When citizen photojournalism sets the news agenda: Neda Agha Soltan as a Web 2.0 icon of post-election unrest in Iran

Abstract

The article discusses the current rise of citizen photojournalism, which has received little scholarly scrutiny. Drawing on a case study of the mobile telephone footage of the Iranian woman Neda Agha Soltan, who was killed during a demonstration in Iran in June 2009, the article investigates the ethical dilemmas of the Western news media’s eager use of citizen photojournalism as a unique and headline-grabbing source. While these images may grant us insight into areas of tension, to which the media has no other access, amateur footage challenges the ethical standards of conventional journalism with its fragmentary and subjective format, not to mention the difficulties involved in tracking a clip’s author and origin. Even though the news media indisputably play an essential role as a platform for editorial selection and communication of citizen photojournalism, this article points to a general lack of editorial procedures for accommodating these new sources.