Citizen Journalism: Women Leaders Make Their Own News through Video and Blogging

Author(s): Sweta Singh

Source: Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity , 2008, No. 77, Community
Media (2008), pp. 82-89
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Agenda Feminist Media

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27739434

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Citizen journalism: Women leaders make their own
news through video and blogging
Sweta Singh

abstract
This briefing explores the potentials of participatory video and new media (blogs) and their use to bring about social change
on the example of women panchayaf leaders in India who benefit to make their presence felt, be heard and seen. While
the right to communicate is a basic human right, women in Bihar have always held secondary status in society and been
marginalised. Their existence is reduced to family responsibilities, such as bearing children, cooking food and working on
farmland. Yet, enough administrative structure is in place to ensure that women can access rights. Panchayats are one such
system that aim to empower women by becoming public representatives. However, the system has been little effective due
to lack of awareness and information about it. Thick administrative layers discourage transparency and accountability. This
paper investigates how women panchayat leaders in Bihar use video and blogs to document facts, store them, process and
reproduce them to make local politics transparent and accountable.

keywords
participatory video, women, empowerment, local governance, India

Introduction Bihar is one of Inda's states with one of the

For almost 50 years, Bihar, one of the most
underdeveloped states of India, witnessed
poor governance, among other reasons due to
administrative corruption, patriarchal society and
the caste system. Though some Indian states
adopted local self governance in the form of
panchayats immediately after independence, Bihar
had its first local level elections only in 1978 and
its second election only in 2006.
lowest human development indicators in terms of
health, poverty, literacy, per capita income, among
others. It is also known for its deeply ingrained
caste and gender divisions. It was therefore a
surprise when the Bihar government took a bold
decision to reserve 50% of its seats for women in
panchayat elections. It was the first state in India
to do so.
With this important change in local

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Women panchayat leaders in Bihar use video and blogs to document facts.

According to L?ela Kasturi and Vina Mazumdar

administration, it was hoped that the participation
of women would reduce overall corruption(1994),
and women's movements recognise that
women's political participation is central to
speed up the process of development. However,
the struggle against patriarchy and women's
progress was slow, since women leaders remained
politically passive for several decades. emancipation.
While the right to communicate is a basic
Panchayat is a system that aims to empower
human right, without which any nation orby becoming representatives and decision
women
makers,
community cannot prosper, women in Bihar have but lack of awareness and information
throws the system out of gear. Thick administrative
hardly been able to exercise it. They are onlookers
rather than active decision makers. They fearlayers
thatdiscourage transparency and accountability.
their ideas may not get heard and queries not
Video and internet blogs can help leaders to
document facts, store them, process and reproduce
responded to by those higher up in administration.
Moreover, their secondary status to men in society
them and thus make political delivery mechanisms
marginalises them in many ways and eventually
transparent, promoting accountability. Information
and
reduces their status to family responsibilities, computer technology can improve the ability
such
as bearing kids, cooking food and working of
oncitizens
the to participate, monitor and exert their
farmland. will over the actions of elected officials. They can

