Knowledge and Competences for a Counter-hegemonic journalistic practice (original) (raw)

In this article we problematize the skills and knowledge needed for the practice of citizen journalism, which we understand as a journalistic practice that deconstructs critiques and points out alternatives to the hegemonic thought. Citizen journalism intends to cater for the needs of citizens -as opposed to consumers-so that they are able to appropriate of and criticize that which is useful for their life experiences and, as a result, intervene in and change the reality in which they live. Such skills and knowledge include ethics, historicity, respect to otherness, critical and political approaches. The background for the analysis are the ideas of public journalism (Rosen, 1994;; alternative and citizen journalism (Carpentier 2009, Atton 2006 and Fuchs 2010, the pedagogy of the oppressed ; the journalistic deontology (Bertrand,1999) and the humanistic perspective (Kapuzinski, 2002). For a macro perspective of the functions of the media in society, we have taken inspiration from and Silverstone (2007). We argue that, despite the commercial interests and the instrumental and spectacular style that permeates the press worldwide, there is within the media conglomerates a professional minority that occupy a locus of resistance and are able to represent, while marginally, popular interests. We do not ignore, however, the knowledge constructed by the research in the fields of sociology of journalism , Schudson 1995, Gitlin 1980) and political economy of media but try to problematize questions concerning the structure of media organizations and devise concrete possibilities of transformation.