Graduation Year

2018

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Anthropology

Second Department

Media Studies

Reader 1

Seo Young Park

Reader 2

Mark Andrejevic

Abstract

This thesis examines three cases of fatal police-involved killings of black men in order to understand the significance and value of citizen journalism. Citizen journalism, journalism that is produced by ordinary people rather than professional journalists, functions as an alternative to mainstream news media. With technological developments like smartphones and social media, people have the means to produce and disseminate their own news in real-time. There has been a recent trend of witnesses filming videos of acts of police violence against people of color. I argue that these videos are significant because of the way they challenge our perceptions of police officers and black men, force mainstream news media to report on news that are of public interest, amplify historically marginalized voices, and expose the issue of police brutality to a wider audience.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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