Hey everyone, that’s the first post on my brand new blog. And I’m going to talk about citizen journalism and its reflection on community and, as a consequence, our personal life.
Basically, citizen journalists are non-professionals, ordinary people, with a desire to share news about what is happening around and what is significant for them.
The growth of citizen journalism in recent years is caused by an expansion of the Internet. Nowadays, with help of personal blogs and such public content websites as YouTube.com, Digg.com, Twitter.com, etc large amount of young people has an opportunity both to provide and receive news on any topic which appeals to them.
Although most people here in Australia would probably think that it is not a big deal to have a connection to the net and publish your stories there, it is simply because they got used to it. For totalitarian countries, countries with low level of freedom of speech, it is a big deal. I would say huge. When you do not have an access to any objective information (or different subjective views on the same issue) as all the mass media is controlled by the government or massive corporations, Internet becomes the only source where you can actually find this information.
Another great thing about citizen journalism on the net is anonymity. This topic is interestingly explored in Anita’s blog. Obviously, there are several different levels of anonymity on the net, and it depends not only on user’s wish. Governments all over the world (including Australia and US) attempt to achieve total control of the net in order to censor it and shape public opinion. This directly brings us to understanding the importance of citizen journalism. The most striking example of this importance is latest events in Iran and the way how the world learnt about them.
Basically, citizen journalists are non-professionals, ordinary people, with a desire to share news about what is happening around and what is significant for them.
The growth of citizen journalism in recent years is caused by an expansion of the Internet. Nowadays, with help of personal blogs and such public content websites as YouTube.com, Digg.com, Twitter.com, etc large amount of young people has an opportunity both to provide and receive news on any topic which appeals to them.
Although most people here in Australia would probably think that it is not a big deal to have a connection to the net and publish your stories there, it is simply because they got used to it. For totalitarian countries, countries with low level of freedom of speech, it is a big deal. I would say huge. When you do not have an access to any objective information (or different subjective views on the same issue) as all the mass media is controlled by the government or massive corporations, Internet becomes the only source where you can actually find this information.
Another great thing about citizen journalism on the net is anonymity. This topic is interestingly explored in Anita’s blog. Obviously, there are several different levels of anonymity on the net, and it depends not only on user’s wish. Governments all over the world (including Australia and US) attempt to achieve total control of the net in order to censor it and shape public opinion. This directly brings us to understanding the importance of citizen journalism. The most striking example of this importance is latest events in Iran and the way how the world learnt about them.
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