By Desi Tzoneva
Citizen journalism is a term that has rapidly emerged on the international news and media arena, over the past few years. The term, synonymous with ‘grassroots journalism by the people,’ public-, participatory-, democratic-, or street-journalism conducted by ‘the former audience,’ and members of the public, is used to refer to the increased reliance on citizens’ active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information.
In 'What is Participatory Journalism,' J.D. Lasica classifies citizen journalism into the following categories:
1. Audience participation (such as user comments attached to news stories; personal blogs; photos or video footage captured from mobile phones; or local news written by residents of a community)
2. Independent news and information websites (such as consumer reports)
3. Full-fledged participatory news sites
4. Collaborative and contributory media sites
5. Other ‘thin media’ (such as mailing lists, newsletters, etc.)
6. Personal broadcasting sites (such as video broadcast sites)
The intent of the new medium is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires, according to Barman and Willis’ 2003 report
We the Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information. Mark Glaser says that, “The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others.” Online news sites invite contributions from local residents who often report on topics that conventional newspapers tend to ignore. Journalists have said that our readers or listeners know more than we do, which can be liberating and threatening at the same time. The audience is learning how to get a better, timelier report. It is also learning how to join the process of journalism, helping to create a massive conversation an in some cases doing a better job than the professionals.
The three elements that have played a critical role in shaping the rise of citizen journalism include: open publishing; collaborative editing; and distributed content. Citizen journalism has also flourished due to emerging internet and networking technologies such as weblogs; chat rooms; message boards; wikis and mobile computing; and mobile phones.
Critics argue that citizen journalism in itself is a concept that is difficult to define; oftentimes citizen journalists can be activists and therefore lose the goodwill of objectivity; areas of ethics, where to get information from, staying within the legal frameworks also remain problematic; basic writing and reporting skills; they can be perceived as threats to professionals; and questions arise with reference to the accuracy and transparency of the information. In addition, in order for news to be useful to people, it must be subjected to best-practice and quality control measures like independent verification, fact-checking and precision accuracy, as well as being well-written. Citizen reports shouldn’t be motivated by anything other than the audience’s need to know what is going on in their society, and technology that is used to capture news events, can and should be checked for authenticity.
In 2001,
ThemeParkInsider.com became the first online publication to win a major journalism award for a feature that was reported and written by readers – earning an Online Journalism Award for the Online News Association and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. While in South Africa,
Women'sNet has created a Citizen Journalism Manual 2009, based on criticism of local media, which is said to be dominated by syndication practices, which decreases the diversity of content. Women'sNet also stipulates that marginalised voices need to clear space for other voices to be heard above more powerful ones and to provide access to the tools and skills they need to make their voices heard.
A report in the
Wall Street Journal says that more Americans are now making their primary income from posting blogs online than those who work as fire-fighters or computer programmers. Almost 1% of Americans make at least some income online, and more than 20-million Americans are blogging. The
Centre for the Digital Future reported that 22% of internet users said they stopped their subscriptions to a newspaper or magazine because they could get the content online.
The Pew Research Centre’s
State of the News Media 2009 report shows that newspaper advert revenue has declined by 23% in the last two years; some newspapers are bankrupt; while others have lost 75% of their value; and one in five journalists working for newspapers are now unemployed. In television, local staff is being cut; revenue fell by 7% in an election year (2008), which Pew says is “unheard of.” According to Pew, “the number of Americans who regularly go online for news has increased by 19% in the last two years; in 2008, traffic to the top 50 news sites rose 27%.”
On the upside however,
Canwest News Service reports that newspapers have reasonable room for future optimism “…their financial problems relate to high debt, not lack of profit, and once the recession ends, they can reasonably expect to increase profit.” In addition to harnessing the power of the internet, Mathew Ingran, blogger and the Communities Editor at the
Globe and Mail says traditional media outlets need to include content from third parties to beef up coverage of news events. “I think citizen journalism…can be a very powerful tool, particularly when it involves eyewitnesses to a news event.” “I would like to see publications like my own make it easier for people to submit eyewitness reports of all kinds, especially from mobile devices.” Eyewitness reports and other methods of citizen journalism have the potential to expand the breadth of journalism that can be done, particularly when the media industry is cutting back on staff. “The more people there are reporting a story, the better picture we will get of what is actually happening.” Paul Knox, Chairman of the School of Journalism at Byerston University doesn’t think new media is going to be the nail in the mainstream media’s coffin. “[Mainstream reporters] have to figure out a way to make social networking applications and tools part of their news-gathering system, and to really deal with whatever comes down the pipe in terms of new applications and incorporate it.”
Although this information seems daunting, we must remember that these statistics stem from the US, and not from South Africa. Whereas reporting in South Africa could be boosted by voices from the marginalised, these tools are often not available to the majority. And despite trends in US media pointing to a rise in citizen journalists, this trend is not very prominent in South Africa.