The use of non-professional or amateur images has become an important component of news coverage of distant crisis events. It plays a decisive role in shaping how audiences collectively recognize and respond to such events, write Laura Ahva and Maria Hellman.

Ahva and Hellman examine the ways in which citizen eyewitness images in crisis coverage are adding a new dimension to audiences’ engagement with international crises. The results indicate that non-professional or amateur imagery is indeed a potential tool with strongly engaging characteristics.

Read the article here. (abstract public)

Picture: Filming Sky? by Thomas Szynkiewicz, Licence: CC BY 4.0