Reporting Conflict from Afar

Journalists, Social Media, Communication Technologies, and War

Bibliographic Data

ID12909115
AuthorsBritt Christensen (0000-0002-8746-4275, Notre Dame of Maryland University, corresponding author), Ali Khalil (0000-0001-5572-440X, Zayed University)
Year2021
Volume17
Issue2
Pages300-318
Publication date2021-04-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournalism Practice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1751-2786 • E-ISSN: 1751-2794
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17512786.2021.1908839
OpenAlexW3147993247
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited26

We conducted interviews with conflict journalists who covered the conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Iraq and who work for the major international news agencies and media companies. These journalists did most of their reporting from remote locations as the conflict zones were too dangerous to be physically present. We investigated how the journalist did their jobs with the communicative affordances of digital tools and how digital trust-building occurred. The trust-building process between journalists and sources shifted across platforms and according to the technologies’ communicative affordances. We established that reporters had embraced the flow of news material on social media platforms as a valuable source of information, but after exercising extreme caution. Journalists upheld the boundaries that separated them from amateurs by emphasizing their role in making sense of events. They also fortified their gatekeeping role through verifying and vetting information – a task needed to maintain credibility and protect readers and viewers from misinformation and propaganda. Encrypted messaging applications such as WhatsApp played a major role in speeding up communication with and protecting potential sources and verification

Affordance · Credibility · Digital media · Gatekeeping · Internet privacy · Journalism · Misinformation · Political science · Public relations · Social media · Vetting · Computer Science · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Social Media and Politics

Tools

Open DOI