Document details

Citizens' Media: Citizens' Watchdog Groups and Observatories

In: The Handbook of Development Communication and Social Change
Karin Gwinn Wilkins; Thomas Tufte; Rafael Obregón (eds.)
Chichester: Wiley Blackwell (2014), pp. 411-425

Signature commbox: 10-Development-E 2014

"Media consumption today takes on first order meanings that we can challenge, understand and clarify. This is where the audience learns to believe in watchdogging and vice versa. Citizen watchdog groups (Veedurias) attempt to critically understand public narratives beyond first order meanings that are not necessarily oppositional. These readings provide a new opportunity to understand the medium, and the audience that obtains some satisfaction by listening to radio, listening to local or international music, and by watching and interacting with TV programming. Citizen watchdog groups and observatories confront the challenge of watching, debating and proposing in order to achieve a better understanding of the public world from their own private worlds. These groups and observatories are located in that interaction between public and private issues in the mass media, tracing the footprints left by public/private/intimate actors. Citizen watchdog groups and observatories analyze the mediations and intermediations that are regularly built." (Summary)
Watching, a new paradigm for social inclusion in society -- Watching: ethical commitment to what we ought to be -- A citizen's practice to learn democracy from the act of watching -- Watching to change: between rights and responsibilities -- Brief history of the Veeduría [Social Communication Citizen Watchdog Group, Peru] -- A voluntary and participatory movement with no representation: the quest for consensus -- New horizons of watching to believe: media ethics and relaunch of the Veeduría