Media Studies and Applied Ethics

Dušan Aleksić12 UDK 077.5:004.774

University of Niš, Faculty of Philosophy, DOI https://doi.org/10.46630/msae.1.2021.03
Department of Communicology and Journalism, Serbia Review article

CHALLENGES OF MOBILE JOURNALISM IN DIGITAL

MEDIA AGE
Abstract: Owing to the constant technology improvement and innovation, new ways
of reception and creation of media content have developed, leading to the redefining of
known communication processes. In this new digital media age, characterized by new
features such as convergence, mobility and interactivity, mobile journalism emerged as
a new journalistic form-challenging relation between creators and recipients of media
content. Even though the idea of user-generated media content that can be instantly
shared and broadcasted using small mobile devices sounds like a multi-beneficial concept,
this model still faces many challenges. In practice, numerous questions have arisen, such
as ethics, reliability and quality of such content as well as acceptance and implementation
into professional newsrooms. Therefore, the aim of this article is to review an academic
approach to this topic, backed by practical examples, in order to place mobile journalism
into a complex modern media system and evaluate its potential in the context of future
development.
Key words: mobile journalism, convergence, user generated content, newsrooms,
journalism, new media

1. Introduction

The development of technology has been affecting the media industry for
centuries now. Each new discovery in that field has provided new ways to create and
deliver information to end users and helped the shaping of new media. For instance,
the internet era has redefined the existing communication models with users as
passive recipients of media content without a significant input on their part. Owing
to new platforms and modern devices, the audience today not only has the access to
the content that was previously unavailable in the traditional media era, but it also
has an opportunity to create and publish its own content. In that way a new media
environment is created in which traditional and new media coexist fueled by the
audience that tends to be more active in creating, delivering and receiving bits of
information.
The internet era affected not only the audience and its role, but it also influenced
all types of media. Traditional media are still in the ongoing process of adapting to a

1
Received September 2020 / Accepted December 2020
2
email: [email protected]
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 Dušan Aleksić

new online environment, while facing the competition from the online only media and
the online content created by users themselves. Therefore, in order to stay relevant on
the market, they need to follow the development of new technology closely and try to
implement modern achievements in websites, social media profiles and other internet
platforms that serve as an extension of their media. That includes the user generated
content as well, which is not new in media discourse (blogs, forums, comments, etc.).
However, this type of content has also been improved over the years, so now it can
exist independently or as a part of both traditional and new media. According to
Ran Wei, no other medium connects people better than a telephone, which opens
countless possibilities in the communication field. “The portability of mobile phones
makes “connected co-presence” anywhere any time. Even though individuals may
be still spatially separated, they are disconnected from one another” (Wei, 2013: 52).
Due to those characteristics, speed became the most important factor in news
distribution, which opened a whole new field in journalistic practice based on new
technology – mobile journalism. Creation of this new form opened a possibility for
both the audience members and professional journalists to produce their own media
content, broadcasting live videos or sending bits of information almost simultaneously
with the ongoing event. Yet, the process of implementation into professional news
rooms or wider acceptance has not been without obstacles. That is why one of the
main goals of this article is to give insight into challenges and perspectives of mobile
journalism in modern age and modern media systems.

2. New media landscape – new audience

In recent years, mobile journalism has emerged as one of the most popular
ways in the media sphere to publish stories almost simultaneously with the ongoing
event. In other words, not only did the media change, but the audience changed as
well. The Internet development during the last decade of the 20th century and the
implementation of internet services into numerous social spheres (entertainment,
economics, media...) inspired theorists to talk about “second media age”, which
represents a total transformation of current mass media theories, because now special
attention is paid to interactivity aspect, meaning that the audience is no longer just
a recipient of media content, but they get an opportunity to become creators. This
approach changed the concept of mass media and the way in which the reception
of such content had been perceived to that point. Thanks to the domination of
newspapers, radio and television, the mass media communication process was mainly
viewed as one-way. As David Holmes points out, for that reason “second media age”
theories are especially inspirational from the perspective of communication science
(Holmes, 2005). Active role of the audience as well as their full potential, according to
Ivana Stamenković, has been recognized by critical studies of culture: “Recognizable
by their critical spirit, cultural studies have evolved as an opponent to the existing
dominant paradigm, bringing the correctness of the social order and constructed

