WATCH: How citizen journalism can lead to cyber bullying

Researcher Agneta Mallén is studying how citizen journalism, where ordinary citizens document events, can in some cases lead to cyber bullying and viritual shaming. Photo: Wen Tong Neo Citizen journalism is often seen as more democratic form of journalism, where the public contributes to the reporting, analysis and dissemination of news. Sociologist and criminologist Agneta Mallén at Lund University in Sweden has studied the phenomenon and shown some of its downsides, including how it sometimes leads to outright cyber bullying. In recent years, citizen journalism has become a widely known phenomenon. It involves ordinary citizens witnessing events, documenting them on their mobile phones and sharing them on social media. It has become an increasingly important news source that often sets the tone of how an event is perceived by the world. "Common within this type of citizen journalism is that it is perceived as truth to at least the same extent as ordinary journalism", says Agneta Mallén.