There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #49: Be a citizen journalist

 The young woman who is independently streaming video at a public event is a citizen journalist. Is she an effective influencer? Sometimes. The idea that the quality of a citizen journalist's output is 100 percent quantifiable is clearly not true when one photo changes public policy. 

Mid-19th century photos of Yellowstone drove the votes in Congress, for example, to create the first United States National Park in 1871 and all the protections it afforded so Americans could enjoy the park in perpetuity. 

Even earlier, says the Save the Redwoods League[1]:

Photographers and painters began connecting people to redwoods decades earlier, beginning with Carleton Watkins’ giant sequoia photographs from the 1850s. At the height of the Civil War, these photos helped inspire President Lincoln and the U.S. Congress to protect Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove, in part as an antidote to the war’s horrors.

Whatever the social media platform, there are elements that are participatory in democracy, whether it's documentation, opinion, or simply sharing what inspires you to make society a better place. 

Ask Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian who, in 2010, saw a horrific photo of a fellow countryman beaten to death by Egyptian police. He started a FaceBook page and it went massively viral, helping to launch the Egyptian Arab Spring on the heels of the first Arab Spring uprising, in Tunisia. 

Citizen journalism is a challenge to mainstream journalism, though it can helpfully supplement it when both are well done. Like all the tools we have with which to participate in democracy, it can be used to build or to harm.

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[1] https://www.savetheredwoods.org/blog/forest/the-power-of-photography-connection-and-conservation/