Expert academics from Birmingham City University are helping to train an army of ‘citizen journalists’ in the Arab region to help ensure local governments are properly held to account. Birmingham City University, a recognised leader in online journalism, is delivering this pioneering front-line project in a region that is coming to terms with the Arab Spring and the challenging process of democratisation.
The University is working with US-based technology company ‘Meedan’ on the Developing Citizen Journalists in the Arab region project. Countries included in the project are Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and with Syrian citizens in Lebanon.
This ambitious initiative builds on the success of an earlier BCU citizen journalism project using training materials partly designed by Noha Atef, a highly respected social media journalist from Egypt. Noha is now studying for a doctorate with project leader Professor Tim Wall, Director of Birmingham City University’s Centre for Media and Cultural Research.
Professor Wall said: “It’s a daunting challenge to work in countries undergoing major political and social change – but given the role of social media in the Arab Spring there is a real opportunity to share our expertise in online journalism and social media. Our work will contribute to strengthening democratic media in these places, so helping people to sort fact from rumour, make informed political choices, and hold their governments to account. Our work will empower citizens to use social media technology to collaboratively report and verify news stories, and fact-check political statements”.
This will be achieved, said Professor Wall, by improving reporting, media literacy and community-building skills for citizen journalists in the Arab region – and to strengthen their role as investigators and contributors to the public sphere and as a watchdog on government. “We will directly train 1,000 citizens, mainly under-35s and at least a third women, from diverse locations in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon – countries experiencing rapid political change following regional popular uprisings and where the internet is now the dominant mechanism through which many people access information.
“Representing a broad range of political perspectives, the trainees will be recruited and consulted on curriculum design by local partners. This group will help to seed an online network of 75,000 citizens from around the region using Meedan’s online platform. The content produced will impact the wider public sphere in these countries.”
The University plans to send a ‘task force’ made up of academics (including a Senior Researcher and Assistant) to the Arab region. This team, recruited specially for the project, will then engage directly with small groups of activists, such as Go Local (Egypt), 7iber (Jordan) and SMEX (Lebanon) in six locations in each country.
The Birmingham City University academics will directly educate these partner teams, using training materials partly developed from a previous, similar project in Egypt. These activist groups, who are trusted by the indigenous population, will then share this training to fellow citizen journalists, cascading good practice to fellow digital journalists in the region. This grassroots approach has proved very effective.
