Trustworthy Citizen-Generated Images and Video on Social Media Platforms

The convergence of digital cameras into mobile phones with Internet connectivity and the proliferation of social media platforms for accessing, sharing, managing and storing digital images and videos has transformed news reportage and provided the opportunity for citizen journalists to capture and disseminate visual documentation, which shapes contemporary events, informs future decisions and over time, becomes part of the historical record and societal memory. Or does it? What are the obstacles to ongoing access and long-term preservation of citizen-generated content in social media platforms? This paper provides a multidisciplinary approach to exploring the trustworthiness of online content, utilizing literature from the fields of journalism and the law, as well as findings from archival studies on record-making and recordkeeping in the digital environment. Recommendations to citizen journalists are provided to assist in the capture and storage of trustworthy digital images in social media platforms.