Choosing to Become a Citizen Journalist: The Experiences of Malaysian Youth

Abstract

Online citizen journalism is turning from a reader to a writer to share their opinion on some topics that occur in the media. Some even dedicate their time to writing and addressing issues as citizen journalist even though most of this group of citizen journalists are not receiving any payments for their contributions. This study thus aims to investigate the motivation that leads to Malaysia’s young citizen journalists’ decision in becoming a citizen journalist. Qualitative enquiry using a phenomenology approach was selected. An in-depth interview with 14 informants participated in in-depth interviews. Atlas.ti 8 was used to analyze data of emerging themes. Three themes associated with past experiences emerged, which are action, people and event. Findings emerged young citizen journalism in Malaysia decide to get involved in citizen journalist due to the self-esteem they develop in performing specific actions or activities, encouragements, support and nurturing from their parents and surrounding coupled with circumstances of events they encounter. This implies development of a deeper understanding of the trend of local citizen journalism by taking into account the motivation that nurtures the citizen journalist’s decision to venture in journalism practices. Thus, future actions should also be given on the aspect of teaching and educating the younger generation on journalism ethics at an early age.