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.