Citizen journalism, also known as collaborative media, participatory journalism, democratic journalism, guerrilla journalism or street journalism, is based upon members of the community playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information. Courtney C. Radsch defines citizen journalism "as an alternative and activist form of news gathering and reporting that functions outside mainstream media institutions, often as a response to shortcomings in the professional journalistic field, that uses similar journalistic practices but is driven by different objectives and ideals and relies on alternative sources of legitimacy than traditional or mainstream journalism". Jay Rosen offers a simpler definition: "When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another." The underlying principle of citizen journalism is that ordinary people, not professional journalists, can be the main creators and distributors of news. Citizen journalism should not be confused with community journalism or civic journalism, both of which are practiced by professional journalists; collaborative journalism, which is the practice of professional and non-professional journalists working together; and social journalism, which denotes a digital publication with a hybrid of professional and non-professional journalism.
Farai Chideya is an American novelist, multimedia journalist, and radio host. She produced and hosted Pop and Politics with Farai Chideya, a series of radio specials on politics for 15 years. She is the creator and host of the podcast Our Body Politic, which launched in September 2020.
Willow Bay is an American television journalist, editor, author, and former model. In 2017, she became dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism having earlier served as director of USC Annenberg School of Journalism. She was previously a senior editor for the Huffington Post and a special correspondent for Bloomberg Television.
The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational and professional organization of African-American journalists, students, and media professionals. Founded in 1975 in Washington, D.C., by 44 journalists, the NABJ's stated purpose is to provide quality programs and services to and advocate on behalf of black journalists. The organization has worked for diversity and to increase the number of minorities in newsrooms across the country.
George Gerbner was a professor of communication and the founder of cultivation theory. He taught at Temple University, Villanova University, and the University of Pennsylvania.
The Annenberg School for Communication is the communication school at the University of Pennsylvania. The school was established in 1958 by Wharton School alum Walter Annenberg as the Annenberg School of Communications. The name was changed to its current title in 1990.
Murray Fromson was a CBS correspondent and professor emeritus at University of Southern California's School of Journalism, and Center on Public Diplomacy. He was educated in the Los Angeles Unified School District, including Belmont High School in Downtown Los Angeles.
Douglas Thomas is an American scholar, researcher, and journalist. He is Associate Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California where he studies technology, communication, and culture. He is author or editor of numerous books including Reading Nietzsche Rhetorically, Cybercrime: Security and Surveillance in the Information Age, Hacker Culture, and Technological Visions: The Hopes and Fears that Shape New Technologies. He has published numerous articles in academic journals and is the founding editor of Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media.
Marc Ambinder is an American university professor, journalist, and television producer. He is a former politics editor at The Atlantic, a White House Correspondent for National Journal, contributing editor for GQ, and was editor-at-large of The Week and a member of the USA Today national board of contributors. In 2017, he was the journalist-in-residence at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. His third book, The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983, was published by Simon & Schuster in July 2018. He teaches at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where he leads Annenberg's digital security initiative.
Neon Tommy was the online news publication sponsored by the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. It was active from 2009 to 2015.
Anne Marie Balsamo is a scholar whose career encompasses contributions as a theorist, designer, educator, and entrepreneur in the fields of feminist technology studies, media studies, design research, public interactives, cultural heritage, and media archeology.
Michael Parks was an American journalist, editor, and educator who wrote on various political events around the world throughout his career. He served as editor of the Los Angeles Times from 1997 to 2000. He won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting award in 1987 for his reports about the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He also taught at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and served several stints as its director.
The Houston Defender (Network) is a Black digital information source that originated from the African American newspaper of the same name based in Houston, Texas. Established in 1930 by C.F. Richardson Sr., the newspaper has been a strong voice for the African American community for over 90 years. During its founding, African Americans faced significant challenges, such as racism, discrimination and limited access to education, employment and political power. Today, the Houston Defender Network is pivotal in advocating for social, economic, environmental and political justice for the African American community.
Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab Wilhelm is a Mexican investigative journalist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2013 along with David Barstow.
Astrid Gynnild is a Norwegian writer, educator, and a professor of media studies at the Department of Information and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Norway. Her research projects lie at the intersection of human creativity, journalism innovation, and new technologies. She is also engaged in explorative teaching and learning approaches in higher education, and spends much time supervising students at all levels. Her research has contributed to innovative approaches to conceptual development in media research.
Cynthia "Cinny" Clare Kennard is an American business and nonprofit executive, author and former broadcast journalist. She is the executive director of The Annenberg Foundation, based in Los Angeles, and Annenberg PetSpace.
Safiya Umoja Noble is the David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of Gender Studies, African American Studies, and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is the Director of the UCLA Center on Race & Digital Justice and Co-Director of the Minderoo Initiative on Tech & Power at the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She currently serves as Interim Director of the UCLA DataX Initiative, leading work in critical data studies.
Jill Leovy is an American journalist and nonfiction writer. She is best known for the non-fiction book Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America, her 2015 New York Times best-seller about homicide in Los Angeles. Leovy argues in Ghettoside that more effort must be given to arresting and incarcerating perpetrators of inner-city murders, because "impunity for the murder of black men remained America’s great, though mostly invisible, race problem."
Wendi C. Thomas is an investigative journalist and the founder of MLK50, a nonprofit digital newsroom with the goal of reporting on economic justice.
Mary Angela Bock is a journalist and professor of journalism. She is an associate professor of journalism at University of Texas at Austin in the School of Media and Journalism with an expertise in visual communication, citizen journalism and representation.
