Citizen journalism

Citizen Journalism

Sidelines to Centre Stage

• Evolution of internet, mobile technology has shifted social aspects of news from sidelines to centre stage.

• Traditional news organizations are still very important to their consumers but technology has scrambled every part of the relationship between news producers and the people who consume news.

Consumers now have tools to be active participants in news creation, dissemination and even “editing” process.

Rise of new kind of hybrid news consumer/participator. These shifts affect how people treat news, relate to news organizations, and think of themselves as news makers and commentators in their own right.

Popularity

• The internet has surpassed newspapers and radio in popularity as news platform, now ranks just behind TV.

 • 78% Americans say get news from local TV station• 73% say get news from national network e.g. CBS, or cable

TV CNN, Fox• 61% say get some kind of news online• 54% say listen to radio news programme at home, in car• 50% say read news in local newspaper• 17% say read news in national paper such as New York

Times or USA Today

Mobile, Mine

• Portability: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on cell phones.

• Personalization: 28% of internet users have customized home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.

What topics do you want more of?

• Sports and athletes enough

• Business and finance enough

• Scientific news and discoveries more

• Religion and spirituality more

Participation

• 37% of internet users have contributed to creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

• More than 8 in 10 online news consumers get or share links in e-mails.

Socializing

• Getting news is an important social act.• 72% American news consumers say follow

news because they enjoy talking with others about what is happening in the world

• 69% say keeping up with news is social or civic obligation.

• 50% news consumers say rely to some degree on people around them to tell them news they need to know.

Mobile Aspects

• 80% of Americans adults have cell phones

• 37% of them use their phones to access the net

• 25% of all Americans (33% of US cell phone owners) get at least some news via cell phone today

Citizen Journalist vs Traditional Journalist

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU5LonkXbCE&feature=related

What is Citizen Journalism? (Video)

• A new form of Internet journalism in which ordinary citizens are learning how to report on the people and events of the world with fresh eyes. They do that by learning how to write in a journalistic format for publication on the Internet and elsewhere.

• Goal: to recapture journalism as a truly democratic practice that is rooted in -- and directly serves -- the real lives and interests of citizens.

• Reason: dissatisfaction, with news media which have become alienated from concerns of ordinary citizens

Blog/Journalists

Blogs• Blogs usually written by one

person. They have a different scope because they are not reports on the world – i.e., people and events seen with fresh eyes – but rather are interpretations of previously reported events according to the writers’ pre-established biases, prejudices, and political beliefs.

Journalist• Trained journalists usually

follow an ethical code of “objectivity,” which means that besides striving to be factual and fair, they also try to remain personally neutral towards the subjects they write about.

• Citizen journalists, while they also strive to be factual and fair, are not usually neutral on the subjects they write about, and they don’t try to be.

Benefits of Citizen Journalism

• Some events get reported by citizen journalists that would not be reported without them.

• Reporters can’t be everywhere and cannot know about all events in their communities.

•  

How does it help traditional media?

• Citizen journalists may help to broaden the kind of events that are reported.

 • With smaller staff chasing

fewer stories, citizen journalists could help local papers keep a broader mix of stories

• Traditional news media reporters and editors are being devastated by a financial crisis. Somebody has to fill the void.

 • The future is online.

Online news produced by citizen journalists can toss traditional media the lifeline they so desperately need.

A partnership between newspapers and citizen journalism organizations will be beneficial not only for both, but also for people, citizens, readers, who will be better informed.

Landmark moments

• Using the internet to either help or circumvent traditional media outlets and spread the news independently.

 • Anyone can take a photo, record a video and

recount a story through blogs or other social media, often more quickly than a media organization can begin to report.

 • How have ordinary citizens shaped the news with

their use of social media?

Rathergate, 2004

• Verifying vs. rush to beat competition.

Presented supposedly authenticated documents on 60 Minutes that impugned President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard, many bloggers weren't buying it. Four forced to resign.

Indian Ocean tsunami

• Social media's role in providing relief during the aftermath

• Providing firsthand accounts that were circulated around the globe

• Blogs and groups on social networks like Facebook were also quickly established to provide information to both victims and the rest of the world.

London Bombings 7/7/05

Videos and photos taken with cell phones by passengers aboard the train during the attacks. Usually traditional news stories are shot from behind the police tape, often with a wide shot that doesn't reveal the telling details of the situation. (being where traditional media can’t)

Burma monks, 2007 (Video)

In the face of the government's violent reaction to anti-government protests, many Burmese turned to the internet to alert the world to the violence occurring in the remote country.

Government shut down internet access.

BBC site and Burma VJ Trailer

Burma Protests: Your Pictureshttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/

7015097.stmBurma VJ Trailerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=V08EBWQLzyUBurma VJ Websitehttp://burmavjmovie.com/

Mumbai, 2009

Mumbai Videos

Hash Mumbaihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=copw-W-

IfvYCitizen Journalism Broke Mumbai Storyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=LxUy0rsfmSs&feature=related

Hudson River Plane Crash, 2009 (Shorty Award)

OhmyNews – Every Citizen is a Reporter

• Launched February 2000

http://english.ohmynews.com/

• Has more than 40,000 citizen reporters

• Stories are submitted by citizens, accepted (or rejected), then edited by frontline copyeditors before being posted online.

Active producers

• “The readers, or news audience, are no longer passive consumers of news produced by a few privileged, arrogant reporters. They are active producers of the news they will consume,” Jean K. Min, director of OhmyNews International.

Why OhmyNews?• Angry young Korean “Netizens” who felt voice was ignored

by conservative Korean mainstream media. Felt mainstream media manipulated nation’s important agenda in politics, economy and society for own taste and purpose.

 • Oh Yeon Ho – founder of OhmyNews – left job at monthly

magazine to test ideas about new form of journalism through Internet.

• Part of motivation for launching OhmyNews was to fix skewed Korean news market - Korean media 80% conservative 20% liberal. He wanted 50-50.

Passive Consumer to Active Producer

• Citizen reporters write a story or two a week. Once accepted, they can follow the status of their articles in real time, observing the number of readers’ clicks into each of the stories, the number of comments, or the money collected in the “tip jar.”

• You can track how their writing has improved – feedback from readers and editorial advice from OhmyNews copy editors. Nearly 70 citizen reporters now have contracts to write books.

Bloggers + Journalists

• At OhmyNews, they believe bloggers can work better with professional assistance from trained journalists.

• Professional journalists can expand their view and scope greatly with fresh input from citizen reporters.

Passion

• Citizen reporters excel when they write something they understand well and have a strong passion and knowledge for.

Heba Naguib, bloggers, Al Masry Al Youm

Al Masry Al Youm on Heba Naguib

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2YBTHV0-zA