RETHINKING CITIZEN JOURNALISM: TWITTER BAN, CITIZENS’ FURY AND THE PATROTISM QUESTION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The objective of this article is to revisit the citizen journalism phenomenon and its role in shaping the socio-political order, using the events around the October, 2020 End SARS protests in Nigeria. The article theorises on two fronts: The first is that citizen journalism on its own is inchoate without the handiness of cheap and easy access to digital devices and self-managed social media platforms that enable citizens to create and publish contents without inhibitions. Secondly, that the cosy relationship between the state officials and big businesses; and the mainstream journalists which impaired public-oriented journalism practice, leaves a vacuum that enable the citizens to engage in self-help in order to meet their information needs. This scenario has led to general crisis of state in which the state, the mainstream media and the citizens battle for the control of the public sphere. The article contends that, for the citizens’ anxiety to be calmed and to make them become accountable and patriotic, the State, as a matter of necessity must be more open and transparent in its dealings with the people, and then paving the way for it to set regulatory frameworks on which the social media and telecommunication companies, as well as the internet providers can operate. It is also argued that the press needs to review its alliances with the hegemonic forces in the Government and in big businesses as a way of closing the gaps in trust between the media and the citizens. Taken together, the article submits that the popularity and the foothold of citizen journalism on the social order will dissipate, with a more informed citizen becoming accountable and patriotic to the society.