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meanings into question” (Stamenković, 2020: 31). Therefore, we can say that new
technology creates a new audience which, according to modern theories, can be
marked as participatory. As Sonia Livingstone claims, “the audience is becoming more
and more participatory, while its forms of participation are becoming more mediated
in the media” (Livingstone, 2013: 4). Talking about the participatory aspect, we need
to take social media into consideration “since they are the intermediaries in a direct
relationship with users, providing content variety: from political to entertainment,
at the same time giving them the opportunity to participate and create their own
content. Because of the services they provide, we find that they can potentially
influence the creation of public opinion” (Mitrović & Obradović, 2020: 43).
Nowadays we can discuss a mobile audience that prefers mobile devices
for consuming and creating content (Lopez-Garcia, Silva-Rodriguez, Vizoso-
Garcia, Westlund, Canavilhas, 2019). Considering the rapid growth of such an
audience (Reuters Institute, 2018), it is important to understand characteristics and
particularities of this new communicative platform (Lopez-Garcia et al., 2019).
For instance, if an incident happens, citizens will probably capture it with a
mobile device, so they could send it to authorities, transmit it live on social media
platforms and/or send it to professional newsrooms. And that is where the story
of mobile journalism (often shortened as MoJo) starts. Since this type of content
often becomes an important source for professional media, it largely affects the role
of professional journalists and the way they collect data. Thanks to mobile phones
and their ever-improving features, modern journalists can produce news, photos and
videos directly from the field, while maintaining every aspect of what is perceived
as a quality journalistic product. That makes production a lot faster and efficient.
Besides that, Sajid Umair notes the following: “Mobile phones also provide a potential
means to retrieve up to date or contextual information through the mobile internet
or context-aware services” (Umair, 2016: 1).
The impact of the inclusion of mobile journalism into professional media
field was also noted by Ivo Burum in his book “Democratizing Journalism through
Mobile Media: The Mojo Revolution” in which he stated: “This new, more diverse
expression of power located in more specialized subfields of journalism becomes part
of the broader information ecosphere in a changing communication (literary) field”
(Burum, 2016: 36).

3. Mobile journalism – perspective and challenges

Even though there is no strict definition of mobile journalism in the academic

field, many authors tried to extricate its characteristics in order to differentiate it from
multimedia journalism and establish its own working area. For now, this phenomenon
lacks a permanent name, so Lopez-Garcia and others (Lopez-Garcia et al, 2019)
noted that some authors called it mobile digital journalism (Campbell, 2007), mobile
news journalism (Forsberg, 2001), and mobile journalism (Briggs, 2007; Quinn,

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 Dušan Aleksić

2000; Pavlik, 2001; Castells, 2006). For instance, Ran Wei defines mobile media as
“primarily as a personal, interactive, internet-enabled and user-controlled portable
platform that provides for the exchange of and sharing of personal and non-personal
information among users who are inter-connected” (Wei, 2013: 52). When it comes
to practice, Aljazeera Media Training and Development Centre in its publication
titled Mobile Journalism defines this form as “the process of gathering and delivering
news using a smartphone or tablet. It is a trend in news covering and broadcasting,
having the potential to become the new standard in journalism practice, especially
to report breaking news” (Mobile Journalism, 2017: 2). Still, when talking about the
media aspect, there are two important perspectives that should be in the focus of
research - dissemination and reception of content for mobile devices and content
production.
But mobile journalism is not facing challenges in academic fields only, but
in practical areas as well, because it is still trying to find its place inside the media
sphere. As observed by Perreault and Stanfield, “mobile journalists find themselves
in a place of tension, between print, broadcast, and digital journalism and between
traditional journalism and lifestyle journalism” (Perreault &Stanfield, 2018: 331).
Therefore, one of the major questions regarding this journalistic area is whether
mobile journalism should be observed as a part of existing media models or as an
independent entity. At the same time, the role of mobile journalists is questioned
– does production completely rely on mobile devices to prepare the content for
use on various platforms or is it about a content intended for mobile consumption
only regardless of the device used to produce such content? Judd Slivka notices that
mobile content is usually intended for social media platforms, so what should be
taken into consideration is duration and the platform a content creator is aiming at.
“Newsrooms want mobile video and mobile produced pieces. But they want them for
social reasons. They want 10:20 pieces, not a 1:30 piece (…). If we’re producing for
social, we’re probably producing for Twitter. And if we’re producing for Twitter, we
need good-enough quality, not great quality. If we’re producing for Facebook, we’re
likely creating videos that are designed to be digested without the sound on” (Slivka,
2017). Assuming that this type of journalism does not require any special equipment,
it is essentially available to everyone who possesses at least a mobile phone and
internet connection. That is why it is often said that mobile journalism is the most
audience driven form of journalism. That form is audience-oriented, and it engages
the audience to become an essential part of the process. “The audience itself searches
and retrieves information in which it is interested, and the processes of selection
of the information sphere bring the audience into a universe of ideas and content
created according to each individual” (Stamenković, 2020: 38).
This journalistic form becomes increasingly present in mainstream media,
as mentioned by Wenger, Owens, and Thompson since nowadays digital skills are
expected from journalism students to create mobile journalism content. In their
research, the mentioned authors point out that mobile skills were required in only
2% of job postings related to the journalism field. But, in 2013, this number increased

