Mainstream Media Use of Amateur Footage during the Iran Election Aftermath

Hamburg.
The next speaker in this ECREA 2010 session is Mervi Pantti, whose interest is in the role of amateur images in the Iran election crisis. This was a key moment for using citizen-created content in mainstream news coverage, and such images became a focal point for the public response to the election aftermath. Such images were also very difficult to verify, however, raising questions for the journalistic process. Mervi examined the coverage of these protests by CNN, BBC One, and the Finnish broadcaster YLE.

Citizen-provided images are used to support the journalistic mediator’s claims about the truth of the event; they are valued as evidence of the events, and provide immediacy and a heightened reality effect. At the same time, they also present a risk to the journalist’s trustworthiness, especially if there is confusion about the origin of these images. Additionally, there are questions of responsibility here – some of the images show scenes which journalists themselves would not have covered or shown, for ethical reasons; amateur footage of violence, for example, can be used as an excuse from standard journalistic ethics. Transparency is the new strategic ritual in journalistic justifications in this context; it serves as a means of letting the audience know where these images come from.

CNN made extensive use of amateur footage, via CNN iReport and general social networking sites. Amateur video was a focus and a topic of news coverage here. BBC similarly received much amateur footage, but made more restrictive use of it, using it as addition to journalistic reporting. YLE used it as an addition, to underline journalistic coverage.

CNN differentiated amateur from professional material, labelling it clearly and including warnings to viewers; problems of confirming accuracy were also noted. BBC identified, explained, and contextualised amateur footage, and communicated doubts over its authenticity. YLE did not identify or contextualise amateur footage as such, and problems of verification were largely ignored.

Approaches to journalistic responsibility also varied, especially in relation to the well-known footage of a young protester being killed. CNN used graphic images to enhance the shock value, following a strategy of exploitation while warning audiences about the graphic nature of the footage; BBC and YLE followed a distancing strategy, where the BBC downplayed the shock value and YLE ‘outsourced’ the responsibility (showing a YouTube page taht showed the shooting video).

This points to different editorial procedures, ethical standards, and transparency rituals. Some overplayed, others underplayed the special character of amateur images, and thus retained the authority of journalism; some used transparency as a means of broadcasting unverified footage and reducing critique; some maintained their responsibility as mediators by verifying the reliability of eyewitness accounts.