公民新聞已經獲得世界各國內研究者的大量關註。現有研究多為規範性理論主導。規範性理論不自覺地採用了一種工具主義的方法來理解公民新聞的社會政治意義。研究者大多數關註特定情況下（如危急，政治運動）的公民新聞，而忽略了公民新聞在常態生活中的廣泛存在。就分析層次而言，現有文獻也多採取宏觀和社會層面的分析而較少個體層面的研究。針對此，這篇理論探索文章試圖通過提出一種儀式觀點來補充公民新聞研究的主流範式。以使用與滿足理論為仲介，筆者提出一般化的用戶生產行為（如撰寫部落格，上傳視訊，或公民新聞）都可通過一種排除規範性意義的儀式觀點來解讀。換言之，公民新聞現象在個人層面可能更多為了滿足娛樂，自我表達，獲取歸屬感的作用。與工具主義的理念相反，這些不包含政治社會考量的視角體現了一種儀式或習慣的媒介觀念。

Citizen journalism has received much attention in journalism studies worldwide. The existing literature on citizen journalism is dominated by normative theories, which automatically adopts an instrumentalist view to understand the large socio-political implications of citizen journalism. The research focus is usually on the citizen journalism in critical moments such as social movements or natural disasters, which therefore fails to consider various forms of citizen journalism in everyday settings. In terms of the level of analysis, prior studies tend to adopt macro and societal perspectives instead of individual perspectives. With this regard, this theoretical paper tries to fix the fragmented paradigm by proposing a ritualistic view towards citizen journalism. Drawing from uses-and-gratifications theory, the author argues that user creation behaviors (i.e., blogging, video creating, and citizen journalism) can also be explained in a ritualistic model in which no explicit normative goals are involved. That being said, publishing citizen journalism may simply satisfy individual needs for entertainment, self-expression and belonging to certain community. Seeing from a habitual or ritual way, we can better theorize the citizen journalism phenomenon in everyday life.