Hybrid Media and Political Trials: How legacy journalism perceives citizen journalism and social media in political trials - the case of #jobstownnotguilty

The relationship between Social Media and Legacy Media has been of much interest to scholars. This paper investigates an interesting, contentious and politicised court case where the heretofore monopoly of professional journalism, court reporting, was challenged by citizen journalists. The case concerned a 2014 sit down protest in Jobstown, Tallaght, a working-class suburb of Dublin, where a sitting Minister Joan Burton TD, was blocked in her car for several hours by local protesters. A number of protesters, many months after the incident, were arrested and charged with false imprisonment.