How citizen journalism has changed the way we talk about sexual violence
But there’s a flip side
Until a few years ago, the mainstream media in India relied solely on police reports for stories on crime, including sexual assault. This might not seem so problematic, except when you consider that according to government data as many as 99.1 percent of sexual assaults are never reported to the police. The tide shifted dramatically in October of 2018.
This is when the #MeToo movement took off in India, with woman after woman naming and shaming the men who sexually harassed or assaulted them. The movement soon coalesced around certain Twitter and Facebook pages (run by professional journalists, incidentally) that took on the task of providing a platform for #MeToo accounts, verifying the identities of women who wished to remain anonymous in the public domain, and then disseminating their stories to the public and the news-hungry mass media.
WHILE #METOO HAS EXPERIENCED A CERTAIN MOMENTUM IN INDIA, THERE ARE NOW DOUBTS BEING ARTICULATED ABOUT WHETHER IT HAS LEGS TO STAND ON
India had seen plenty of citizen journalism before #MeToo, of course, particularly in the form of on-the-ground reports on events such as natural disasters or as dispatches from rural India. But never before had citizens from across India gathered to lend so much urgency to a long-standing systemic issue — sexual harassment, especially at work. Women from across many walks of life finally had a voice, and they were being heard by the government, by corporate houses, and by the media establishment (whose toxic work culture was also exposed during the movement).
Fast forward to a year later, however, and it is clear to see that the freedoms afforded by citizen journalism have also led to legal and other issues. There have been several defamation suits, threats to the anonymity of people sharing #MeToo stories online, discrediting of allegations as lacking in evidence, and the rise of a counter-movement called #MenToo that seeks to expose “fake” accusations of rape and sexual harassment. Thus, while #MeToo has experienced a certain momentum in India, there are now doubts being articulated about whether it has legs to stand on.
The pros and cons of citizen journalism
Citizen journalism can be broadly defined as the “collection, dissemination, and analysis of news and information by the general public, especially by means of the Internet”. Under this broad definition, citizen journalism can take a multitude of forms, including blog stories, social media posts, photographs on picture-sharing sites, video content on YouTube, or even comments with additional information or clarifications on published news stories. At times, citizen journalists may formally or informally join hands with mainstream publications, especially in the digital arena where several news websites dedicate space to user-generated content (moderated or unmoderated).
Some citizen journalism initiatives are more organised — for example, Khabar Lahariya is a woman-powered conglomeration of community reporters who tell stories from rural Bundelkhand, a little-travelled part of Uttar Pradesh; their “hyper-local” reports are frequently picked up by the mainstream media, which does not have reach in this part of India. Citizen journalism is democratic, it is not limited by constraints of geography, and it draws attention to issues that may be overlooked by traditional media. It can empower victims by giving them a voice to share their own ‘news’ and can galavanise public support and activism, as was the case with #MeToo.
CITIZEN JOURNALISM ALLOWS THE MEDIA TO AMPLIFY THE VOICES OF SURVIVORS AND BRINGS TO LIGHT INJUSTICES IN THE SYSTEM THAT WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE GONE UNREPORTED
However, many first-hand accounts may not be backed by the appropriate fact-checks, analysis and expertise. In the context of sexual assault, the absence of checks and balances can have deleterious consequences, such as identifying victims/survivors. For example, much of the outrage and activism towards the 2017 rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua, J&K, centred on images of the victim, before and after her death. Twelve media houses were fined by the Delhi High Court for publishing her name and photo and thereafter ceased to do so, but the information and photos are still available for anyone who searches on Google or Facebook.
Similarly, an easily identifiable video of a young woman being molested by her swim coach was circulated on social media as an attempt to draw attention to the crime and get justice. In the sphere of citizen journalism, therefore, laws regarding privacy and anonymity are often flouted. While this may attract more support public support for victims, it may also have difficult real-world consequences in a country where survivors of sexual assault often face blame and ostracisation. Finally, citizen journalism is often regarded with mistrust and is vulnerable to being easily dismissed as not having any authority or responsibility, as witnessed in MJ Akbar’s defamation suit against his accuser Priya Ramani. Survivors, therefore, may find themselves in the direct line of fire once they openly bring their complaint into the public domain.
A meeting of worlds
Despite the issues highlighted above, citizen journalism is today essential to public discourse. It is also an important tool for media houses, which have rightly started paying close attention to the news generated by individuals, but also subjecting the information to necessary factual checks and interrogations. It is when mainstream media collaborates with citizen journalism that the public truly benefits, and the news makes gains in substance, context and credibility. In the of case sexual violence, citizen journalism allows the media to amplify the voices of survivors and brings to light injustices in the system that would otherwise have gone unreported.
