Mobile Media Toolkit

For Citizen Reporters:

The first on the scene and/or those with the best access to news and information aren’t always trained journalists. As technology has evolved, the role of citizen journalists has changed as well. The Mobile Media Toolkit provides citizen journalists with a look at how they can use mobiles to capture the news as it happens around them. There are plenty of tools that go beyond the simple camera phone; learning how to maximize the potential of mobiles can result in better, more professional coverage while retaining the off-the-cuff feel of citizen reporting.

This site has resources so that citizen reporters can not only find the best way to utilize mobiles, but can also find guidance on how mobiles are being used in the field. Many of the tools listed are applicable to both professional journalists and citizen reporters. But citizen journalists have concerns that professional journalists don't face. Often in dangerous areas or reporting out of necessity (from being the first on the scene in a disaster, or by nature of living in an area that is restricted to professional journalists), citizen reporters must be prepared to react to rapidly changing situations - and mobile phones can give them the flexibility they need.

Here are some articles we feel will be of interest to citizen journalists:

• Sharing Content/Blogs: Blogs and content-management systems are powerful systems for publishing web sites. This article shows the tools journalists and citizen journalists can use to set up blogs and more complicated websites that interact well with mobile phones--so the mobile phones can be used for uploading content.
• Sharing Content/Microblogs: Twitter has shown that microblogging is an extremely important platform for journalism. This article shows journalists and citizen journalists how to microblog with their phones.
• Sharing Content/Multimedia:  Mobile phones are very powerful devices for capturing multimedia content, and this article is all about how to upload that multimedia content to the web.
• Creating Content/Smartphone: Tools for reporting from a smartphone--ranging from semi-live and live reporting, using microblogging tools for fast reporting, video streaming, editing multimedia content, and listings of journalism apps based on platform.
• Security Issues: a set of primers for citizen journalists using mobile phones to begin to understand the potential security concerns, as well as some tools that may help protect them from those concerns.

As citizen journalists start using their phones more and begin to move beyond the experimentation phases, they may also find it useful to look at resources to create better content on their mobile phones. For that, the following articles will be of interest:

• Creating Content/Photographs and Creating Content/Audio:  Selecting the right camera for taking photographs or recording audio, recording high-quality material, editing the photographs or audio, and publishing the content online.
• Creating Content/Video:  Selecting the right camera for video recording, recording high-quality video, streaming video directly from your mobile phone, editing video right on the phone or on the computer, dealing with formatting issues, and publishing content online.
• Creating Content/Location:  Tools for adding location to content while creating it on a mobile phone, why and how location-tagged content can be used to produce interesting reports, and usage of social media services to display location-tagged contents yourself.