Photojournalism and Citizen Journalism: Co-operation, Collaboration and Connectivity

If everyone with a smartphone can be a citizen photojournalist, who needs professional photojournalism? This rather flippant question cuts to the heart of a set of pressing issues, where an array of impassioned voices may be heard in vigorous debate. While some of these voices are confidently predicting photojournalism's impending demise as the latest casualty of internet-driven convergence, others are heralding its dramatic rebirth, pointing to the democratisation of what was once the exclusive domain of the professional.

Regardless of where one is situated in relation to these stark polarities, however, it is readily apparent that photojournalism is being decisively transformed across shifting, uneven conditions for civic participation in ways that raise important questions for journalism's forms and practices in a digital era. This book's contributors identify and critique a range of factors currently recasting photojournalism's professional ethos, devoting particular attention to the challenges posed by the rise of citizen journalism. This book was originally published as two special issues, in Digital Journalism and Journalism Practice.

Stuart Allan is Professor and Head of the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University, UK. He is the author of Citizen Witnessing: Revisioning Journalism in Times of Crisis (2013), editor of The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism (2009, revised 2011), and co-editor of Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives (volumes 1 and 2, 2009 and 2014). He is currently co-writing with Tom Allbeson, Conflicting Images: Histories of War Photojournalism.