The discussion on this blog has primarily focused on the advantages of citizen journalism, which are primarily related to the breadth of reporting, and the disadvantages of citizen journalism, which are primarily related to the standards of journalistic practice that citizen journalists do not necessarily follow. In the previous post I highlighted a case in which citizen journalism demonstrated a lack of reliability, a disadvantage, and in the post before that I pointed out how citizen journalism could offer fresh perspectives on events, an advantage.
While I won't take a stance on the pepper spray incident at UC Davis as that is beyond the scope of this blog, it is a case that illustrates both some of the positives and negatives of citizen journalism. As you may have heard, videos from citizen journalists found their way to YouTube of police pepper spraying protestors sitting on the ground at UC Davis. Now, a positive of citizen journalism here is that the incident was reported so the public knows about it, since it is the kind of thing that people would want to know about. However, there is a negative of citizen journalism being demonstrated here, which is slightly more subtle. Look at these two articles The War on Police and Pepper Spray on Campus: A Tale of Two Videos. They cite different videos when they discuss the incident, and the former claims that other people discussing the incident are not considering the whole story.
This issue is applicable to journalism as a whole; stories are often long and complex and it is difficult to capture them in their entirety. However, with citizen journalism not capturing the whole story is a larger issue than with professional journalism. It goes back to the idea of objectivity. Citizen journalists are not bound to be objective, therefore they are more likely to report only one side of a story to push their agenda. Is that a problem though? Is it the responsibility of a citizen journalist to show both sides of the story? I'm not entirely sure, but it's a good point for discussion.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
The Pitfalls of Citizen Journalism.
One of the primary criticisms of citizen journalism is the lack of accountability and reliability. Some proponents of citizen journalism will counter with the argument that at times citizen journalists will know more about the subject they're writing on than professional journalists, such as in the scenario when a scientist is writing a topic related to his field. However, it still remains that citizen journalism is not practiced with the fact-checking and accountability standards of professional journalism. Now, more than ever, a mistaken story can become a major problem.
The technology that has allowed citizen journalism to proliferate is also what compounds the problems caused by false reporting. On the Internet, an incorrect article can proliferate and reach a plethora of readers in a very short time period. Now, when a professional journalism organization makes a mistake, they will correct that mistake in the next issue of their publication. That correction will most likely reach the same audience as the original article. Even if a citizen journalist publishes a correction for a previous article, it's less likely that most of his audience will read that correction due to the nature of publishing by citizen journalists. Furthermore, the misinformation becomes even more potent if the article has been reblogged and copied elsewhere on the internet.
Articles by citizen journalists may need to be read through an even more critical lens than articles by professional journalists. For example, consider the Steve Miller incident that I recently read about in this article by Cathy Scott. Miller, a writer for an ezine, wrote a joking article about how a 50 pound slab of ice fell off Air Force One and almost hit occupy Las Vegas protestors on the ground. The article was a joke, but the Canada Free Press didn't know that. They pulled the story and included it on the front page of their website and it spread across the internet.
Miller later revealed that the article was satire, but there may be some people still misinformed.
The technology that has allowed citizen journalism to proliferate is also what compounds the problems caused by false reporting. On the Internet, an incorrect article can proliferate and reach a plethora of readers in a very short time period. Now, when a professional journalism organization makes a mistake, they will correct that mistake in the next issue of their publication. That correction will most likely reach the same audience as the original article. Even if a citizen journalist publishes a correction for a previous article, it's less likely that most of his audience will read that correction due to the nature of publishing by citizen journalists. Furthermore, the misinformation becomes even more potent if the article has been reblogged and copied elsewhere on the internet.
Articles by citizen journalists may need to be read through an even more critical lens than articles by professional journalists. For example, consider the Steve Miller incident that I recently read about in this article by Cathy Scott. Miller, a writer for an ezine, wrote a joking article about how a 50 pound slab of ice fell off Air Force One and almost hit occupy Las Vegas protestors on the ground. The article was a joke, but the Canada Free Press didn't know that. They pulled the story and included it on the front page of their website and it spread across the internet.
Miller later revealed that the article was satire, but there may be some people still misinformed.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Offering Fresh Pespectives on World Events
How much do we know about the world around us? And how do we really know that we "know"? That is, what if what we thought what we knew about the world around us was not entirely correct? Now I'm not talking about us being in The Matrix or something, but rather questioning how well we're informed by the news media. Most people only know about the occurrences in far away places to the extent that the media tells them about those occurrences. Therefore it is necessary to question whether the media does a good job of accurately portraying those occurrences.
