‘This is citizen journalism at its finest’: YouTube and the public sphere in the Oscar Grant shooting incident

Abstract

On 1 January 2009, Oscar Grant was shot and killed in a subway station by Bay Area Rail Transit officers. This event was recorded by several passengers on their cellphones and later uploaded to the video-sharing website YouTube. The videos generated significant protests among online and offline communities, and were eventually used as evidence in the ensuing trial. This study employed a critical thematic analysis to examine audience responses to this act of citizen journalism on YouTube. Results indicated that although some viewers critiqued the video quality and the cameraperson’s passivity, several supportive comments praised the cameraperson’s presence of mind and courage. Furthermore, some viewers called for resistance and retaliation, while others advocated a more prudent response. We argue that these findings necessitate a reconceptualization of traditional notions of the guard-dog media and the public sphere to accommodate new media technologies.