The Role of Social Media as a Platform for Citizen Journalism in Sri Lanka

Social media platforms, and Facebook in particular, became a central space through which ordinary citizens in Sri Lanka created, shared, and distributed news and current-affairs content, a practice generally referred to as citizen journalism, reshaping how news was produced and consumed beyond traditional newsrooms. Despite this growing trend, there remained limited systematic understanding of how social media actually functioned as a platform for citizen journalism in the Sri Lankan context, including the motivations behind citizen reporting, the credibility of citizen-generated content, and the challenges it presented, such as misinformation and lack of verification; this gap formed the central research problem: how does social media function as a platform for citizen journalism in Sri Lanka. The objective of the study was to examine the role of social media as a platform for citizen journalism among social media users in Colombo District, Sri Lanka. Primary data consisted of field data gathered directly from participants through a questionnaire survey and interviews, while secondary data were drawn from existing research studies, books, and websites relevant to citizen journalism, social media, and journalism practice in Sri Lanka and beyond. Guided by Uses and Gratifications theory, the study adopted a mixed-methods design, drawing a stratified random sample of 100 respondents (25% of an reachable population of 400 identified citizen journalists) for the survey, with a purposive sub-sample of 12–15 respondents interviewed. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, while qualitative interview data were analysed thematically, with both strands triangulated for interpretation. Findings showed that engagement was uneven, with most respondents limited to sharing or commenting while a smaller core actively produced content; civic and political motivation was more pronounced than in a national sample, reflecting Colombo's proximity to political events; the key opportunity identified was speed and first-person immediacy in covering urban events; politically engaged respondents faced disproportionately higher misinformation and harassment revelation; and respondents prioritised verification-skills training over access-related support. These findings informed recommendations for media literacy, platform governance, and journalism policy.

Citizen Journalism, Social Media, Uses and Gratifications theory, Mixed method

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