Reading Layla Revis's article, How Citizen Journalism is Reshaping Media and Democracy, helped add some insight on this issue. She begins with an excellent quote from Jay Ruby:
"So long as the dominant culture’s images of the world continue to be sold to others as the image of the world, image makers are being unethical."
The world's media market is dominated by 10 companies according to Revis. That means that the power to shape the world's perception of, well, the world is controlled by a relatively small group of people. If the mainstream media decides to present stories that only fit what the dominant culture thinks the world should be like and presents them in a way that suits the dominant culture, then some people may be perpetually marginalized.
But citizen journalism can change that. Of course there are the questions of reliability and accountability, but looking past those, citizen journalism can change the way that we think about the world. If minorities, the oppressed, and the impoverished get an outlet to share their outlook on the world firsthand, that can change how everyone else who reads their stories views world events as well.
Citizen journalism can also help balance coverage. From my experience, I know mainstream media often covers stories, which, to be perfectly honest, are plain frivolous on the world stage. This is especially true in the United States where we seem to suffer from a lack of coverage of international events. For example, consider the stories that are often seen on cable news networks. All too often they spend hours every day for multiple weeks covering the disappearance of one little girl in the US. Okay, if she's missing then maybe it'll help find her, but even after she's confirmed to be deceased they spend hours covering the story. Not that I'm so cold-hearted as to not care about little girls, but quite frankly there are so many other stories happening around the world that the media could be covering, such as the millions of children living in crisis zones. But citizen journalists can give coverage to the stories that the mainstream media decides not to.
Reading Layla Revis's article, How Citizen Journalism is Reshaping Media and Democracy, helped add some insight on this issue. She begins with an excellent quote from Jay Ruby:
"So long as the dominant culture’s images of the world continue to be sold to others as the image of the world, image makers are being unethical."
The world's media market is dominated by 10 companies according to Revis. That means that the power to shape the world's perception of, well, the world is controlled by a relatively small group of people. If the mainstream media decides to present stories that only fit what the dominant culture thinks the world should be like and presents them in a way that suits the dominant culture, then some people may be perpetually marginalized.
But citizen journalism can change that. Of course there are the questions of reliability and accountability, but looking past those, citizen journalism can change the way that we think about the world. If minorities, the oppressed, and the impoverished get an outlet to share their outlook on the world firsthand, that can change how everyone else who reads their stories views world events as well.
Citizen journalism can also help balance coverage. From my experience, I know mainstream media often covers stories, which, to be perfectly honest, are plain frivolous on the world stage. This is especially true in the United States where we seem to suffer from a lack of coverage of international events. For example, consider the stories that are often seen on cable news networks. All too often they spend hours every day for multiple weeks covering the disappearance of one little girl in the US. Okay, if she's missing then maybe it'll help find her, but even after she's confirmed to be deceased they spend hours covering the story. Not that I'm so cold-hearted as to not care about little girls, but quite frankly there are so many other stories happening around the world that the media could be covering, such as the millions of children living in crisis zones. But citizen journalists can give coverage to the stories that the mainstream media decides not to.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Expanding Citizen Journalism in the United States
Last week I wrote about the media being "The Fourth Estate", another check on the United States Federal Government in addition to the system of checks and balances that the three branches have on each other. But the media doesn't just play a role in checking the power of government, it is crucial to shaping the government of a democracy as well. Media has an incredibly valuable influence on voters, and advertising and press coverage are of utmost importance to candidates. Ahead of the 2012 elections, The Huffington Post is launching an initiative called OffTheBus to increase citizen coverage of the election. In Howard Fineman's article about the initiative, "HuffPost Launches OffTheBus Citizen Journalism Project Ahead of 2012 Elections", he describes some of The Huffington Post's reasoning for creating OffTheBus.
A long time member of the Washington Press Corps, Fineman admits that the mainstream news media often doesn't cover politics well.
"We can be trivial, shortsighted, credulous, ideologically blinkered and timid -- on a good day," Fineman said.
Fineman explains why the initiative is called "OffTheBus".
According to Fineman, "In 1973, Timothy Crouse wrote a path-breaking book about political journalism called The Boys on the Bus. The national press, he explained, had become a story, if not THE story, and the paradoxically insulated world they inhabited on the campaign trail wasn't always the best place to get the real story."
The project fosters both centralization, compiling the stories from citizen journalists on The Huffington Post, and diversity, gathering many different stories from different perspectives. Citizen journalists can report some stories better than the mainstream news media and they will report stories that matter more to their locality. Locality is an extremely important point that Fineman makes, and it's something that mainstream media can never offer on its own. Citizen journalist can report stories catering to the wants of small audiences, stories which would be impractical for larger news organizations, even a local news station, to report at times.
