Mobile Journalism is Changing the Media Landscape as We Know It
Mobile journalism is changing the media landscape as we know it, having a significant impact on newsgathering and storytelling.
Mobile journalists, or mojos, use portable electronic devices with network connectivity, such as digital cameras and camcorders, laptop PCs, smartphones or tablet devices, to gather, edit, and distribute news.
It’s easy to see why mobile journalism has only grown more and more viable. An estimated five billion people have mobile devices today, and studies suggest that 70 percent of internet users will be using only their smartphones to access the internet by 2025.
Social media platforms have also contributed to the growth of mobile journalism. An October 2019 Pew Research study found that while the majority believe that social media companies “have too much control over the news on their sites, and that the role social media companies play in delivering the news on their sites results in a worse mix of news for users,” nearly three in 10 social media users get their news via social media sites often.
Unlike traditional reporting, mobile journalism offers instant gratification, allowing mojos to disseminate pieces of their stories as they unfold in real time. Because traditional reporters take more time to develop their stories, mobile journalism has had a significant advantage over traditional media outlets.
According to Yusuf Omar, the co-founder of Seen, a media organization that guides people on how to tell stories using their phones, mobile journalism shows that there is “so much low-hanging fruit that is ripe for the taking.”
“There’s a huge digital opportunity, and traditional media organizations are slow and unable to move quickly. So there’s a massive opportunity for young people to say, we’re going to help fix these legacy media organizations, or we’re going to form our own company,” he said in an interview with The International Journalists’ Network (IJN), adding:
“Young journalists too often wait for someone to give them the opportunity on a plate. If you want to be your country's best food reviewer, you have a mobile phone in your pocket, what are you waiting for? If you want to be a travel reporter, go out there and start traveling. “
His co-founder, Sumaiya Omar, concurred, telling IJN that so long as aspiring mojos “Just put stuff out there, the more you do the more you understand your audience, the more you understand what people are looking for in your content.”
Mobile journalism has a net positive effect on democracy, according to Yusuf Omar, a conviction that influenced the creation of IJN’s Mobile Journalism Toolkit, which is currently available in English, Arabic, French, and Portuguese and includes eight videos produced by Seen that aim to educate mojos about storyboarding, narrative structure, fact-checking, and other important tips and tricks of the trade. Also included in this toolkit: How to go viral, a necessary lesson for any aspiring mojos.
Charlotte Maher, Seen’s Community Lead, notes that this mobile journalism toolkit is valuable for journalists because it offers them a way to “engage young, and new audiences around the world.”
“You need to be offering something unique, especially to stand out on social media platforms, which are saturated with so much content, including the fact that you’re competing with celebrities and influencers as well on those platforms,” she says, adding that mobile journalism “allows your reporters to, when they’re out on the field, capture different kinds of content all in one.”
So influential has mobile journalism been on modern journalism that The Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), a German think tank associated with but independent of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), created a Mobile Journalism Manual for reporters and newsrooms to emphasize mobile journalism’s strength as an affordable, portable, discreet, and approachable way of telling the news. The manual includes resources and guides for aspiring and seasoned mojos alike on everything from the best apps and mobile equipment to use and advice on how to master video storytelling.
Mobile journalism has been remarkable for its ability to spotlight issues such as racial injustice and police brutality in the United States (the murder of George Floyd is the most prominent example, and Darnella Frazier, who was 17 at the time of the killing, was awarded a special citation by the Pulitzer Board in June 2021). But it is not without its drawbacks.
“Social media can easily become flooded with uncredible or misleading information. Anybody today may film or record audio on a smartphone — but the ability for anybody to post, tweet, or share information creates a lack of control over what is created and disseminated,” notes Verizon, which partnered with The New York Times to deliver 5G broadband cellular networks to the company’s operations and further its own mobile journalism initiatives.
The corporation notes that the “accessibility of mobile journalism also means that sensitive or violent content may be released,” adding that it can also pose a great risk to people living in societies where free speech “is restricted or controlled,” such as in Hong Kong, where democracy protesters are up against China’s expansive surveillance apparatus.
