Study the reality of Citizen-photojournalism and its role during January 25th revolution in Egypt

1. 3rd Research Summary
Study the reality of Citizen-photojournalism
and its role during January 25th revolution in Egypt
Digital Technologies enabled us to reproduce an easy photography and Videography,
also facilitated the means of dissemination and spread on the internet.
News websites began to publish citizen photojournalism by participants of the readers
and ordinary citizens and without the editor controls the policy of publishing,
Which became the most important reasons for the success of the so-called “Citizen
photojournalism”.
That enabled any citizen to be a photojournalist and corresponder for the truth ,
conveying what is going on around him from his own space (Egypt) to the world.
Journalists split between pro- and anti- citizen photojournalism. Some believe that the
non-specialists invaded the traditional press and break into the journalism profession, others
think they represent complementary press and that was obvious in the 25th of January Egyptian
revolution.
After what has happened in 25th January Egyptian revolution we understand the
relationship between bloggers and editors helped the audience to comprehend the situation
more clearly, no debate now about the contribution which citizen photojournalism added to
increase the margin of freedom available to the media.
Photographs have a unique character, which is documenting a specific moment of time
in a specific place, plus providing a reference to study it carefully and accurately afterwards.
Therefor citizens started to photograph each and every event happened around them
unprofessionally using their mobile phones and point and shoot cameras without any
professional equipments, and then upload it on various internet websites like Facebook and
news agencies like Aljazeera during the 25th January revolution, which started in tarreer square
in Cairo and spread all over Egypt.
This acceleration in time and place was impossible for professional press to cover. The
squares, which were filled with millions of people, needed hundreds of photojournalist to cover
all events.
This study tackled photography in citizen journalism and its contribution in covering and
documenting events and also emphasize its effectiveness and how far did the audience accept
and interacted with it, till it became an integral part of the professional press media.
The study identifies the Technical standards to evaluate citizen-photojournalism which is
different from standards of the professional photojournalism and how far did the citizen-
photojournalism impose itself and became indispensable from contemporary mass-media
After that it shows the impact of digital technologies of modern photography (digital and
mobile cameras) on citizen-photojournalism and its spreading all over the world.
And then took up criteria for evaluating the image of traditional photojournalism , and
introducing video-journalism and the relationship between it and citizen-videojournalism , to
get to illustrate the technology evolution release that affects the techniques of citizen-
photojournalism impact, and the role of citizen-photojournalism in the 25th January Egyptian
revolution.
Finally Study showed the effect of using imaging technologies in the form of contemporary
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2. journalism using a questionnaire to have statistical results, using a sample selection of
professional photojournalists and in addition a sample of professors of photography , cinema
and television department in the faculty of applied arts , Helwan University , and a third
random reader of citizen-photojournalism , to reach the results and recommendation of the
study.
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