Social Media and Citizen Reporting Experience Presented by Social Media Experts from Egypt, United States and Armenia

On January 15-19, (starting at 10 am till 6 pm) 2012, Public Journalism Club (PJC) will conduct a 5-day Boot-Camp Workshop for professional journalists and public reporters/citizen journalists. The Boot-Camp Workshop will take place at PJC’s office located in the building of the Caucasus Institute (39 Yeznik Koghbatsi str.).

The workshop will be conducted by: Noha Ali Atef, an Egypt-based social media specialist, blogger specializing in her own country affairs, activist, Research Assistant at the Birmingham City University (UK), Seda Muradyan, head of PJC, Gegham Vardanyan, editor of www.media.am, Internews Armenia. Master classes and meetings will be conducted by Internet Security and Social Media expert Samvel Martirosyan, Gevorg Hayrapetyan, lawyer of the Freedom of Information Center of Armenia and Skype session will be conducted by Mikel Maron from the OpenStreetMap Foundation (NYC, USA).

During the 5-day hands-on workshop, 10 citizen reporters and 10 professional journalists selected by PJC will have a unique opportunity of getting new skills on reporting and build cooperative bridges with the help of the specialists.

Participants will also have the opportunity to develop journalism and citizen reporting skills, work in mixed groups of professional and nonprofessional journalists and learn how to report on social issues. Thus, participants will visit Yerevan’s Kond district, focusing on poverty and social issues.

During the workshop, demo version of one of PJC projects – www.MyNews.am website (web-based citizen reporting platform) – will be presented.

The funding for the website was provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with the support of the American people. In 2011, the project received a grant from the Alternative Resources in Media program.

This Citizen Reporting Boot-Camp is organized within the framework of PJC’s “Public Journalism: Changing News Consumption in Armenia from Passive Reading to Active Engagement” 2011-2012 Project supported by the Norwegian Embassy in Moscow.

Public Journalism Club is an Armenia-based non-governmental organization and is the official chapter of US based Hacks/Hackers movement in Armenia. Our mission is to promote freedom of speech, diversity and pluralism in Armenia by developing participatory and public journalism, by creating cooperative, engaging bridges that will connect citizen reporters with professional journalists, media and social media experts. We develop platforms aimed at changing the idea of news consumption and shifting passive reading into active engagement. We try to set up an environment for dialogue between representatives of new technologies and media fields by building bridges for cooperation and development of joint projects and executing the collaborative projects with participation of IT, Media and citizen journalists. We are developing www.mynews.am web-based citizen reporting innovative platform where we use social game mechanics and elements for engaging users into citizen reporting.

For more information please contact PJC staff members.

39 Koghbatsi str.
Tel: +3794 755 898
E-mail: info@pjc.am
Twitter: @pubjournclub
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/publicjournalismclub
Website: www.pjc.am

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