Structures of Resistance Citizen-generated Reporting in Times of Social Unrest

This chapter explores how citizen reporters mobilized in the quests to assist failing mediatic infrastructures and to create transparency devices that morally exhorted traditional media workers to react properly to the turmoil and against disinformation. While these newfangled projects are ingenious, it argues that their innovations are also indicative of what Chilean citizen journalists and digital activists thought was missing from the already large ecology of media organizations in the country with regard to enacting authentic journalistic principles. Digital or online journalism is uninterrupted in its transformation of the ways in which information and communication technologies are being used by media workers. FastCheck is making the process of fact-checking both popular and transparent, incentivizing citizens to participate actively in such an endeavor. Both professional journalism and citizen-generated reporting have shown a positive impact on the political involvement of their audiences and on a better understanding of politics in general.