It will be interesting to see what stories emerge from citizen journalists as the 2012 election unfolds.
A long time member of the Washington Press Corps, Fineman admits that the mainstream news media often doesn't cover politics well.
"We can be trivial, shortsighted, credulous, ideologically blinkered and timid -- on a good day," Fineman said.
Fineman explains why the initiative is called "OffTheBus".
According to Fineman, "In 1973, Timothy Crouse wrote a path-breaking book about political journalism called The Boys on the Bus. The national press, he explained, had become a story, if not THE story, and the paradoxically insulated world they inhabited on the campaign trail wasn't always the best place to get the real story."
The project fosters both centralization, compiling the stories from citizen journalists on The Huffington Post, and diversity, gathering many different stories from different perspectives. Citizen journalists can report some stories better than the mainstream news media and they will report stories that matter more to their locality. Locality is an extremely important point that Fineman makes, and it's something that mainstream media can never offer on its own. Citizen journalist can report stories catering to the wants of small audiences, stories which would be impractical for larger news organizations, even a local news station, to report at times.
It will be interesting to see what stories emerge from citizen journalists as the 2012 election unfolds.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
The Fourth Estate
I recently read an interview conducted by Ashoka Changemakers with Brian Conley, director and co-founder of Small World News, in an article titled The Future of Journalism. Small World News is a company provides tools to both professional and citizen journalists. Conley hit on some familiar points, highlighting how citizen journalism has spread due to the digital revolution and how citizen journalists can often obtain stories that mainstream news media cannot in times of adversity. I'd like to focus on something that Conley said about what he saw in the future of citizen journalism. Conley advocates an increase in both the quality and quantity of citizen journalists.
"Citizens all over the world need stronger institutions to train, advise, and capacitate them to create media and judge the media being created by traditional outlets in fairness, depth, and breadth.
I believe it will take a bold commitment to a new, innovative, and open journalism of the future by governments, citizens, and foundations to craft a fourth estate—for not only the 21st century, but to ensure a durable, free press on into the 22nd," said Conley.
The media has already been called "the fourth estate" in the past, a titled given based on its ability to keep the government accountable and in check. However, could the proliferation of citizen journalists be the key to creating a stronger, "true" fourth estate? I can see how it would. With citizen journalists everywhere, it would be more difficult for regimes to do anything outrageous without the high probability of a global outcry. The mainstream news media would be crucial too, of course, to provide professionalism, accountability, and more thorough investigative journalism.
Should then, journalism become a standard part of our education system? When I was in high school, I took an English class, which was focused on journalistic writing. I found it a very successful course, which was able to journalistic principles while still adequately preparing students for the AP English Language and Composition exam. Having journalism focused classes could help create a stronger, more vibrant fourth estate.
"Citizens all over the world need stronger institutions to train, advise, and capacitate them to create media and judge the media being created by traditional outlets in fairness, depth, and breadth.
I believe it will take a bold commitment to a new, innovative, and open journalism of the future by governments, citizens, and foundations to craft a fourth estate—for not only the 21st century, but to ensure a durable, free press on into the 22nd," said Conley.
The media has already been called "the fourth estate" in the past, a titled given based on its ability to keep the government accountable and in check. However, could the proliferation of citizen journalists be the key to creating a stronger, "true" fourth estate? I can see how it would. With citizen journalists everywhere, it would be more difficult for regimes to do anything outrageous without the high probability of a global outcry. The mainstream news media would be crucial too, of course, to provide professionalism, accountability, and more thorough investigative journalism.
Should then, journalism become a standard part of our education system? When I was in high school, I took an English class, which was focused on journalistic writing. I found it a very successful course, which was able to journalistic principles while still adequately preparing students for the AP English Language and Composition exam. Having journalism focused classes could help create a stronger, more vibrant fourth estate.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Are citizen journalists jealous of mainstream media?
Are citizen journalists jealous of mainstream media and do they resent writers who get paid for their work? I read an article called “Citizen journalists? They are just internet whingers” by Fionola Meredith, a writer for the Belfast Telegraph. Meredith, a member of what would be consider the mainstream media, denounces citizen journalists for constantly attacking professional journalists in their comments online. Meredith highlights the cases of Johann Hari, a columnist for The Independent, and Dr. Steven King, who wrote columns for the Irish Examiner. These two professional journalists were legitimately wrong in that they committed plagiarism, but Meredith primarily uses their stories to highlight the fact the citizen journalists love to attack professional journalists on the internet.
