My co-editor Einar Thorsen and I are delighted to share the news that volume 3 of Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives has been published. It appears in the book series Global Crises and the Media (Simon Cottle, series editor) with Peter Lang in New York.

We are most grateful to our excellent contributors, with whom it was a pleasure to produce a lively, incisive intervention into current debates about citizen journalism and its wider significance.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • Stuart Allan

Section One: Definitional Boundaries of Citizen Journalism

• Emerging Media and Citizen Journalism: Considering How New Technology May Transform News Engagement
  • John V. Pavlik

• Between Activism, journalism, and the Public: The Continuing Boundary Work of Citizen Journalism
  • Bolette B. Blaagaard

• Interlopers, Interloping: Practitioners and Practices of Boundary-Crossing Journalism
  • Scott A. Eldridge II

• The New News Photo: Citizen Journalism and the Changing Visual Newsscape
  • Tara Marie Mortensen, Brian McDermott, and Bob Wertz

• Use of Citizen-generated Content in the News and Its Influence on Audience Trust and News Engagement
  • Jisu Kim and Jisu Huh

• Citizen Witnessing and Sports Journalism: Crisis, Cruelty, and Whistleblowing
  • Simon McEnnis

Section Two: War, Conflict and Crisis

• Voices Amid Conflict: The Emergence and Impact of Citizen Journalism in Palestine
  • Ibrahim Horoub

• From Local News to Tik Tok Postings in Wartime: Eyewitness Visuals in Digital News
  • Maria Nilsson

• Negotiating Journalistic Values and Roles in Response to ‘Anti-normative’ Citizen Images: The Case of ISIS’ ‘Terrorist Spectaculars’
  • Jelle Mast

• Between Witness and Combatant: The Role of Citizens in Reporting Platformed War
  • Florian Primig and Anna Litvinenko

• Redefining Citizen Journalism in Malaysia in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic
  • Mastura Mahamed

• Theorizing Citizen Journalism and Authoritarian Regimes
  • Bruce Mutsvairo and Susana Salgado

Section Three: Protest and Resistance

• ‘More than a news outlet… a symbol of defiance’: How Women-led Websites Attempt to Change the Narrative Around Afghanistan and Promote Feminist/LGBTQ+ Agendas
  • Glenda Cooper

• Black Death “Gone Viral”: Black Journalists Reflect on Their Experiences with Citizen Journalists and Cellphone Footage
  • Denetra Walker

• Citizen Journalism and Social Mobilization: Alternative Media in Post-handover Hong Kong
  • Chi Kit CHAN

• Citizen Journalism on the Frontlines of Environmental Justice
  • Krishnan Vasudevan

• Çapul TV as a ‘Hybrid’ Alternative News Media in Turkey
  • Yasemin Mina Ulubelen

• Breaking the Silence: Toward Unhoused Citizen Journalism and Social Change
  • Vojtěch Dvořák

Section Four: Citizen Information, Evidence and Data

• Citizen Media Evidence in an Era of Misinformation and Disinformation: A Case Study of Nigeria
  • Adebayo Okeowo

• Emerging Voices: Analysing Proliferation of Digital Citizen Journalism Platforms
  • Job Mwaura and Prinola Govenden

• Non-Citizen Journalism and Counter-Information Practices: Exposing Detention Complexes and Citizenship Hierarchies
  • Arianna Grasso

• A Literacy Approach to Citizen Journalism in India
  • Subin Paul

• User-Generated Content or User-Generated Data?: A Critical Review of Citizen Online Participation
  • Marcelo Santos and Luján Román

• Crisis Citizen Journalism Research in the Post-API Age
  • Wendy Norris

List of Contributors

Index

I am very pleased to say the Special Issue I edited for Digital Journalism has been published:

Allan, S. (2025) ‘Visual war journalism,’ Introduction to Special Issue. Digital Journalism. Available here.

Abstract: This Introduction to the Special Issue (SI) begins by discussing several risks, threats and dangers visual war journalists may be compelled to confront when performing the vital role of bearing witness, including ten specific imperatives of mediation. It proceeds to elaborate the conception of “visual war journalism” guiding the SI’s rationale and priorities, in general, before turning to examining in closer detail varied aspects of how ongoing conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Gaza are being documented in visual terms, often under harrowing circumstances. Next, this Introduction offers a brief overview of each of its eight articles. It is the SI’s aim to foster dialogue and debate about visual war journalism’s trajectories today so as to encourage alternative, critical thinking about future prospects.

My sincere gratitude to the Special Issue’s contributors, the referees involved in the peer-review process, as well as the journal’s editor, Oscar Westlund, and its production team.

Just in case you would like a free PDF of an article Tom Chivers and I co-wrote, “A public value typology for public service broadcasting in the UK,” published in Cultural Trends (Volume 33 Issue 2), it is now available here:

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/2ERZQ5DQFXAZRSPQDWPW/full?target=10.1080/09548963.2022.2151340

Abstract

Rapid changes in audience habits, media technologies and marketdynamics have prompted searching questions about the role andrelevance of public service broadcasting (PSB) in the moderndigital media landscape. In the UK, where cultural policymaking isincreasingly politicised, the normative ideals traditionallyassociated with PSB are being openly contested. This articleevaluates how PSB generates varied forms of“public value”ofbenefit to viewing and listening publics, policy stakeholders andthe creative sector. On the basis of its qualitative analysis ofpolicy documents and related research literatures over twodecades, a typology of six values–social, cultural, economic,industrial, representational and civic–is identified and critiquedacross regulatory and institutional frameworks. In assessing thechallenges, risks and opportunities for sustaining these publicvalues, this article offers its typology for informing cultural andmedia policy debates on the future of PSB in the UK and beyond.

Eva Nieto McAvoy and I are pleased to share an open access article, ‘Mediations of cultural policymaking during COVID-19: British newspaper reporting of the Culture Recovery Fund,’ published in the International Journal of Cultural Policy.

Abstract

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, cultural policymaking frequently came to the fore in media debates about the impact of the crisis and measures to alleviate it. In this article, we present evidence of how newspaper coverage of the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) identified and framed competing perceptions of the relative utility of policymaking in this context, while also problematising familiar assumptions about the CCIs among policymakers, journalists and (arguably) the public. Specifically, we analysed British news and editorial items (n.4,162) published from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020. It offers a novel investigation into the ways in which media and policy rhetoric overlap, interact and influence each other. In doing so, this article contributes a unique perspective to the study and practice of cultural policy, bringing to light the typically underexplored role of the news media in shaping the narratives driving cultural policy deliberation and action.

Available to download for free at: https://doi.org10.1080/10286632.2023.2268648