Week 4: Citizen Journalism

Week 4: Citizen Journalism

This week's texts (in the broadest sense of the word) are:

#Dan Gilmor, 'Introduction', 'From Tom Paine to Blogs and Beyond' (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/ch01.pdf), 'The Read-Write Web' (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/ch02.pdf), 'The Empires Strike Back' (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/ch11.pdf) and 'Making Our Own News' (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/ch12.pdf) from We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. Sebastopol: O'Reilly Media, 2004, pp. ix-xviii, 1-43 & 209-246. (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/index.html)

# John Hockenberry, 'The Blogs of War', Wired, 13, 8, August 2005. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/milblogs.html

#Watch the 8 minute Flash presentation EPIC 2014/ EPIC 2015 which traces participatory media history from the past all the way to a possible 2014-5. (http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/) What is the difference between the two?

This week we're looking more closely at the growing phenomenon of citizen journalism, which basically is built on the idea that blogs, wikis and other tools of the digital age allows anyone to participate in the creation of media and, more specifically, journalism. Of course, the claim that anyone with a blog can become a citizen journalist is fraught with trouble since journalists are bound by years of training and codes of ethics while a non-professional reporter would have none of these restrictions. Nevertheless, the cynicism about the accuracy and balance of 'big media' has led to a lot of disillusionment with the mainstream newsmedia, and opened the door for citizen journalism as an important facet of participatory culture.

Dan Gilmor actually comes from a professional journalistic background, but is one of the loudest and clearest proponents of citizen journalism, and his book which you're reading sections from is one of the clearest manifestos for this new style of participatory media. While there have been a number of flashpoints where the impact of citizen journalism has been evident, the recent London Bombings illustrated the impact of everyday citizens reporting their news when everyone from personal blogs to the BBC was carrying news and video footage from Londoners who shot pictures with mobile phones and blogged their experiences within minutes of the explosions.

John Hockenberry's article looks at the way bloggers in the Iraq military are changing the way the media reporting occurs from within the military. Finally, the flash presentation EPIC 2014 traces a line from current trends in participatory media looking to the future and some of the problems that may occur if citizen media is accepted without a lot of thought being put into its place in our mediascape.

Also look at Tama Leaver's blog: http://ponderance.blogspot.com/

A few questions to start thinking about as you're reading:

[1] What impact has citizen journalism had thus far? Does that influence look likely to expand or decrease in the future?

[2] What reasons have led to the rise of citizen journalism (yes, the increase in technological ease is one, but look for others, too)?

[3] How worried should we be about journalistic style reporting coming from non-professionals? Are there ethical worries or issues about accuracy and accountability? How reliable to you find citizen journalism?

[4] Does "personalisation" lead, paradoxically, to triviality and "Balkanisation" in participants' world-views?