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to 23% and even that “lags behind mobile’s prominence in newspaper and online
job ads” (Wenger, Owens, and Thompson 2014, 138). When we take this data into
account, it should come as no surprise that authors such as Bivens (Bivens, 2008)
describe mobile technology as a game changer for all types of media. Development
of mobile news services and mobile applications, as noted by Westlund (Westlund,
2012), affected numerous newsrooms around the globe – both traditional and digital
to form omnipresence strategies, so their content could become accessible anytime,
anywhere and on as many devices possible. To use this potential community, mojo
authors with necessary skills become part of local media, while students get a great
opportunity to prepare themselves for a career in journalism’s converged space. Mojo
skills can also help print journalists to adapt to new technological environments,
so they could interact professionally with the global media sphere. Of course, this
sphere is not reserved for everyone who owns a mobile phone. For instance, Burum
states that: “The degree to which citizens can use global networks to create local
voices will largely depend on access to technology and skills that enable them to
create empowering UGS3” (Burum, 2016: 37).
In order to try to place mobile journalists and mobile journalism into a
complex media system, Perreault and Stanfield conducted a research using an
online survey that was sent to mobile journalists from different media hubs. Results
showed that these journalists saw an opportunity for better storytelling, ability to
report in a timelier nature which allowed them to become community and breaking
news reporters. Additionally, there is an ability to share information easily through
various platforms while working remotely. Here, interactivity, which has always
been proclaimed as one of the chief characteristics in the context of new media,
gets an additional dimension. Speaking of interactivity, we usually refer to the
connection between a reader and a story. However, this research indicates that this
characteristic goes one step further in mobile journalism. Because of that, we can also
discuss a new connection – the one between a reader and an author. Thanks to this
improved process of interactivity, the change of roles is also possible, so, at a certain
moment, a recipient can become a content creator and vice versa. Taking this into
consideration, mobile journalism can be perceived and accepted as an alternative
journalistic form that offers non-mainstream content that, one would think, was
hidden on purpose. One of the examples is China, the country that is known for
constant news censoring, so demand for various forms of mobile journalism is
high. “The widespread use of mobile tweeting (e.g., microblogs accessible via the
Smartphone) in news dissemination in China provides a case in point […]. The total
of microblog users in China increased from 63.11 million in 2008 to 195 million in
2010. Currently 34 percent of China’s mobile internet users have a presence in the
cyber blog sphere through a mobile Twitter account, which offers them an alternative
channel of uncensored news in China’s tightly controlled media environment. Several
high-profile corruption cases were first reported by mobile tweets posted by average
citizens” (Wei, 2013: 53). Nowadays, employees in professional newsrooms often get