Meredith says, “[Citizen journalists] love the Hari and King stories, because they seem to confirm all their wildest suspicions; that paid journalists are too fat, lazy and indulged to do any real work.” She points out her personal experience with criticism from citizen journalists as well as some of the insults they like to use.
Interestingly, Meredith says that the commenters are typically “anonymous” and will make comments as generic as “Zzzzzzz” to indicate boredom. Now, if this is true, then how does Meredith know that the people commenting are actually citizen journalists? They could just be random people with no interest of creating journalist material themselves.
Meredith’s article brings up an important issue: the conflict between citizen journalists and the mainstream media. Although the mainstream media has somewhat bent to citizen journalism by often asking people to e-mail what they think, or pulling citizen journalists’ material from websites such as twitter or YouTube, mainstream media and citizen journalism can be thought of as being in competition. They are competing for much of the same audience.
Meredith claims that “[citizen journalists are] largely motivated by envy that they aren't receiving any cash for their far superior efforts and insight.” I find that an interesting assertion considering the most citizen journalists have other jobs and should be creating material with the knowledge that they will receive no money.
On the other side, are the mainstream media threatened by citizen journalists? Are they afraid that citizen journalists will make the role of the mainstream media less important? I don’t think that the mainstream media will go away since as Meredith says, “The mainstream media may have its faults, but it does at least offer some fundamental standards of accountability, quality and editorial control.” However, citizen journalism has somewhat dulled the role of the mainstream media. Perhaps Meredith herself was partially motivated by this fear. Sure her primary motivation was the attack by citizen journalists as she says, but if it’s not too far of a stretch to assume citizen journalists are envious then maybe it’s not too far of a stretch to assume Meredith feels her profession is threatened.
Meredith says, “[Citizen journalists] love the Hari and King stories, because they seem to confirm all their wildest suspicions; that paid journalists are too fat, lazy and indulged to do any real work.” She points out her personal experience with criticism from citizen journalists as well as some of the insults they like to use.
Interestingly, Meredith says that the commenters are typically “anonymous” and will make comments as generic as “Zzzzzzz” to indicate boredom. Now, if this is true, then how does Meredith know that the people commenting are actually citizen journalists? They could just be random people with no interest of creating journalist material themselves.
Meredith’s article brings up an important issue: the conflict between citizen journalists and the mainstream media. Although the mainstream media has somewhat bent to citizen journalism by often asking people to e-mail what they think, or pulling citizen journalists’ material from websites such as twitter or YouTube, mainstream media and citizen journalism can be thought of as being in competition. They are competing for much of the same audience.
Meredith claims that “[citizen journalists are] largely motivated by envy that they aren't receiving any cash for their far superior efforts and insight.” I find that an interesting assertion considering the most citizen journalists have other jobs and should be creating material with the knowledge that they will receive no money.
On the other side, are the mainstream media threatened by citizen journalists? Are they afraid that citizen journalists will make the role of the mainstream media less important? I don’t think that the mainstream media will go away since as Meredith says, “The mainstream media may have its faults, but it does at least offer some fundamental standards of accountability, quality and editorial control.” However, citizen journalism has somewhat dulled the role of the mainstream media. Perhaps Meredith herself was partially motivated by this fear. Sure her primary motivation was the attack by citizen journalists as she says, but if it’s not too far of a stretch to assume citizen journalists are envious then maybe it’s not too far of a stretch to assume Meredith feels her profession is threatened.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Citizenside - Illustrating some of the potential of citizen journalism.
In her article, Citizen journalism thrives in Occupy Wall Street coverage, Katherine Travers interviews Phillip Trippenbach, Editor-in-Chief of Citizenside, a citizen journalism site. Citizenside is a website that is a conglomeration of citizen journalism. In the interview, Trippenbach makes some key observations about the usefulness of citizen journalism and its future potential.
First, citizen journalism can give extra coverage to issues that are not heavily covered by mainstream media. As suggested by the title of the article, the Occupy Wall Street protests have received a lot of citizen coverage. While the Occupy Wall Street movement has felt that the mainstream media has not given them fair and adequate coverage, citizen journalists have picked up on the protests and posted a large volume of material online. If there is an issue that the mainstream media does not want to or cannot cover, citizen journalists can make up for it.
Citizenside is website that pushes forward the effectiveness and legitimacy of citizen journalism. While the site is still small now, Trippenbach makes an excellent point about its utility. "Yes you can post your videos to YouTube, you can post your videos to Flickr, but your videos on YouTube are competing with the funny cat video that has six and a half million views, or Lady GagGa videos and all that jazz, so it's kind of hard to get attention in a context like that, where as we are specifically focused on news," said Trippenbach. Having a site like Citizenside helps people filter through the internet and find news created by citizen journalists.