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 be used by women to express themselves and be
politically active.
Panchayat Raj: Women in governance
'While many things change, most things remain
constant... leaders can be driven into hysteria
by the drumbeat of change, change, change'
(Naisbitt, 2006:35).
Women are changing governance in India.
They are being elected to local councils in
unprecedented numbers as a result of amendments
to the country's constitution, which mandates
the reservation of seats for women in local
government. This system is called the Panchayat
Raj Institutions (PRI) system and was launched in
Janurary 1994.2
Digital media have the potential to empower
ordinary citizens to publish stories about
their own lives and community
Women who gained political power through
PRI are governing on village or district level (Jain,
1996). In terms of the empowerment of women
at the grassroots, this is the greatest experiment
in democracy ever undertaken anywhere in the
world at any time in history (Government of India,
2007/8).
Digital media: Changing news
paradigm
As a reporter for India's national news channel
Doordarshan, I often wondered what news is
and why mainstream media have limited space
for those on the margins. In the last 60 years of
India's independence, mainstream media claimed
to represent the voice of the common man. In
reality, though, mainstream media have remained
profit-driven businesses.
News stories are about 'many' and scarcely
about 'few' and rarely about 'one'. The mainstream
media suffers from a bias towards urban, educated,
upper class, male audience.
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In theory, having many media should mean
diversity of content and therefore a better
representation of peoples' aspirations (MacBride,
1977). In India, the number of television
channels increased from single state broadcaster
Doordarshan to more than 300 broadcasters
(including regional ones). These include almost
100 that can be broadly categorised as news
channels. However, the news content on these
channels is not diverse and have limited space for
non-mainstream stories.
Digital media, such as the internet and blogs,
have the potential to question this top-down
approach of news flow. They have the potential to
empower ordinary citizens to publish stories about
their own lives and community.
They change the approach toward news,
its definition, the process of collection and
dissemination information. Web journalism
and blogging has the potential to broaden
the participation of news content receivers in
production of news. There are more 42 million
internet users in India (Wikipedia, 2007).
Encouraged by the promises of the new
media and frustrated by the limitations of the
mainstream media, I initiated an experimental
project, tentatively titled MYOWN, which provides
training to enable women to produce videos and
upload them on the MYOWN blog.
MYOWN: The project
Making My Own News (MYOWN) is aimed at
making media use as democratic as possible and
including marginalised groups, especially women,
in the process of social development. The citizen
journalism project enables them to shoot their
own stories and talk to each other about their use.
It is a humble attempt to showcase news through
the eyes of ordinary people.
When the people, formerly known as the
audience, employ the press tools they have in their
possession to inform one another, they become
citizen journalists (Rosen, 2006). MYOWN uses
the principles of citizen journalism and alternative
media to produce media stories for the blog.
The figure below represents the different
phases of the MYOWN project:
local issues training
/ \
community
women
viewing reporters
i i
blog training
\ video
/ activities they wish for. Video can thus become a
Phase 1: Train women leaders about local
issues with the help of non-governmental
organisations.
Phase 2: Work with women in selecting and
writing about issues of importance to them.
Phase 3: Train women in shooting video using
simple cyber-shot cameras.
Phase 4: Assist women in uploading text and
video on the blog using a mobile internet
connector and laptop.
Phase 5: Community viewing of the videos and the
blog. Feedback is used to improve the project.
Initially, MYOWN was aimed at training rural
women panchayat representatives elected at the
grassroots levels in handling video cameras and
reporting what they considered newsworthy.
Being a woman in India, I was sensitive towards
gender equity in Bihar where women have been
socially, politically and economically left out and
remain faceless. The timing to start the MYOWN
project seemed ideal when long overdue panchayat
elections were held and women could be elected
into positions of local and regional power.
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The use of video is ideal in a state like Bihar. ?f
As Wite (2003:43) notes: 2
'Video programmes should be produced
with and by the people, about their social
problems, themselves and not just produced
by outsiders; when produced by outsiders
the professional quality of the communication
programmes becomes secondary to the
content and process involved in the production
of a message or a programme.'
Video provides women with a literacy-free tool
to express themselves and let the world know
about their concerns and what developmental
development tool (White, 2003):
Video as a reflection of reality.
Video as a facilitator of horizontal communication.
Video as a promoter of visual literacy as
functional literacy.
Video as a facilitator of shared experience and
discussion.
Video as an initiator of community actualisation.
Video as source of power.
Since 50% of all seats are reserved for women
in panchayats in Bihar, a good number of women
are likely to take on a position where their identity
will be recognised, which they can use to further
development in their area.
Women in Bihar
Bihar is located in the eastern part of India.
It is internationally known as the land of the
Enlightened (Buddha). But contemporary Bihar
is struggling to overcome the shackles of over
population, illiteracy, poverty and gender inequality.
It is the third most populous state of India, with a
population of more than 82 million. Half of this
population are women. Only one third of them is
literate. More than half of the population lives in
absolute poverty.

