Citizen Health Journalism

Abstract

This article discusses an innovative experiment in transforming citizen journalism from a general discourse to a specific set of criteria that can be reproduced in classroom settings. Specifically, it discusses how the Rio de Janeiro-based non-governmental organization Viva Rio created a set of classes called Citizen Health Journalism that attempted to train community health workers (titled “health agents”) in the technical and philosophical dimensions of this mode of journalistic production. The classes looked to capitalize on the unique identities of these agents. Recruited from the favelas (or unincorporated urban slums) of Rio to be public health workers within their own communities, these individuals had both the life experiences (as residents) and professional experience (as healthcare workers) to offer unique insights about their communities. Drawing on an in-depth analysis of training materials and participant observation in 2013 at the training courses, I argue that while turning citizen journalism into a curriculum can help make the discourse more accessible to neophytes, it also potentially sacrifices the convictions and attitudes that encourage individuals to act as citizen journalists in the first place.

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