Citizen journalists and news agencies
A reconfiguration of journalistic practices in the digital age?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22478/ufpb.2763-9398.2026v24n.76483Keywords:
Citizen journalism, News agencies, Social media networks, Syrian civil war, International newsAbstract
This study aimed to investigate how the relationship between Syrian citizen journalists and international news agencies was shaped in the context of the Syrian civil war, characterized by restrictions on the presence of foreign press and the rise of content production on digital social networks. To address this issue, the research, of a qualitative nature, was based on semi-structured interviews conducted with fifteen Syrian citizen journalists who collaborated with news agencies and international media, as well as a bibliographic review on citizen journalism, agency journalism, and global information flows. Thus, the analysis seeks to understand how these journalists became professionalized, how they related to the agencies, and how their practices were institutionalized or conditioned by Western editorial standards. The results highlight tensions between democratization and editorial control, showing that, although local journalists played a central role in covering the conflict, they remain subject to hierarchies and structural dependencies that limit their narrative autonomy. In this way, the research contributes to understanding the continuities and disruptions in power dynamics between citizen journalism and news agencies in the contemporary information ecosystem.
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