Bihar is known for its deeply ingrained caste and gender
divisions.
Although Bihar is a democratic federation,
political corruption coupled with administrative
inefficiency kept the state underdeveloped. Caste
continues to play an important role in the socio
cultural, economic and political lives of the people.
Mahatma Gandhi3 believed that panchayats can
empower the masses. These grassroot units of
self government have been proclaimed as vehicles
of socio-economic transformation in India.
Although Bihar is the first state in India to
reserve half of the panchayat seats for women,
panchayats are still a Utopian system, with the
reality being far from the objective of combining
social justice with devolution of power.
During the initial MYOWN training workshops
conducted in July 2006 in Waziragnj Block of
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Gaya district in Bihar, issues related to right to
information, education, health, roads, electricity,
public distribution of subsidised grains and rice
emerged. Some core issues raised are listed
below.
'Anganwaris'
'Anganwaris' are government neighbourhood
daycare centres for working mothers. They provide
services, including pre-school, health education,
maintenance of records of births and deaths,
administration of pulse-polio drop. They also give
out supplementary nutrition to pregnant mothers
and children.
Women complain about the fact that the
delivery mechanism is slow, about the corrupt
relationship between the 'anganwari' workers and
child development project officers.
'Mukhiya'
'Mukhiya' is the all-powerful village head who
monopolises local politics and hence negates
the democratic nature of the panchayats. As a
result, programmes are implemented according
to the needs of the 'mukhiya' and not through
consensus of community mambers.
National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act
Although the Act guarantees every rural household
100 days of employment at a prescribed wage
within 15 days of request for work within three
kilometres of one's residential area, women
complained they cannot access these benefits. The
programme is to be implemented by panchayats.
The few who have been able to benefit from the
programme have been male members of the
community.
Caste politics
If the 'mukhiya' or any representative of the
panchayat is from the lower caste (Dalits4),
especially if they are women, they tend to be
discriminated by powerful upper caste men who
try to render them useless and powerless. This
inhibits the process of decentralisation of power.

Patriarchy
Most women representatives work as a proxy for
their husbands. While all official inputs are given to
women, men remain the actual decision makers,
especially on matters that involve money.

New stories captured

Some of the stories that were captured on camera
by women leaders are summarised below:
1 One woman leader filmed the story of an
impoverished woman who was brought on
a bicycle to the six kilometre distant primary
health care centre in Wazirganj Block of Gaya
district. After first aid has been administered,
the woman's family is told to take her to
the nearest hospital for treatment, which is
another 20 kilometres away.
Usually, transportation to hospitals is difficult,
Women shoot videos about communal issues and post
as the poor have to rely on heavily crowed them on the internet.
public transport (buses). But since there was
a film team with the sick woman, the health
facility doctor offered to transport the woman
via abulance, which was available the next day
only. irregularly. Sometimes, pupils have to attend
The video also showed the lack of awareness school on an empty stomach for more than
about family planning and reproductive two months.
healthcare at the health facility and reflects bias 3 A citizen journalist made a video about an only
against girls. The facilities do not encourage hand pump for a village that was installed with
wider publicity of health programmes as they much expense by government but was quickly
fear a stampede because of the high demand rendered useless due to a technical fault.
for health services. Villagers waited for months for a mechanic
2 Another news video told the story of a to fix the problem and had to survive without
government school student who claims his clean water supply.
teacher overcharges student school fees, 4 One panchayat leader filmed an interview with
which prohibits many pupils from taking part a man who praises the 'mukhiya' for giving
in exams in rural areas. him work. Throughout the video, it quickly
Interviews with primary school teachers becomes clear that the man's praise is based
show that students do not receive lunch on fear of the 'mukhiya' rather than on benefits
meals because funds for those are allocated provided. While he takes the camera team