3
user-generated stories
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 Dušan Aleksić

iPhones or mobile devices with the Android interface that help them report the story.
“In addition, rather than using the mobile only for traditional reporting, journalists
have also used applications for live video streaming (e.g., Bambuser) and live blogging
(e.g., Disqus)” (Westlund, 2013: 16).
Nevertheless, mobile journalists feel the need to position themselves as high
as possible on the crowded market and become someone that audience will turn
to. That is why the aspect of interactivity is an important factor. Therefore, those
journalists can deliver stories the audience wants in the best possible way. So, the
goal here is a quality product that aligns with ethical and professional standards of
traditional journalism. To achieve this, authors need to ensure that their content is
reliable and fulfills highest technical standards in terms of quality regarding video,
photography, audio and other multimedia content. They also need to make sure
that bits of information they are sharing are ethically obtained and that the privacy
of all involved in creating certain media content is respected. Only with these pre-
conditions can we discuss mobile journalism as a professional journalistic form with
all the unique features it contains. This characteristic is, among others, an original
approach to the concept of journalism genres. Even though those authors often use
professional media discourse by labeling news as breaking, hard or soft news with a
scale of importance, there is no strict division in terms of genres in mobile journalism.
Such content is labeled as storytelling, which represents a hybrid of common genres
(news, article, interview and story) and it is combined with various audio and visual
elements. Those stories “can range from those of personal experience, stories of
learning, and messages for social justice to historical anecdotes, documentaries and
digital video reports […] It becomes evident that digital storytelling, the traditional
personal story enhanced by images, narrative voice and music, has grown into several
very distinct genres” (Garrety & Schmidt, 2008: 916). Such storytelling allows a
usage of subjective narrative, helped by multimedia aspect, which is characterized
by concise, direct discourse that does not shy away from the emotional tone. Some
of those stylistic aspects were discussed in an article by Ivan Cvetanović and Vladeta
Radović: “The freedom to express unconditionally through language belongs to the
individual. In this case, the journalist should have the unconstrained awareness about
his responsibility to himself and to the world. Such freedom is gained through courage
to express a certain attitude despite the subjective feeling of being constrained”
(Cvetanović & Radović, 2017: 4).
When it comes to mobile journalism, one of its most positive aspects relies on
the fact that it can overcome censorship and find the way to deliver information to the
audience. This is especially important in local areas where journalists are easy targets
of political and financial pressure. Burum thinks that “a local Indigenous mojo field
can potentially serve to enable accurate local reportage by creating a specialized local
journalistic subfield of Indigenous reporting” (Burum, 2016: 36).
As a negative aspect, it was pointed out that those newsrooms see this type of
work as a burden (Perreault & Stanfield, 2018: 8). This indicates that managers of
traditional media are aware of popularity, influence and necessity of such content,

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but that they are not ready to invest in professional equipment showing they are not
fully ready to acknowledge legitimacy and necessity of such journalism. As noted
in the research mentioned before: “Newsrooms perceive the mobile as a burden
because newsrooms may be required to modify the workflow in order to adapt it
to the new habits of consumption” (Perreault & Stanfield, 2018: 8). This problem is
especially evident in newsrooms management consisting of older people who are
not willing to adapt to and accept changes in the journalistic field. Some mobile
journalists provided an explanation for this phenomenon saying that it represents
“additional burden that does not drive news consumers back to the original medium”
(Perreault & Stanfield, 2018: 11). In this way a tension is created between journalists
and their management, because mobile journalists tend to follow and implement
new technological achievements into their work, so they could be better journalists
and position themselves better on the market. On the other hand, they still need to
comply with the rules of their respective newsrooms as it is their primary job.
But, aside from resistance, the authenticity of mobile generated content should
also be questioned. For instance, the vacuum that puts mobile journalism between
amateurs and professionals in the media system has increased the competition between
them, so in efforts to publish certain content as soon as possible, especially in the era
of live transmitting, we can easily get the product that can fool and manipulate the
audience. “The videos and photos may be tampered or manipulated, or the content
may be provided in such a way that it conveys half or wrong information. Videos may
be spread by the opposite parties and provide completely false information” (Umair,
2016: 5).
Certain newsrooms embraced UGC. The local example is online portal Južne
vesti which is centered in Niš (Southern Serbia) and publishes mobile journalism
products regularly. Mojo products consist of short video clips with subtitles encoded,
followed by textual description. The authorship is divided. Some of these clips are
done by newsroom journalists themselves, while others are produced by citizens who
send material to the mentioned newsroom. The content is published after editorial
checking and potential interventions. When it comes to citizens’ content, those are
usually video documents of local “incidents” that affect their lives (riots, demolition
of property, conflicts with authorities etc.). Their journalists publish similar topics
along with unusual stories (acts of individuals that, by the estimate of the editorial
board, deserve to be heard about). Južne vesti publish this content under video section
on their website and, for now, there is no specific place for such content. When they
post these stories onto official social media accounts, they are preceded by hashtag
#MoJo. Frequency of such content is 2-3 stories per month, so we can easily conclude
that such content has still not found its permanent place on this website.
Nevertheless, certain newsrooms are reluctant to embrace mojo. Some of the
reasons for this are content quality and ethical implications that may arise from citizens
who post the content that could potentially harm the brand or reputation of a media
organization. Moreover, some pointed out that UGC would require additional resources
for supervising and managing such content before publication (Westlund, 2012).

