Empowerment journalism
Empowerment journalism is a form of participatory media in which storytellers are empowered to tell and own their own stories, through collaboration with professional journalists. This method was developed in response to critiques of parachute journalism, the traditional journalistic approach in which outsiders visit communities or countries for brief periods of time, take stories out of the communities, and then package them and send them back into a global sphere. Unlike traditional journalism, empowerment journalism places editorial agency and ownership within the community.
This method of journalism is distinct from other forms of participatory media in that participants - who are generally not professional journalists, filmmakers or producers - are partnered with professionals, who serve as their editors and storytelling facilitators. This allows the storyteller to produce a professional work of journalism, while maintaining control over and ownership of their story. One challenge of this approach is that it violates the traditional rules of journalistic independence.[1]
Some of the benefits of this approach include creating space for marginalized voices to be heard, and avoiding the traditional stereotyping that may occur when outsiders visit communities with preconceived ideas.[2] Empowerment journalism also offers access to the public to stories that may otherwise go untold. In Indigenous communities, for instance, with histories of exploitation and prejudice, outsiders are often prevented from accessing storytellers, and an empowerment approach can offer communities both agency over their own stories, and access to the broader audience to issues that may otherwise be neglected.[3] Duncan McCue, the founder of Reporting in Indigenous Communities, talks about the distinction between "storytelling" and "story-taking,"[4] by which he means that Indigenous communities have throughout history had their cultures raided by outsiders, and he argues it is time for community members to gain more control over their own narratives. Andrea Wenzel has also written about community journalism, a form of empowerment journalism, for often underserved smaller communities.
One of the first experiments with empowerment journalism was Strangers at Home, a 2016 anthology documentary project that offered communities in Europe (e.g., Roma, Muslim, Jewish, refugees) opportunities to explore why they feel like strangers in their own home, producing stories about their experiences.[5]
References[edit]
- ↑ Society of Professional Journalists, Code of Ethics (PDF), retrieved November 29, 2020
- ↑ Lefkowich, Maya; Dennison, Britney; Klein, Peter (September 10, 2019). "Empowerment Journalism - Commentary for Special Issue of Journalism Studies". Journalism Studies. 20 (12): 1803–1809. doi:10.1080/1461670X.2019.1638294 – via Taylor and Francis+NEJM. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ "Indigenous Canadian filmmakers confront alcoholism, other issues in community". PBS NewsHour. November 14, 2020.
- ↑ "Duncan McCue on reporting in Indigenous communities". Ryerson University.
- ↑ "Fostering a Grassroots Approach to International Reporting". Nieman Reports.
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