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 around the village to show where public money
was invested, village members they encounter
*1| complain of misappropriation of funds.
5 One woman produces a video about an
indigent woman who is waiting for her name
to be included in Below Poverty Line (BPL) list
so that she can receive state benefits. She
lives of making incense sticks or for one cent
per kg of the dough. She makes an average of
$2 a month.
6 A video of a panchayat member highlights the
ignorance of local politicians due to lack of
information provision. The local politican is not
aware of her responsibilities after two years as
a council member. She explains to the citizen
journalist she is waiting for a government
representative to allocate work to her before
she can start with her job.
7 When one of the citizen journalists wants to
interview a female panchayat member, most
questions are being answered by her husband
who doesn't let her speak.
8 An interview with a Dalit panchayat leader
reflects how a woman from a scheduled caste,
despite doing a decent job, is often criticised
by men from forward castes who threaten
her for daring to contest local elections. The
woman explains in the film how she has faced
all kinds of opposition to get her voice heard.
These stories produced by women leaders are
not covered by television and newspapers in
India, as they are perceived to have no 'news
value' in the eyes of mainstream media. The
importance of the stories for the community is
ignored.
Limitations of MYOWN
Since the project ?s a voluntary effort of an
individual, it is still at an experimental stage.
Project sustainability and its replication remain
uncertain. Due to lack of human resources and
financial aid, the project is yet to become viable.
However, the first citizen journalism productions
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have been very encouraging, which increases the
chances to find funding and continue the project.
Production was difficult, because villages have
an extremely erratic supply of electricity, which
made screenings not always possible. In addition,
none of the villagers have access to internet,
computers or camera equipment, which meant
that each video had to be produced with one set
of equipment, provided by myself.
Editing of the videos has not been possible,
due to low skill levels and the unavailability
of editing software. As a result, the quality of
the videos is generally low and sometimes,
microphones, etc, can be seen in the film.
Conclusion
The diversity of the content of the videos within
only a few interactions show that citizen journalists
have identified a whole range of issues that are of
concern to their communities in a short period
of time. This indicates the large potential of
exploiting citizen journalism, video and blogging
to bring about raise awareness around community
issues and incite change.
Notes
1 The term 'Panchayat Raj' is relatively new, having
originated during the British administration. 'Raj' literally
means governance or government. Mahatma Gandhi
advocated 'Panchayati Raj', a decentralised form of
government where each village is responsible for its own
affairs as the foundation of India's political system.
2 The republic of India comprises the union (federal)
government, 28 state governments, seven union
territories and about 45,000 local governments. Local
governments are known as panchayats in rural areas
and municipal corporations, municipalities and nagar
panchayats in urban areas. In most states, panchayats
have a three-tier system - village, block {a group of
villages, treated as a development unit) and district,
whereas cities and towns have municipal bodies. Women
(33.3%) and members of scheduled castes, scheduled
tribes, backward classes, etc, (in proportion to their
population in a state) enjoy reservation in all seats and
posts.
3 Mahatma Gandhi (2 October 1869 - 30 January 1948)
 was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the
Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of
resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience,
firmly founded upon total non-violence, which led India to
independence and inspired movements for civil rights and
freedom across the world.
4 Treated as untouchables, Dalits occupy the lowest
position in the social system.
References
Government of India (2007/8) 'Raj, Ministry of Panchati',
annual report, New Delhi: Ministry of Panchayti Raj.
Jain D (1996) 'Panchayat Raj, Women Changing Governance',
available at www.onlinewomeninpolitics.org/india/1996_
undp_panchayat.htm, site accessed 19 March 2009.
Kasturi L and Mazumdar V (1994) 'Women and Indian
Nationalism: Some Questions', available at www.cwds.
ac.in/occasionalpapers.htm, site accessed 19 March
2009.
MacBride S (1977) 'Many Voices One World', International
Commission for the Study of Communication Problems
report, Genever: UNESCO.
Naisbitt J (2006) Mind Set!: Reset Your Thinking and See the
Future, New York: HarperCollins.
Rosen J (2006) The People Formerly Known as the Audience',
available at http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/
pressthink/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html, site accessed 19
March 2009.
White SA (2003) Participatory Video; Images that transform
and empower, London: Sage.
Wikipedia (2007) 'How many internet users are there in
India?', available at http://wiki.answers.eom/Q/How_
many_lnternet_users_are_there_in_lndia, site accessed
19 March 2009.

SWETA SINGH has toeeo teaching jpw*0m* and iriass j?^^

graduate students for the last eight years. Current^ s^e+ecUires at Gum Gobind Singh
Jndraprastha University in New DelhiJndia. Sefofe that she worked as a television
journalist with India's national news channel, Doordarshan News. She studied
jc?imafism at the Indian Institute of Ma^ Coriwmintofion In New Deiii.
Ernst. SMt?&?fc&t?^

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