Citizen Journalism- What is it and is it authentic?
Citizen Journalism "is the act of citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires" (Citizen Journalism, 2008).
The citizen journalism movement slowly emerged after journalists themselves began to question whether or not their coverage of such events were entirely accurate. This stemmed from the 1988 U.S presidential election. This widespread concern became particularly evident as news surrounding politics and civic affairs were further questioned. The key citizen journalism websites include Indymedia, Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Wikipedia and Current TV.
The main idea behind citizen journalism which I have begun learning about is the ability to allow people without professional journalism training to create media on their own or in collection with others. This gives people a chance to say what they want to say, and even point out factual errors about professional journalism. Giving them a voice allows for a much wider spread community, who can openly enjoy the pleasure of writing and interacting with people about certain issues concerning society. The most common form of citizen journalism is through blogging, which is what I am undeniably doing right now.
"Sometimes called grassroots journalism, citizen journalism is seen by some news outlets as a threat to journalistic integrity. Citizen journalists, however, believe that their methods hold news organizations to higher standards. While news organizations don’t really have a problem with citizen journalism when it’s a case of citizens bringing in useful footage they’ve personally captured, some may not always appreciate citizens offering a viewpoint" (Holetzky, 2008).
My opinion on this matter is that journalism is not just about writing your own opinion about an issue. It's about researching an issue and actually going out there and finding and sharing your point of view. It isn't just sharing information like most people do in blogs these days. The task of doing journalism far exceeds that of citizen journalism where people claim to know more about a particular topic than a professionals. Well, sometimes this might be the case, but really the majority of these people haven't gone to university and undertaken the grueling 4 or more years of training! That's what I think anyway...
References
Holetzky, S. (2008) What is citizen journalism? Wise Geek http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-citizen-journalism.htm (accessed 8 May, 2008).
Wikipedia. (2008). Citizen Journalism - what is it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58iZpMRclwI (accessed 8 May, 2008).
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- megan stephensen
- Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Megan Stephensen and I am a second year media and communications student. This blog is dedicated to my KCB201 thoughts on unit content. Feel free to comment on anything I said. Hope you enjoy :-)
1 comment:
My view on Citizen Journalism is that that while there are advantages to individuals sharing their opinions on current events online, there is a time and a place. The definition of citizen journalism is the opposite of what the act of creating this information involves. News cannot be ‘reliable and accurate’ when it has not come from a scholarly source. Neither can it be independent, as most opinions are formed from external media sources, creating biases in the authors. Although in some cases of citizen journalism the author has witnessed, and gathered footage of their story, this does not entitle them to take on the role of a qualified journalist. They are often not actively seeking information on a newsworthy subject.
‘Acts of citizen journalism in this sense happen by mere coincidence. People are everywhere and when disaster strikes, someone usually has a camera’ (David Cohn, 2007).
Sharing information and opinions through blogging and other online communications can be helpful to others with a common viewpoint, and even to the author themselves, but cannot be truly considered journalism. I agree that people should be encouraged, and in turn encourage each other, to give opinions and knowledge through online forums, but to actually be considered legitimate journalism, I believe it must be researched and accurately reported by a qualified professional.
Cohn, D. 2007. Time citizen journalism pulled its acts together. http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=39443 (accessed May 8, 2008).
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