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Abstract

Citizen journalists shot video of Hurricane Ike as it moved through the Caribbean, Texas, and the midsection of the United States in September, 2008. This study is a content analysis of 239 videos shot during Hurricane Ike and contributed to iReport, a citizen journalism site run by CNN and YouTube. It looks at the quality of the videos and the information provided by citizen journalists. The study finds that most of the videos are of poor quality, and that citizen journalists do little of the work expected of journalists. They provide little information with their videos and generally do not even reveal their own names. However, the study concludes that the viewing public is now willing to accept poor quality video, and even mainstream media will use video that does not meet professional standards if the picture is compelling enough.

Keywords

citizen journalism video

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