Journalism has witnessed a major cultural shift with the continuous evolution in technology, especially, in the recent decade. Mobile Journalism is one of the most influential and shifting practices which has emerged with the advancing technology in today’s era. This new and more unconventional method of reporting has shrunk the equipment required for reporting and has narrowed down the news process, making it more economical. Mobile Journalism or MoJo is the most flexible means of reporting practice, completely carried out on a single device, i.e. a mobile phone (preferably smart phone with good internet connectivity). It is journalism for the phone, by the phone which requires regular reinventions in the style of reporting, depending on the habitat, situations and the set of audience that a media organization is catering to.
But Why Mobile Journalism?
· Positive return on investment can be a major driving force for adopting MoJo practices for various newsrooms. Now, reporters don’t need an army of camera people and OB van operators. Instead, just a handful of devices which can be carried in one’s pocket are all that one needs. Reporters enjoy self-sufficiency while performing their tasks. Light weight devices, such as, mobile phones, lapel mics and gorilla pods have turned a journalist into a one-man-army. There isn’t any need to use heavier desktop computers for editing visuals. It is easier and convenient to edit data straight from one’s mobile phone and publish the story in time. This huge cultural shift has the potential to cut down on the operational costs and unnecessary equipment; and would, at the same time, increase a reporter’s productivity with more freedom in actions. Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the national public service broadcaster of the Republic of Ireland was the first ever media organization which adopted mobile journalism practices in 2008 to cut on the unnecessary expenditures.
· The growing trends in mobile usage and better internet connectivity has majorly affected the news consumption patterns of the audience in India. Telecom industry underwent a drastic change ever since service provider Reliance Jio introduced 4G services and encouraged second and third tier cities to get connected with the world. Now, the audience is consuming information on their mobile phones. Mary Meeker’s study (2017) shows that the time spent on the mobile on an average is 7 times more than the time spent on television. In another words, Indians spend 45% of their time on mobile phones, of which, at least social media (like Facebook and Twitter, which are now heavily used by news organizations) enjoys 34% of the share. In order to understand the consumption pattern of the audience and cater to their needs, it is important for the media organizations to understand the algorithms of mobile usage pattern. Therefore, switching to mobile phones will eventually gain importance within news organizations in near future. When a story is recorded, edited and published on a mobile phone, it is practiced from the perspective of a mobile user and, hence, is easier in establishing connectivity with the final consumers.
· Journalists feel self-sufficient in presenting their stories in their own way. Now, the reporters are not just responsible for collecting information and dumping in newsrooms, instead, they can perform all the tasks on their own and cut down the production time. It saves time lost in passing the data from one department to another and makes a story gain more prominence due to timeliness.
· Media acts as the fourth pillar in a democratic country but many times, it fails to provide a stage for common voices and rather, focuses on the prominent personalities. MoJo has democratized the coverage and has added a lot of depth in reporting which was missing earlier. The common voices get a clear and focused stage to come out and tell their stories to the world without any interruption form the mediators. It isn’t a rare sight to see news anchors hosting the program without exactly focusing on the main issues faced by common people. The channels often get diverted from the issues and highlight prominent personalities needlessly. This is where the new journalism trend is filling loopholes and turning common voices into protagonists.
· MoJo holds a lot of potential to work wonders in Indian newsroom as the trends of consumption are shifting fast from newspapers and televisions to mobile phones. According to a study conducted by Mary Meeker (2017), Indian users spend an average of 28 hours on their mobile phone per week, whereas, just 4 hours and 2 hours on an average are spent on television and newspapers, respectively.
Since MoJo is less than 5 years old in Indian media, it would be interesting to know how the young medium is already performing in the country. The case study discussed below would reveal how well is MoJo being utilized by the Indian media and would also assist you in predicting the future of the new platform in Indian habitat.
#NotInMyName was a media driven protest, carried out on June 28, 2017 in six cities of India to denounce communal lynching. A young Muslim boy from Haryana was stabbed to death on a train two days before Eid celebration on June 22nd, 2017. The Muslim boy and his friends were allegedly accused of being ‘beef eaters’ and were mocked for wearing skull caps. The event stirred a mass protest in Delhi and a number of media houses were present at Jantar Mantar to cover the protest in order to keep their audience updated. Since, it was a media driven protest and reporters from almost every media house were present, the protest serves as a case study to present the feasibility and acceptance of MoJo in various Indian newsrooms.
The case study focuses on how three different media platforms, viz. print (Hindustan Times), broadcast (India Today) and digital (The Quint) extensively covered the protest through various social media platforms in the form of live, pictures, produced videos, articles, etc, utilizing the new trends of journalism. These three media organizations were thoroughly monitored to observe the acceptance of this cultural shift in Indian newsrooms.
Before the event began, Hindustan Times and The Quint had put out the details of the protest on their respective web pages, Facebook pages and Twitter handles. As soon as the protest began with a number of youth and activists raising placards in condemnation of communal lynching, reporters of The Quint quickly started interviewing various protesters on Facebook Live. As an observation, The Quint started its first live at 18:04 IST followed by another at 18:39 IST, both ending with approximately, 281,000 views and 24,000 views, respectively. The digital media was able to engage and attract more than 2000 comments on both its live, therefore, directly engaging with a visible number of audience in a two-way communication process. The Quint was also constantly updating the event on Twitter and its webpage by sharing ‘live video’ links and other details with its followers. The Quint published an article on its webpage, first at 19:53 IST which was updated several times during the protest. To summarize, The Quint, a digital publication, was utilizing every possible resource available to it, i.e. Facebook Lives through mobile phones, regular Twitter updates and an article which summarized the whole event at the end of the day.
Hindustan Times reporters were on their heels at once and began with the Facebook live at 18:05 IST which gathered 58,191 views and managed to engage about 2,200 comments and feedbacks from the audience, along with 857 shares of the live video. Like The Quint, Hindustan Times was constantly updating the event on Twitter. HT maintained its visibility on Instagram by sharing an image of the protest on the same day. Other than the Live, Twitter handle and Instagram, Hindustan Times was quick in producing the edited video which included all important elements of the protest. The video was published on their Facebook page on the same day at 21:59 IST which has crossed over 2.3 million views till date. At the same time, Hindustan Times did not forget to fulfil its role as a print media and published an article on its webpage at 22:25 IST. The protest was covered using multiple social sites and online platforms. The print media made sure not to miss out on any form of communication platform in order to increase its reach to the maximum. It carried out a Live on phone, published the edited video within an hour of the protest termination, published an article on its website, posted an image on Instagram and kept its audience constantly updated through Twitter handle.
Broadcast media, India Today TV, did not report any differently from its traditional media rivals. They followed the conventional form of reporting from Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. The channel did not carry out any Facebook Lives from the venue nor posted updates on Twitter. Nevertheless, the channel published 2 videos on its Facebook page at 20:50 IST and 22:23 IST, receiving 78,000 views and 7,100 views respectively. The second video shared on Facebook page was, in fact, a part of the Prime Time show hosted by Rahul Kanwal. Another video of a debate on lynching was shared on the Facebook page on June 29.
Though not every newsroom has accepted MoJo and social media platforms positively, a number of media organizations are still working towards bringing about a change in their newsroom practices and are working in coordination with the changing factors.
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