by Rachael Pictor
Citizen journalism involves members of the public actively participating in reporting, analysing and contributing to news and information. Many examples of citizen journalism include personal blogs, independent news sites, mailings, personal broadcasting and news content captures on mobile devices. This week I would like to look at how new media has enhanced citizen journalism and the implications that come from this.
Journalism faces a number of challenges, as there are shifts away from news sources like newspaper to online content. As new media develops the public has found more and more ways to contribute to and share news stories. This enables many countries where the media on controlled by the state. South Korea, for example, has a flourishing citizen journalist network. “A global study into 60 citizen journalism projects in 33 countries found citizen journalism flourished under governments which could be characterized as “soft authoritarianism” regimes” (The Australian 2009). These guerilla journalists were using blogging sites and twitter to share their messages.
Australia has also used citizen journalism, in 2007 the Australian site YouDecide 2007 began as the first citizen journalism website (http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/what_is_the_digital_economy/australias_digital_economy_future_directions/final_report/appendix_case_studies/youdecide2007_an_australian_case_study_in_citizen_journalism).
The site ran during the 2007 federal election from early September to the 23rd of November. YouDecide 2007 acted as an experiment to demonstrate how social media and public participation can shape political engagement in Australia. The site worked by hosting user-generated content. Registered users could upload multimedia content and any member of the public could register. The site creators wanted to generate local based content and have a sense on community within the site. The site was entirely promoted through social media and from this the site attracted around 2000 users and approximately 12,000 readers each week.
One story that attracted a lot of attention and otherwise would not have been covered by mainstream media was the ‘crate-gate’ story and exposed Peter Lindsay’s rude comments about young people struggling with their mortgage. Users were able to comment on stories and feedback was encouraged building the strength of the site and built community interaction.
Citizen journalism is believed to create more accurate, localised news with great exposure. YouDecide 2007 is an example of how new media can harness the voices of citizens and generate discussion. The fact that mainstream media covered stories from the YouDecide 2007 site proves that citizen journalists can have an influence in the media. As many citizen journalists feel there is a certain spin on mainstream news stories, to have a site like YouDecide 2007 which was monitored by journalists, but with content was created by citizen displays how professional journalism can work together with citizen journalism to create more accurate and relative stories.
I think that because new media is so accessible it is easy for fake news stories to be spread more easily, but at the same time it can spread very accurate news in a timely manner. A collaborative effort between profession journalists and citizen journalists using new media sites like twitter and blogs can ensure news stories are factual, informative and also relative to audiences. I believe this is something that should be factored in largely to the future of journalism due to the challenges traditional media faces in the 21st century.
7 Comments
I think that the concept of citizen journalism is a good thing. For countries like Malaysia, where news is so highly controlled by the government, news sites developed from blogs has really allowed for freedom of speech. I think this form of journalism is really going to change the way we consume broadcast journalism because for the first time, we as the audience are able to participate. This to me is a big step for the journalism industry as a whole. No longer are just a select group pf people allowed to broadcast their opinions on an issue. Through citizen journalism, I fell that we are now able to discuss a wider range of issues that affect us as a society. I think citizen journalism, is the true future of broadcast journalism and i for one can’t wait to see the changes that it is going to make to traditional ideas of journalism.
Getting the audience involved through citizen journalism is a very good thing, and for this reason, I believe that broadcast media will grow by leaps and bounds by getting the audience involved. Getting opinions from all sections of society is important. In India,for example, there is a section dedicated to citizen journalism, on one of the leading news channels, where citizens from different parts of the city get a specific amount of air time to bring the attention of officials to issues that trouble the society. These issues include troubles with civic amenities, problems with local authorities, etc, which more often than not would go unnoticed. But with the issue being broadcast on television, the authorities are bound to respond, and indeed the statistics show that there has been a much higher rate of problem solving after the advent of citizen journalism.
There is the problem of fake news, but with proper regulations, I’m sure this would not prove to be much of a problem, as the pros are too strong to ignore.
