TITLE:
Choosing to Become a Citizen Journalist: The Experiences of Malaysian Youth
AUTHORS:
Mastura Mahamed
KEYWORDS:
Youth Citizen Journalist, Career, Experience, Citizen Journalism
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.10 No.12,
November
4,
2022
ABSTRACT: Online citizen journalism is turning from a
reader to a writer to share their opinion on some topics that occur in the
media. Some even dedicate their time to writing and addressing issues as
citizen journalist even though most of this group of citizen journalists are
not receiving any payments for their contributions. This study thus aims to
investigate the motivation that leads to Malaysia’s
young citizen journalists’ decision in becoming a citizen journalist.
Qualitative enquiry using a phenomenology approach was selected. An in-depth interview with 14 informants participated in in-depth interviews.
Atlas.ti 8 was used to analyze data of emerging themes. Three themes associated
with past experiences emerged, which are action, people and event. Findings
emerged young citizen journalism in Malaysia decide to get involved in citizen
journalist due to the self-esteem they develop in performing specific actions
or activities, encouragements, support and nurturing from their parents and
surrounding coupled with circumstances of events they encounter. This implies
development of a deeper understanding of the trend of local citizen journalism
by taking into account the motivation that nurtures the citizen journalist’s
decision to venture in journalism practices. Thus, future actions should also
be given on the aspect of teaching and educating the younger generation on
journalism ethics at an early age.