Journalism via Mobile Phones

The use of mobile phones to record information for publishing, is gradually becoming a useful instrument for Citizen journalism. Mobile bloggers are comfortably working under cover, using mobile phones and other digital devices. Apart from the financial gains and information relay, mobile bloggers are complementing the efforts of traditional media owners by supplying news/stories that may not be accurate after all. When the story happened is important but how it happened is vital. Objectively, mobile phones may not be regarded as powerful devices for news and information gathering, yet they are potentially viable tools that can be used to exposes or uncover corrupt practices and emergency situations. But the question is, can citizen journalism, through cell phones, help enhance the news? What are the opportunities and threats to adopt and avoid when using mobile phones for citizen journalism?

In July 2006, Erik Sundelof, a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford University, in a discussion with Mark Glaser, stated categorically, that ''the cell phone is a perfect complement to news contributed to the web. You can get it online easily.'' Sundelof also mentioned that he is developing a prototype (software) which will facilitate the use of mobile phones for information gathering. Sundelof's software, will not only open doors to people who capture issues around them but also enable them to post unrefined stories to a specific website. Source: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift.

In my opinion, Sundelof's idea is brilliant. The reason is that it will contribute immensely to web journalism or online journalism. Market leaders like Youtube and Mobile Reporters accept news and information that is captured via mobile phones and allow bona fide users to post them on their sites. Other interested readers access these sites for both formal and informal news as they happen in society. Obviously, traditional media owners, in one way or another, tap into some of these sites for news stories; especially those related to natural disasters like the Tsunami and recent floods in some Asian countries. Such instances always show how late traditional media can be. By the time they arrive at the scene, the drama is gone and they can only depend on eye-witnesses and passers-by, who probably were quick enough to document the scene as and when it happened and how it happened. It is worth noting that people who engage in such practices, do so sometimes at the peril of their lives and the common devices that they use are mobile phones and digital camcorders.

As I think about this aspect of journalism practice, I ask myself one question: what are the issues confronting citizen journalism and how can they be addressed? In my estimation, there are five basic issues in this method of citizen journalism. They are listed as follows:

1. What kind of mobile phone is ideal for such stories? I beleive that ideally, mobile phones for citizen journalism must have GPRS, Multimedia utilities such as inbuilt camera, video (MP4 playback), sound recording input, good sound, SMS/MMS, and a reliable internet network.
2. How accurate is the story or information that is captured and posted?
3. Which mobile internet service provider can facilitate this service
4. Which website or blog is expected to manage the volume of information or stories that is received.
5. How accessible is the information that is posted?

In spite of these issues, there are a number of challenges that one has to go through in order to fully utilize mobile reporting. Mobile reporting is now a global phenomenon and as a result mobile bloggers (moblogs) are also springing up rapidly. Currently, such blogs as moblogUK, InTheFieldOnline.net and some Reuters' blogs are actively engaged in mobile blogging. 3G mobile phones are probably the best for citizen journalism using cellphones. Because they have all the features - text processing, multimedia inputs, video, audio, SMS/MMS and GPRS.

As a tutor, if I have to teach a journalistic course with the object of using social/citizen media, I will use the following process as introduced by Erik Sundelof who experimented these proposed steps and challenged people to try it: The procedure is listed below as follows:
1. Take a picture, audio and/or video clip.
2. Choose to send that clip or picture via a Picture Message/Multimedia Message using your mobile phone.
3. Send this message to ‘show@inthefieldonline.net’ (of course short-codes are supported.)
4. Just watch the screen and you will see it pop up on its own.

The simplicity also exist for SMS and it has been tested in most continents. I tried this and it worked. However, it must be reiterated that in Ghana, this method is a problem because many of my students do not have mobile phones with all the features listed above. Others have, but the internet service provision is quite a challenge since it is expensive.

In conclusion, I beleive that, mobile reporters play a significant role in news and information gathering and traditional media owners do need their services. There are several opportunities and very few threats if citizen journalism should grow in our country. These opportunities and threats will be later discussed in Part II of this article.