have seemingly supplanted the traditional modes-the newspaper outlets, and radio and television stations-of reporting customarily known for their limitations concerning fair and transparent reporting of sensitive national issues, thus undermining effective feedback from the citizenry. This has consequently generated some misgivings among citizens especially at a time online citizen journalistic practices-the participation of individual citizens through self-reporting of socio-political happenings in their localities-are highly spurred by social media platforms thereby encouraging individual's virtual interactions on public matters. The thrust of the paper is to explore the role of citizen journalism in self reporting of news in their localities, the nature and style of this model of journalism and effect of their reporting. Five (5) citizen journalist reports on different national issues were purposively selected from weblogs/sites. Inter-discipline frameworks-linguistic theory and democratic participation approach-were adopted for the analysis of the data. From findings, one obvious discovery is that citizen journalists do more than conventional journalists would do; while reporting, their activities straddle accusatorial and advisory roles; also, social media have proven to be platforms wherein government activities carried out in the secret are brought to the open. Therefore, the challenge of governance thus lies in government and its agencies being able to consistently open to not only transparent but also constructive criticisms from citizens and civil society organisations via these virtual platforms.

The paper aimed to examine citizen journalism and its impacts on professional journalism in progressives society: A study of 2019 governorship election in Cross River State. There is no doubt that citizen journalists play a salient role that compliment professional journalists through their reportage they contribute to the public. For instance, the just concluded 2019 general elections was reported to be characterized by irregularities via the videos and pictures reported online. The paper used Democratic participants media theory to backup its views. The study revealed that citizen journalists played a sacrosanct role during the 2019 governorship election in Cross River State. They reports a lot of stories across the nooks and cranny of the State which shows all manners of irregularities and violent that occurred during the election. Some of which varies from snatching of ballots boxes, multiple voting, vote buying and many more which was posted on social media platforms. The study concluded that citizen Journalism has become an integral part of the modern-day society because it has given voice to the voiceless in the society. The researcher recommend that Journalism profession should fashion out modalities on how to check excesses by its members and they should be campaigns and advocacy that targeted the abolition of fake news reports and they should enlighten the public on the dangers of fake news so that even if they want to participate on news coverage, it will dissuade them from reporting fake news.

Hallmark University Journal of Management and Social Sciences , 2020

Nigeria commenced her present democratic experience in 1999. Twenty years down the line, it is imperative to carry out a critical evaluation of the roles played by each of the stakeholders, especially the press which is referred to by the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended) as the fourth estate of the realm. The study was empirical and it adopted a qualitative method. Primary data were sourced through focus group discussion by engaging ten (10) journalists, spread across both print and electronic media in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. All the participants covered the2019 general elections in the study area. The objectives were to critically examine the roles played by journalists in deepening the nation's electoral process and to identify the challenges that confronted journalists in the discharge of their constitutional responsibility and to proffer solutions to the identified challenges against future elections. The study found out that journalists' roles as watchdogs during the elections conformed with the agenda setting theory in their coverage and reportage of the elections; pre-, during and post-election periods. Such factors as nonaccreditation of journalists by INEC, lack of insurance cover, insecurity as well as inadequate fund were some of the identified challenges that confronted journalists during the period of the elections. The study recommended that stakeholders, media owners, election umpire, and security agencies should be alive to their assigned responsibilities during future elections to make it easier for media professionals to discharge their duties.

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), 2022

This study is entitled: “An Appraisal of Citizen Journalism in Democracy and Good Governance: Focus on EndSars Protest in Nigeria.” The aim of the study is to appraise the role of citizens Journalism in democracy and good governance with a special focus on EndSars protest in Nigeria. Anchored on the democratic participant media theory which is concerned about individual citizen’s right to access to the media. The study, incline to the quantitative approach, adopts the survey design method with data were collected through the instrument of a questionnaire which was administered on 150 respondents in Nigeria using simple random sampling method. Findings from the study reveals that citizens journalism contributed to the success of the EndSars protest in Nigeria through different ways such as constant posting of information about the protest, creating awareness about the protest, setting agenda for public discussion in the media and telling Nigerians how the government and the police have failed. Findings further reveals that through sharing of pictures and video clips of victims of police brutality, exposing atrocities committed by members of the Sars group, encouraging Nigerians on the need for police reform and encouraging Nigerians on the need to EndSars and police brutality made many citizens all over the country to join the protest. The study concludes that Citizen Journalism has become an essential part of modern-day society because it has given voice to the voiceless especially in a diversified society like Nigeria. It therefore, recommends the convention media to encourage and train the citizen journalists who can be an asset to them.

