Citizen Journalism
Posted by: n6905633 on: May 7, 2009
The name is pretty self explanitary, Terry Flew states that citizen journalism is best defined by the OhMyNews slogan “everyone is a reporter”. Citizen journalism is basically news reported by citizens and posted online. However, with readily accessable new sources written by professionals, why do we need citizen journalism. Axel Bruns (2008, 69) says that citizen journalism “acts as ac orrective and a supplement to the output of commercial, industrial journalism”. Australia has citizen journalism sites that “seek to both promote new stpries and to generate alternative means of gathering and aggregating news and opionon online” (Flew 2008, 144). In his 2009 week 8 lecture for Media and Society: Printing Press to Internet, Stephen Harrington stated that some are even refering to Citizen Journalism as the fifth estate. Just like the press (the fourth estate) keeps tabs on the first three estates, some are saying Citizen Journalism evolved to keep the press in check.
The question that then stems from this is, is citizen journallism useful or is it simply “valourising idiots” (Harrington, 2009)?
Bruns believes citizen journalism is neccessary for “restoring access to the public institution of journalism…citizens-turned-produsers” (Bruns 2008, 96). Remember the last blog, the one on produsage? Well this where it comes into play. Citizen journalism is a collaborative building process, where citizens create, report and comment on “news”.
One of the greatest benefits of citizen journalism, in my opinion, is the “oppurtunities to express alternative views in countries with state-controlled media” (Flew 2008, 157). There have been numerous examples of this, one such example Salam Pax and his blog Where is Raed. Salam Pax wrote about the war from an Iraqi’s perspective, something most westerners hadn’t even thought about. He was the first of many citizen journalists to rise from the rubble of Bagdad. The things Pax wrote about were something reporters from our culture could never experiance and something Iraqi reporters perhaps could not express. Additionall,y the reach of the internet is phenomaonal, not as limited as news or print and this allowed Pax to communicate with the world. This really leads me to believe that citizen journalism is quite valid and should be regarded as important in todays society.
So…is citizen journalism just deligitimising expertise (Harrington, 2009)? No i don’t think so. I think we have to give the people of this world some credit, people are intelligent, they are informed and they are opinionated. Just because someone has not had formal training as a journalist does not mean they don’t have something valid to discuss. If a doctor wrote about the state of the health system in QLD, we would all accept what they say to be informed, and yet they are not a journalist. It also comes down to what you define as news. The Oxford dictionary defines news as ”information about recent events,” a Sundasese businessman could blog about the situation in Darfur, this would be information about recent events, so…news, and they aren’t a journalist either! Some citizen journalists, such as Perez Hilton, are now being used by traditional news programs as a source, perhaps this is a sign of things to come?
4 Responses to "Citizen Journalism"
May 25, 2009 at 6:17 am
I have read a few blogs over the last couple of weeks but I have really enjoyed reading yours! Your write both informatively and interestingly, with a bit of humour!
I completely agree with all the points you have made about citizen journalism. I also like what the comment above has said. I particularly like how you have used real life examples, like the example of Iraq and Salam Pax. Another example of this could be the citizen journalist sites in Indonesia in which has helped Indonesia become more democratic.
I don’t agree with Harrington’s quote about how citizen journalism is delegitimizing expertise, i think harnessing the collective intelligence will further enhance the whole.
May 25, 2009 at 7:00 am
I completely agree with what you are saying about collective intelligence being important! For the record Harrington was giving examples of the arguments against citizen journlaism, he did not neccessarily agree.
Thanks for your feedback I really appreciate it!
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- shannon201: Hi Sara I enjoyed reading your blog. You have a very personable style of writing and have used good real life examples of produsage in your content
- rogger53: Hey Sara! Great post about produsage, you really broke it down into easy to understand bite sized pieces. Not only that, you consistently managed t
- amygray: Thank you for bringing up a point that often gets forgotten. Amateur, I agree is not synonymous with unreliable, bad or otherwise negative. Amateur is
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May 17, 2009 at 4:06 am
I thought your ideas were really insightful and were well linked to real world models. I found myself agreeing with your ideas that citizen journalism is in fact a liberating means of collaboration for everyday individuals. Your use of references also added to the understanding of what is at the foundation of ideas of citizen journalism and the implications it has on society. Perhaps some visuals like a video example of citizen journalism could have aided your blog in the sense that it would give those that are new to the idea greater incentive to continue reading or in fact spark the desire to partake in some citizen journalist activities. Also, maybe listing types of citizen journalist activities would give novices a better idea of the scope of citizen journalism. Overall however, I found it very informative easy to read and follow your ideas on the topic. Your links to actual citizen journalist sites is also really helpful to those using this as an informative learning resource but also as a means of understanding the impact it has on society and the implications behind this. That is to say the way in which it has become a reflection of how society operates and interacts in a new media environment.
May 25, 2009 at 7:02 am
Thanks for your comment! I tried to add some more examples as you suggested, but I didn’t really go into depth about sites simply due to the word limit! also I put a video in my wikipedia blog after your suggestion, so thanks for that idea as well!