ABSTRACT
In recent years there has been an explosion of citizen-produced content appearing in mainstream media outlets. Terms such as convergent journalism, citizen journalism and user-generated journalism are all widely used in an attempt to define this growing phenomenon. This paper explores the specific genre of citizen photojournalism (CPJ). It is argued this is a definitive genre of its own and has important implications for audience perceptions due to the narrative or “storytelling” role of the visual mage. An “action genre” approach is used to examine how this new photographic genre has been enabled within current technological, cultural, political and economic environments That is to say, that photographic production processes, undertaken by amateur photographers are examined to identify patterns of activity that comprise the genre of CPJ. Through a review of existing literature on how citizens work in the field, and the way the resulting photographs are used in mainstream media, I offer a conceptual structure to delineate recognisable patterns of activity that comprise the genre of CPJ. The strength of this approach is that it allows me to describe CPJ in a way that reveals how external factors and the practice of citizens taking photojournalistic images impact upon the final product published in influential publications including popular press, books, magazines and internet publications.
