Title: Cutting Through the Hype: Why Citizen Reporting Isn't Election Monitoring
Authors: Katrin Verclas, Anne-Ryan Heatwole
Source: MobileActive.org
Date (published): 31/05/2010
Date (accessed): 01/06/2010
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Recently, we’ve been seeing a lot of hype about citizen reporting with mobile phones during elections. It is often conflated with the term “election monitoring,” but this does a disservice to both citizen reporting and election monitoring, a discipline and field that has been around for some 20 years. These two approaches have markedly different goals, target audiences, and processes. We think it is time for readers to definititively understand what election monitoring is in contrast to citizen reporting, and what the role of mobile phone and mapping platforms are in regard to these two very different forms of engagement during elections. We aim to clearly differentiate between them once and for all.

We also urge the adoption of differing terms - citizen reporting during an election versus systematic election monitoring. Mobile phones, SMS, and mapping platforms play a role in both citizen reporting and election monitoring, of course.

We believe that more clearly distinguishing between citizen reporting during an election and the discipline of systematic election monitoring will better serve organizations that are considering using mobile technology for either of these engagement processes.

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