| Summary/Abstract |
The citizen journalism group 140journos was founded in early 2012 by a group of college students who were frustrated with the shortcomings of the mainstream media coverage in Turkey. The group of students began aggregating on-the-ground news using Twitter, and their group name is a reference to the maximum number of characters in a tweet—140. The group gained momentum when the Gezi Park protests erupted in the summer of 2013. The new surge of protest activity helped the group develop a network of contributors, and their Twitter account has grown into a trusted source of news. Now with 53,000 followers, the account is still a small operation. Nevertheless, the news group is protective of the reputation that it has earned and vigorously checks sources and verifies its tweets. The Journal of International Affairs spoke with Burcu Baykurt, who joined 140journos in mid-2012, to talk more about how the group formed and how it is contributing to a changing media landscape in a country still grappling with censorship. Baykurt is currently a third-year PhD student at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, where she is researching Internet policymaking.
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