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4. Conclusion

Ethical principles, reliability (e.g., spreading fake news) are among unsolved
issues in a domain of so-called professional journalism even today. Therefore, in a
crowded market of mobile journalists, it is hard to distinguish whose work aims at
professional reporting and to understand the weight of responsibility for publicly
shared content. In addition to that, it is hard to determine whose goal is simply a
domain-commercial and popularity aspect, or what the motives for spreading fake
news and disinformation are. For that reason, the second aspect continuously reopens
some of the dilemmas stressed in this article and represents the main obstacle for full
acceptance and approval of mobile journalism.
There is no doubt that new media not only changed the media landscape in
terms of genres, style, multimedia content, speed, but it also provided a way for faster
spreading of content below every professional and ethical standard.
Yet, we cannot deny the fact that these new media forms represent the media
future and that these new forms play an important role in the democratization of
the public sphere. That is why an education, especially in the media field, represents
an important factor. In times when there is a thin line between media content
creators and media content recipients, it is important to learn how to create and how
to recognize quality media content. Considering how frequent the changes in the
media field are, the necessity of permanent learning becomes evident – through both
formal and informal education. Before moving to technical aspects, those who tend
to become media content creators need to learn basic ethical principles and realize
the weight of responsibility for publicly shared content – and today, there are multiple
credible sources that could help journalists reach that goal.
Traditional newsrooms survived through the decades thanks to accepting and
adapting to changes in the field of media technology. Technology did not change
the media alone – it also changed the audience that now has different demands and
priorities. In order to offer good enough content for the new audience, professional
newsrooms need to embrace new media forms such as mobile journalism that are
already thriving in alternative media landscapes. That kind of collaboration would
surely lead to quality incensement of such content. Moreover, the difference between
good and bad content would be more visible and transparent. By implementing new
forms, professional newsrooms would not only offer bits of information in a way
that fits a new audience, but it would also create a model that is more permanent and
economically sustainable, which is one of the most important factors for the future
media development.

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IZAZOVI MOBILNOG NOVINARSTVA

U DIGITALNOM MEDIJSKOM DOBU
Rezime: Zahvaljujući konstantnom tehnološkom napretku i inovaciji, razvili su se novi
načini recepcije i kreacije medijskuh sadržaja, što je dovelo do redefinisanja poznatih
komunikoloških procesa. U ovom novom digitalnom medijskom dobu, koje, između
ostalog, karakteriše konvergencija, mobilnost i interaktivnest, mobilno novinarstvo se
javlja kao nova novinarska forma koja utiče na relaciju između kreatora i recipijenta
medijskih sadržaja. Iako ideja o medijskim sadržajima koje korisnik generiše i publikuje
pomoću mobilnih uređaja u teoriji zvuči kao višestruko koristan koncept, ovaj model se
suočava sa brojnim izazovima. U praksi su se pojavila brojna pitanja, poput etičnosti,
pouzdanosti i kvaliteta takvih sadržaja, kao i koliko su profesionalne redakcije spremne
da ih prihvate i implementiraju. Zbog toga, cilj ovog rada jeste da pruži uvid u akademski
aspekt proučavanja ove teme, uz korišćenje praktičnih primera, kako bi se mobilno
novinarstvo pozicioniralo u kompleksnim savremenim medijskim sistemima i kako bi se
procenio njegov potencijal u kontekstu daljeg razvoja.
Ključne reči: mobilno novinarstvo, konvergencija, korisnički medijski sadržaji, redakcije,
novinarstvo, novi mediji

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