New
technology and social media sites have allowed everyone around the world with a
phone and a wireless connection to play an active role in media journalism.
This concept, known as citizen journalism, as a form of alternative media, has
a huge effect on today’s society and the way news are distributed. This essay will explore and analyse advantages
and disadvantages of this phenomena.
The
first and quite obvious advantage of citizen journalism is efficiency. In
today’s world it is enough to find yourself at the right place at the right
time with good enough internet connection to be an citizen journalist. Our smart phones, 3g connection and wifi allow
us to spread news just by a tap of our finger. Some argue that the potential of
citizen journalism was only realised after 9/11. After the attack a lot of
people started reaching out and posting their own experience on web sites. In a
book “Journalism After September 11”, editor Start Allan claims that 9/11
completely changed the perception of media and traditional conventions of what
counted as news. It showed the need for sharing instant information, which did
not necessarily have to come from professional journalists. At the time information
was shared only via news channels, radio and few news websites. However, today
we can easily find out what is happening around the world just by checking our
social media sites and can be in the loop via live streaming or status updates
shared by our friends or followers. Moreover, the real importance of citizen
journalism was finally recognized in 2005 during bombing attacks in
London. Citizen journalists were not
only able to cover and record much more than traditional media, but were also
able to share the news much faster.
Secondly,
it could be argued that the opinion of citizen journalists is more objective
than that of big news companies. Citizen journalists post and write about what
they see and they are hardly there to manipulate us. On the other hand, large
news corporations can easily be influenced by political parties or government.
This issue came to global attention after last year’s events in Turkey. Since
all the mass media in Turkey is under the control of the government, not one
Turkish channel or newspaper covered the stories on contentious protests.
Unfortunately, even their national television declined to cover the protests and
refused to engage with people protesting in front of their studio. However,
amateur citizen journalists managed to spread the story through social media
sites and put the real image of what is happening out there. Four students even
started a Twitter account called @140journos which played a key role during the
protests and became the only source of real information. Moreover, the fact that CNN Turkey was
showing a documentary on penguins, while CNN world was covering the story about
the protesters, proves how silenced and unreliable Turkish media was.
Nevertheless,
there are certain drawbacks to citizen journalism as well. Since journalism is
a complex job, it takes a while to gain necessary skills and responsibility. This
raises the question of whether material posted by citizen journalists can be
taken seriously. Some question the validity of the information and whether
citizen journalists appreciate fundamental rules of ethics, objectivity,
fairness and honesty. For example, a few years’ back Apple faced a huge loss
after one of the citizen journalists posted false information on the internet.
The story was uploaded one morning by one of the bloggers and claimed that
Steve Jobs was rushed into the hospital after suffering a severe heart attack.
Soon after the story was uploaded, Apple’s stocks rapidly decreased and Apple
lost 9 billion dollars.
Furthermore,
quality is another thing worth considering. Jack Kapica, Canadian journalist, claims that he is worried that citizen
journalists are just amateurs who are simply mimicking
what they see on television or in the press, to varying degrees of success. A low
degree of quality also comes from the lack of original reporting and biased
opinion.
All in all, citizen
journalism has both good and bad sides to it. Even though, some have argued that
citizen journalism can replace mainstream media I do not feel like that is the
case. After listing both some advantages and disadvantages of it I think that
regardless of its efficiency, citizen journalism still lacks certain levels of
professionalism. Therefore, I feel that citizen journalism should be seen as a
complement rather than a threat to mainstream media.
WORS CITIED
1.
Zelizer, Barbie, and
Stuart Allan. Journalism after September 11. London: Routledge, 2003.
2.
Rosen, Rebecca J.
"10 Years Can Be a Long Time: The World Wide Web on 9/11."
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