1. STUART ALLEN (2007) „CITIZEN
JOURNALISM AND THE RISE
OF “MASS SELF-
COMMUNICATION”:
REPORTING THE LONDON
BOMBINGS‟ –
GLOBAL MEDIA JOURNAL – AUSTRALIAN EDITION, 1(1)
Week 7: Mobile Phone Cultures and the
Reporting of Crises and Disasters
By Jennifer Bailey

2. Citizen Journalism
 “Journalism which enables readers to
become writers” – Bruns (Week 2)
 Enabling readers to become contributors?

3. London Bombings, 2005
 Thursday morning 7th of July at 8.50am 3
bombs were detonated consecutively on
London Underground trains
 About an hour later a fourth bomb was
detonated on a London bus
 A co-ordinated suicide bomber terrorist attack
 52 civilians killed – thousands injured

4. Castells (2007) states that the
reconfiguring of „journalism‟ across
new digital platforms has lead to:
 Network Society
 Mass Self-Communication

5. Network Society
 “the diffusion of Internet, mobile
communication, digital media, and tools of
social software… have prompted the
development of horizontal networks of
interactive communication that connect local
and global” – Castells 2007
 Ordinary citizens are constantly linked in real
time

6. Mass Self-Communication
 It reaches potentially a global audience
through networks and Internet connection.
 It is multimodal, as the digitization of content
and advanced social software... allows the
reformatting of almost any content in almost
any form, increasingly distributed via wireless
networks.
 It is self-generated in content, self-directed in
emission, and self-selected in reception by
many that communicate with many.

7. 7th July 2005
 8.50am – Three bombs detonated on London
Underground trains
 9.26am – Story appears on online news site
that trains lines are closed due to a
potential power failure
 11.10am – Announcement to public (via TV
news station) that there has been a
terrorist attack
- Allen (2007)

8. Problems facing reporters
 The bombs were detonated underground.
Soon after the event emergency crews
cordoned off the train stations – no one could
get through. Journalists and reporters could
not get access film/shoot footage.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI4ctfQ-aYg

9. Blogs:
 http://www.londonist.com/
 http://normblog.typepad.com/
 http://london-underground.blogspot.com/

10. Mobile Phones
 “As would quickly become apparent, a
considerable number of the most newsworthy
images of what was happening were not taken
by professionals, but rather by these
individuals who happened to be in the wrong
place at the right time.” – Allen (2007, p.12)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuhBdHc8N
qs

12.  “Until then, „citizen journalism‟ was an
idea. It was the future, some people
said. After London, it had arrived”
(The Age, July 11 2005) – Allen
(2007)

13. References
 Bruns, Alex „From Reader to Writer: Citizen journalism as news
produsage‟. In Hunsinger, Jeremy, Lisbeth Klastrup & Matthew Allen
(Eds.) Internet Research Handbook. Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 119-
134.
 Allan, Stuart (2007) „Citizen Journalism and the Rise of “Mass Self-
Communication”: Reporting the London Bombings, Global Media
Journal – Australian Edition, 1(1).
 Allan, S., Matheson, D. (2004) Online Journalism in the Information
Age. Savoir, Travail & Société, 2(3), pp. 73-94.

Castells (2000) „The Rise of The Network Society: The Information
Age: Economy, Society and Culture‟ John Wiley & Sons

Castells (2007) „Mobile Communication and Society: A Global
Perspective‟ Massachusetts Institute of Technology