Are citizen journalists adequately trained for the production of “newsworthy” stories? ask Michal Kus, of University of Wroclaw Tobias Eberwein, of Alpen Adria University, Colin Porlezza, of University of Zürich, and Sergio Splendore, of University of Milan.

The research demonstrates the educational backgrounds of citizen journalists. The study is founded on a multi-national analysis in six European countries and a bunch of semi-structured interviews with citizen journalists.

The results show that there are differences as well as similarities in the educational backgrounds of citizen journalists. For example some have a clear idea of what constitutes good journalism and others do not seem to care much about journalistic standards. A large propotion of the interviewees did not benefit from any formal journalistic training. According to them learning by doing was the most important learning method.

The study was published by Journalism Practice and it is available here (abstract public).

Picture: Nick and books 4 by UBC Learning Commons, licence: CC BY 2.0