Understanding media empowerment: citizen journalism in Palestine

This study addresses the nature of citizen journalism in Palestine, with the chief aim of identifying its role in promoting professionalism, ethics, and objectivity, and empowering digital media, information accessibility, and democratization of media production. To this end, this study uses data from different universities across Palestine obtained through surveys that address digital media empowerment and non-professional users in the new media landscape. The study sample used was selected using the stratified sampling method. Upon completion of a pilot test, a total of 300 questionnaires were distributed among undergraduates of 10 universities across Palestine based on their willingness to participate and availability. Our results suggest that official media outlets can benefit from citizen journalism by providing accurate and valid sources of information to citizen journalists to increase engagement among their audiences as a result of enhanced perceptions of independency and credibility. However, our findings also reveal that citizen journalism does not make a significant difference in undermining gatekeeping practices over new media content in Palestine. Moreover, the results show that there is no relationship or correlation between the idea of adopting citizen journalism as a complementary method to traditional journalism and the credibility and reliability of news stories presented by citizen journalists.