Adeleke University Journal of Business and Social Sciences (AUJBSS) , 2023

Advancements in new forms of information and communications technologies have continued to transform content, nature, and style of writing for the media. This study examines conventional and citizen journalism practices using a comparative analysis. The objective of the study was to do a comparative analysis of conventional and citizen journalism practices and to examine the extent of usage of gate-keeping by both conventional and citizen journalists regarding fake news dissemination. The theoretical underpinnings of this study are the Technological Determinism Theory and the Technological Acceptance Model (TAM). The study adopts the comparative research design. Information was sourced from secondary sources. Based on observation and relevant information gathered from secondary sources of data, the study concludes that new information and communications technology have shaped the media ecology or environment in innumerable ways. These dynamics have introduced a new concept known as "citizen journalism"-a new form of journalism. This new form of journalism is distinct from the highly guided and rule-based conventional journalism and due to lack of gate-keeping and code of ethics is inveigled with fake news and misinformation. The study, therefore, recommends that government should develop a functional regulatory framework to regulate the social media platform to ensure sanity in the digital media landscape as the media functions not in isolation but functions within the framework of a given society.

New Media and Mass Communication, 2013

The study evaluated the possibilities and challenges of citizen journalism in Nigeria and discovered that Citizen

Nigerian Journal of Social Research, 4(2): 55-76., 2023

The birth of citizen journalism has brought a new of interest in the field journalism. Prominent amongst these interests is the challenging surveillance role and through the social media channels in news gathering and production. A role, hitherto considered as exclusive preserve of the mainstream media. This phenomenon started around the late 1990s where individuals who have no ties with media organizations have taken advantage of the convenience of the internet technologies to publish their own stories and contents. What is incontrovertible is the fact that Citizen Journalism has provided news contents that exposes social ills in Nigeria such as the #bring back our girls Campaign that exposed the inept and clueless handling of Chibok girls kidnapping to the #EndSars protest that recorded the brutality and mindless corruption of Nigerian politicians and elites on the management of Covid-19 palliative in 2020. Given these past watchdog role of Citizen Journalism, this paper uses theoretical approach to examine cases of social media approach used by citizen journalists in Nigeria. The aim is to determine if through social media news gathering approach, citizen journalists can improve the level of media surveillance, visibility and prominence as the fifth estate of the realm in Nigeria.

Asian People Journal of the Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Malaysia, 2018

Mass media has recorded tremendous achievement in Nigeria political system, particularly towards educating the masses on the government policies and programmes. This action performed by the media has significantly influenced the voting behaviour of the electorates in Nigeria which arguably attributed to the historical landmark success recorded in the country by the opposition party (All Progressive Congress) to unseat the ruling party (Peoples Democratic Party) during the 2015 general election. The study examines the media role in Nigeria towards ensuring that the political officers/politicians are accountable to the masses whom their interests is represented. The study makes use of structuration theory that explain how the structure and action of man make the society and that the two are indivisible to study. The actions of man that affects the structure must have be attributed to the role and the kind of information disseminated by the media in such society. The study reveals that some media houses subject themselves to tool of oppression by the ruling party in order deprive the opposition of their rights to access media and canvass for votes. The study equally reveals that the unethical practice among the media to discriminate over the political parties" programmes is capable of jeopardizing the political awareness of the masses. This study therefore is a qualitative in nature that employs the use of secondary data source to assess how media ensure that the political officers are accountable to the masses in Nigeria.

American Academic Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences, 2019

Election is basically avenue where eligible members of the public are allowed to select or vote who will govern them. At times, the processes that guide this selection or voting remain smooth and perfect while in most cases they result into series of unimaginable crisis thereby led to fighting, burning of houses, cars and many other valuable properties and above all killing of one another. In a situation of this nature, media as fourth estate of the realm are expected not only to provide accurate and authoritative information about the whole thing but also to discharge their basic social responsibility of building an ideal society that is peaceful for all citizenry, since development triumph only in a peaceful society. This paper specifically examines in all ramifications; election, electoral process in Nigeria and the role of mass media toward having violence free electoral process. Empirically, this paper adopted survey method to gather resourceful data 200 respondents who were randomly selected among residents of Osun state, Nigeria. Social responsibility and peace journalism theories made a great impart with their assumptions that gave credence to this research work. At the end, analysis of data collected proved to the fact that men of pen profession have tremendous role to play in a peaceful democratic system and they must keep up this responsibility so as to keep our society in the path of peace in all our electoral processes in Nigeria.