I agree Rachael, citizen journalism is the way of the future. Mainstream newspapers are already changing the way they do business, planning ahead to include more news sourced from the Internet, including the whole news room in discussions about what a good news story could be from their community. I would like to see aboriginal Australians embracing this form of journalism. As discussed, when you have a media controlled by the state citizen Journalism becomes an important and effective way to get the truth out to the public. I would argue that Aboriginal Australians are always having to react to what is said in the media. But, if you have own own way of getting news to the world, you can be proactive, instead of just reactive. I would like to give a mobile phone and internet to all of the Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory who are facing the NT Intervention (http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/02/nt-intervention-why-it-just-didnt-work) and see first hand how they feel about it. Im not so worried about fake news stories as I am about biased one sided reporting from mainstream media. With so many people having access to mobile phones and Internet – it makes sense that journalism be spread more evenly amongst the people. If a person can take a photo of a news event as it happens, instead of waiting for a reporter to be sent out, i think it is a good thing.
In countries where the media is tightly controlled by governments, social media is certainly life-changing. It gives people a voice and has enabled freedom of speech that we in Australia take for granted.
Many of the positive aspects of citizen journalism have already been covered in the lead discussion and the responses so far, so I won’t repeat them. The only down side I can see is audience reach. At this stage, reach is nowhere near that of mass media. With the exception of the example in India that Evita mentioned (where citizen journalism is broadcast on television) it usually has a small following. Unless, of course, mainstream media picks up the story, then that’s another story (excuse the pun!)
While researching this topic, I found myself asking is it actually citizen journalism? Are the participating audience members actually journalists? Or are they simply people sharing their opinions and passions via blogs or comments, posting community notices, and providing information and video footage of unexpected events they’ve just witnessed?
In his blog for The Age, James Farmer, argues that it shouldn’t be called citizen journalism, but rather citizen media. He quite adamantly concludes: “it’s not citizen journalism and nor will it ever be.” While acknowledging its power, his view is that citizens aren’t professional journalists with the skills required to put together balanced, objective articles. He prefers to see “sites that are built on citizen media and far greater and more worthwhile interaction between readers, journalists and editors.”
There are many proponents of citizen journalism (also known as public journalism, civic journalism, participatory journalism, democratic journalism, guerrilla journalism or street journalism) and Farmer’s view is not a particularly popular one. However, I can totally see his point.
Although I agree with Rachael about the idea that Citizen Journalism is believed to create more accurate, localized news with great exposure, however, I wonder how do those so called “Citizen Journalism” have professional skills to provide the reliable contents? Why would we trust the contents? While Rose mentioned about the question that James Farmer has argued, he indicated that it shouldn’t be called citizen journalism, but citizen media. I totally agree with him. In Taiwan, I’m lucky that I came from the country where people have highly freedom of speech, and we actually access the daily news mostly from “citizen Journalism.” Therefore, most of on line news and contents are actually written by the people who are hired by the on line news websites, and the reason is simply because the advantages of their locations- living in different counties. So, these people write the news for the on line websites without any backgrounds and trainings as long as their article could be accept by the editor. In the future, it is absolutely that citizen Journalism would be the trend, but still, it should be not only the timely content but an authorized and trustful news offered.
I believe that the vital point here is the co-operation between the mainstream media and the guerilla journalism. In fact, the role of professional journalists’ censorship is the key success. As we all know, the development in technology grants enormous opportunities to those who are able to use them. As long as people have sufficient skills, it has never been such easy for anyone to become a journalist. People feel free to post, upload whatever they like regardless of the content appropriateness. It is true that citizen journalism has advantages upon mainstream journalism. Specifically, they are more aware of the local based content, and they can update the information much sooner than mainstream. It is very easy to spread the information, despite not being reliable. Rumours, unreliable, or even misleading information may cause negative effects on community. Therefore, it is most important that all news generated by citizen journalism must be monitored by mainstream.
In my country, people have right to post whatever they like on the internet, as long as it relates to their personal preferences. However, blogs which contain sensitive infromation such as national military power, politics, corruptions are strictly monitored by the government. If bloggers are held liable, they will be punished severely.
Australia has one of the most concentrated cases of media ownership in the world, with that said; new forms of media have been revolutionary in their ability to create a diverse media message and access to information that is free from the agenda-setting of media proprietors.
The public is able to experience opinions and news stories without the surname of Murdoch or Fairfax being attached to every article. Citizen Journalism means that we the public are able to participate in news content, opinions, and generally have a say.
Though of course not immune to such biases, in a recent article I read all but one of the 12 news sites in Australia’s top 100 most visited sites are owned by major existing media outlets http://avaazimages.s3.amazonaws.com/Centre%20for%20Policy%20Development%20Issue%20Brief%20final.pdf