Reporter.co.za defunct: A critical examination of institutionalised citizen journalism through the case study of South Africa's reporter.co.za.

• Main Author: Motylska, Iga
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10539/15283

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the Internet have allowed for the evolution of information collection, newsgathering and dissemination. These technological advancements provide an innovative platform and an ideal medium for a new form of journalism, namely citizen journalism. This research report focuses on reporter.co.za: an institutionalised form of citizen journalism that existed from early 2006 until late 2008. The research was conducted by means of qualitative research and explores the ideological conceptualisations of citizen journalism, namely its independent nature, as well as the contradictions around institutionalised forms of citizen journalism. The findings illustrate that reporter.co.za cannot truly be classified as citizen journalism as the concept was originally conceptualised, and that its institutionalised nature may have been one of the possible reasons for its closure.