The document discusses online journalism and civic engagement in India during the 2009 national elections. It provides background on the elections and 2008 Mumbai attacks that increased social media usage. It profiles several citizen journalism websites that covered the elections and innovations like Google collaborating with an Indian newspaper. The document advocates for harnessing social media and user-generated content to promote civic engagement beyond elections by connecting students in a discussion on a civic discussion platform.

1. ONLINE CIVIC ENGAGEMENT?
Online Journalism and Election Reporting in India

2. OUTLINE
• Background - Author, Indian election, 2008 Mumbai attacks
• Case Studies
• Theory
• New model of civic engagement
• Class
activity - oursay.org - start thinking about digital acts of
engagement.

3. BACKGROUND - AUTHOR
• Saayan, Chattopadhyay
• Assistant
Prof. Department of Journalism and Mass
Communication at Baruipur College, Calcutta University, India.
• After a stint as a journalist in Kolkata, he is currently engaged
in research and academics.

4. 2009 INDIA
ELECTION
• 15th Lok Sabha election - 700 million voters (Aus - 12 Million voters, US 70 Million)
• World’s largest exercise in electoral democracy
• Election - 3 Alliances, United Progressive Alliance (UPA), National Democratic
Alliance (NDA), Third Front - neither UPA or NDA. - UPA won.

5. 26.11.2008 MUMBAI ATTACKS
• 11 shooting and bombing attacks by Islamist terrorists
• Turning point for social media in India and online journalism
• 80 tweets via SMS every 5 seconds
• Pleas for blood donors, emergency phone numbers etc.

6. 2009 - STATE OF ONLINE
• Indiaranked 5th in top 20 countries using the Internet - 42
million users (3.6% of world’s users)
• Butonly 3.7% internet penetration - mainly urban segment
had access (by comparison AUS has 76%)
• Less than 10% speak English (most election related websites)
• India 3rd in number of twitter users (1st USA, 2nd Germany)

7. CASE STUDIES
• http://indian-election2009.blogpot.com/
• http://www.merinews.com/
• http://thisismyindia.com/
• http://blog.offstumped.in/category/india-elections-2009/
• http://www.swapan55.com/
• http://www.indiavision.com/blog/2009/04/225.blg

8. INNOVATION
• Hindustan Times
and Google India - “THE ULTIMATE
ELECTION WEBSITE”

9. • VoteReport.in

10. THEORY ON JOURNALISM
• “The journalism of utilitarian integration” vs “journalism of
attraction” - many to many vs traditional top-down.
• Technology
is naturalised, invisible - newsworthy information is
fundamental - relevant, verifiable facts - transparency
• Useof current platforms and acts - crowdsourcing, user-
generated content, twitter feeds, CoverItLive (video)
• Enable reader to make own judgements in terms their own
analysis of information

11. RESTRICTIONS
• Election
reporting is restricted by established organisational
hegemony - oppressed under ownership control and political
intervention - biased coverage and restricted debate
• $$$$ - limited advertising revenues from online editions (only
big papers and their online initiatives made profit/broke-even
• Role of reporters - assigned traditional broadcast models, no
agile online editorial structures in place (online dept. called
‘computer’ dept. tech staff only)
• Lackof exclusive content - shovelware. Poor management of
user generated content.

12. CONCLUSIONS
• Internetis a valuable resource for journalistic engagement, only
for those who have access to computers
• Access to internet does not guarantee increased serious
journalistic activity, or enlightened political discourse
• “Motivationfor change must live beyond the immediacy of
elections and the horror of terrorism. The next generation
must denounce cynicism and embrace civic-mindedness.

13. EMBRACING CIVIC-
MINDEDNESS
• Class activity on Oursay.org
• Quick background info and intro to site
• Break into groups of 4 - come up with best question regarding
digital activism / online civic engagement.
• We will vote on the best question and post on the site

14. TRENDS IN PLATFORMS
• Knight Foundation - reframed the problem of journalism in the
digital age - not an argument about saving newspapers - but
one of moving ‘toward the challenge of finding new ways to
accomplish journalism’s core function of meeting the
information needs of a community’
• Attentionscarcity - more info flowing around than ability of
people to pay attention to it (34 GB per day)
• Rankingand filtering - Reddit, Digg and now new pinterest,
quora and medium

20. Ethan Zuckerman - Attention, Activism,
and Advocacy in a Digital Age
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckX7eyu2fEY

21. QUESTION
• The “yearof the protester” changed the rules of the game, but
how has it changed the players? What does a young social-
media savvy generation bring to the table for democracy? Are
we e-Activists or Slacktivists?
• In
recent years, both in Australia and abroad, we’ve seen young
people finding new and innovative ways of communicating
opinions and ideas, challenging traditional thinking and creating
new methods of activism. In the wake of Kony 2012, the
Occupy Movement and the Arab Spring, are we bearing

22. • Oursay.org

23. REFERENCES
• Aouragh, M., 2012. Social media, mediation and the Arab revolutions, TripleC, 10(2), pp.518.
• Bruns, Axel and Burgess, Jean (2011) ‘#ausvotes: How Twitter covered the 2010 Australian federal election’, Communication,
Politics and Culture, 44(2):37-56.
• Chadha, K., 2012. Twitter as media watch-dog? Lessons from India's Radia tapes scandal, Global Media and Communication, 8, p.
171.
• Chattopadhyay, Saayan (2012) ‘Online journalism and election reporting in India’, Journalism Practice, 6(3):337-348.
• Luna Reyes, L., 2012. Young adults' online participation behaviors: An exploratory study of web 2.0 use for political engagement,
Information polity, 17(2) pp.163 -176.
• Lasorsa, D., 2012. Transparency And Other Journalistic Norms On Twitter, Journalism Studies, 13(3), pp.402-417.
• Lewis, S., 2012. From Journalism to Information: The Transformation of the Knight Foundation and News Innovation, Mass
Communication & Society, 15(3) pp.309 -334.
• Schmierbach, M., & Oeldorf-Hirsch, A., 2012. A Little Bird Told Me, So I Didn't Believe It: Twitter, Credibility, and Issue Perceptions,
Communication Quarterly, 60(3), pp.317-337.
• Vacker, B., Yearning to be the center of everything, when we are the center of nothing: The parallels and reversals in chaco,
hubble, and facebook, Telematics and informatics, 30(1), p.35.

24. Thank you!!!