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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very good explaining of the Topic. "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." i think because of this kind of thinking, it will confuse people's believe which is the facticity of the News.
ReplyDelete"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". strongly agree. you know the chinese government is very autocratic, it thoroughly controls all the sources of the news even internet. Here is an example, during the 1998 Indonesia's huge riot and disorder, more than 1000 Chinese women were cruelly slaughtered. The government at that time could do nothing about this and in order to avoid the panic within China, it blockaded all the the passages of message. More than 95% of Chinese citizens they don't know this incident untill some of the photographs popped up on some western websites in 2008. A world-shaking news can be hided for TEN YEARS.. can you see its (the government) power?
ReplyDeleteI like your take on citizen journalism, you made some pretty good points, and it was an interesting read.
ReplyDeleteI had never thought about the way we in Australia take the internet and the opportunity to post whatever we want for granted. I mean, of course I think we’re all aware that there are those in other countries that still don’t have internet access in 2009, or those that will be prosecuted for speaking their minds, but I really think it’s something we never think about because it’s not part of our culture, and its something that no one ever brings to our attention. Not that that’s really an excuse.
In places like Russia, I understand the government controls a lot of the media. From your experience, are there many citizen journalists around? Or is it quite dangerous to even spread news through a blog? How easy would it be for you as a teenager to write a blog? Would you still be prosecuted for expressing ideas or opinions that are different to those held by the state?
Really interesting issue!