The International Center for Journalists has recently held a seminar in Cairo, Egypt on citizen journalism and its effects in the developing societies.

Held on May 23, 2010, the seminar was led by Dan Gilmore, an internationally recognized author and leader in new media and citizen-based journalism. He is the director of a new Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. In the seminar, which was held via the voice calling Internet Service, Skype, Gillmore discussed some chapters from his book “We the media: grassroots journalism by the people, for the people” and the major elements of citizen journalism, with some analysis of the current shape of citizen journalism in Egypt.

The seminar was covered by the citizen journalism program participants who filmed it and posted on a special blog created for this event.

Among the audience in the seminar were representatives from newspapers and news websites, along with American journalist and former Middle East correspondent Stephen Franklin.

For more information on the seminar, click here and here (Arabic).