In addition to making it easier to find citizen produced news, the website mitigates one of the shortcomings of citizen journalism: reliability. The editors of Citizenside are professional journalists, who do not edit the content created by users, but do fact-check it to ensure reliability.
Citizenside provides a nice example of how citizen journalism can become more polished and a more reliable source of news.
First, citizen journalism can give extra coverage to issues that are not heavily covered by mainstream media. As suggested by the title of the article, the Occupy Wall Street protests have received a lot of citizen coverage. While the Occupy Wall Street movement has felt that the mainstream media has not given them fair and adequate coverage, citizen journalists have picked up on the protests and posted a large volume of material online. If there is an issue that the mainstream media does not want to or cannot cover, citizen journalists can make up for it.
Citizenside is website that pushes forward the effectiveness and legitimacy of citizen journalism. While the site is still small now, Trippenbach makes an excellent point about its utility. "Yes you can post your videos to YouTube, you can post your videos to Flickr, but your videos on YouTube are competing with the funny cat video that has six and a half million views, or Lady GagGa videos and all that jazz, so it's kind of hard to get attention in a context like that, where as we are specifically focused on news," said Trippenbach. Having a site like Citizenside helps people filter through the internet and find news created by citizen journalists.
In addition to making it easier to find citizen produced news, the website mitigates one of the shortcomings of citizen journalism: reliability. The editors of Citizenside are professional journalists, who do not edit the content created by users, but do fact-check it to ensure reliability.
Citizenside provides a nice example of how citizen journalism can become more polished and a more reliable source of news.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
An Introduction to Citizen Journalism
With the advancement of technology and the expansion of the Internet, the phenomenon known as "citizen journalism" has risen. Just what is citizen journalism? On his blog, Digging Deeper, Mark Glaser, a freelance journalist, says, "The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others." Some general examples of citizen journalism would be someone writing about an event or fact-checking a newspaper on his blog, posting a picture of a newsworthy event online, or uploading a video of a newsworthy event on YouTube or another video hosting website.
Examples of modern citizen journalism includes the videos of the Kennedy assassination and of the Rodney King beating. The 90's were a major period for the expansion of citizen journalism with the emergence of the Internet. The Internet was key for opening up the world of journalism because it allowed anyone to have widespread, global distribution that was once only available to professional journalists and media companies.
Citizen journalism is now more prevalent than ever before. It has been citizen journalists who have been able to capture footage and have eyewitness accounts of events such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters. When oppressive regimes have banned the mainstream media, citizen journalists have been able to obtain video and information to share with the rest of the world; a large amount of information about the revolutionary events in the Middle East was obtained from citizen journalists.
Hybrid websites that include content from both professional and citizen journalists have become popular, such as the OhMyNews site in South Korea have become popular. Mainstream news media has also begun to reference citizen journalists. It is not uncommon now to see news channels such as CNN or MSNBC bringing up a twitter feed or other content from citizen journalists.
While expanding citizen journalism has offered broader, faster news and tapped into the knowledge and ability of everyday people to report news, it also has numerous criticisms. Citizen journalists generally will not feel the obligation to follow the code of conduct that professional journalists do. They may be biased, less reliable, and have less accountability.
Citizen journalism has changed the face of news and we will see how it continues to shape the way we get news in the future.
Examples of modern citizen journalism includes the videos of the Kennedy assassination and of the Rodney King beating. The 90's were a major period for the expansion of citizen journalism with the emergence of the Internet. The Internet was key for opening up the world of journalism because it allowed anyone to have widespread, global distribution that was once only available to professional journalists and media companies.
Citizen journalism is now more prevalent than ever before. It has been citizen journalists who have been able to capture footage and have eyewitness accounts of events such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters. When oppressive regimes have banned the mainstream media, citizen journalists have been able to obtain video and information to share with the rest of the world; a large amount of information about the revolutionary events in the Middle East was obtained from citizen journalists.
Hybrid websites that include content from both professional and citizen journalists have become popular, such as the OhMyNews site in South Korea have become popular. Mainstream news media has also begun to reference citizen journalists. It is not uncommon now to see news channels such as CNN or MSNBC bringing up a twitter feed or other content from citizen journalists.
While expanding citizen journalism has offered broader, faster news and tapped into the knowledge and ability of everyday people to report news, it also has numerous criticisms. Citizen journalists generally will not feel the obligation to follow the code of conduct that professional journalists do. They may be biased, less reliable, and have less accountability.
Citizen journalism has changed the face of news and we will see how it continues to shape the way we get news in the future.
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