Righting Wrongs: Citizen Journalism and Miscarriages of Justice

This chapter demonstrates the agenda-setting power of citizen journalism in a context of miscarriages of justice. Our empirical analysis focuses on the interaction of media, political and judicial forces following the death of newspaper vendor, Ian Tomlinson, shortly after being struck by a police officer at the G20 Protests in London 2009. We examine the rise of citizen journalism as a key challenge to those institutions that traditionally have been able to control the information environment. We then illustrate how the intervention of citizen journalism, above all else, established the news agenda around the Tomlinson case, disrupted the traditional flows of communication power, and was transformative in the Tomlinson family’s search for justice.