CITIZEN JOURNALISM II

‘‘When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another, that’s citizen journalism’’- Jay Rosen (2008)

The importance of citizen journalism has been the centre of many a debate between the professional and amateur journalist alike. I tend to lean towards the “importance” side of this argument and suggest that citizen journalism is just the natural progression of the profession. Seth C. Lewis (2010) rightly points out that in a digital environment of 1s and 0s, information is no longer scarce, hard to produce, nor difficult to publish. Hence the setting for a citizen(s) journalism.

Lewis’ (2010) research outlines the utopian and dystopian views many professionals have regarding citizen journalism; focusing mainly on community newspapers. Participant answers discussed the practical and theoretical implications that citizen journalism could have on their industry. I couldn’t help but picture the anti-citizen journalism respondents of this research as crotchety old people; stuck in their ways and afraid of change. Conversely, the affirmative respondents seemed young, hip, and willing to work hand-in-hand with their amateur counter-parts.

Blogger journalist J.D. Lasica (2003) suggests that instead of looking at blogging and traditional journalism as rivals for readers’ eyeballs, we should recognize that we’re entering an era in which they complement each other, intersect with each other, play off one another. The transparency of blogging has contributed to news organizations becoming a bit more accessible and interactive, although newsrooms still have a long, long way to go. I feel the same way as Lasica.

On the other side, it could be argued that citizen journalism is a big contributor to the opinion the Journalism degrees have become the most useless degrees in the world (Prentice, J 2011, Alvaraz, A 2011, Sehgal, U 2011). While I don’t believe this is the case, I do believe that professional journalists have to accept their changing environment and embrace the pro-am relationships because like it or not, citizen journalism isn’t going away anytime soon.

References

Lasica, J.D. 2009, ‘Blogs and Journalism need each other’, Nieman Reports, accessed on 30/04/2012, http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=101042

Lewis, C. (2010) Thinking about citizen journalism: the philosophical and practical challenges of user-generated content for community newspapers, Journalism Practice, Vol. 4, No 2, 163-179

Prentice, J 2011, ‘Degrees are useless and other tips for aspiring Journalists’, Business Insider, June 16, accessed on 30/04/12, www.businessinsider.com/degrees-are-useless-and-other-tips-for-aspiring-journalists-2011-6

Alvaraz, A 2011, ‘Report: Journalism Degrees are probably just as useless as you expected’, MediaITE, April 28, accessed on 30/04/12, http://www.mediaite.com/online/report-journalism-degrees-are-probably-just-as-useless-as-you-expected/

Sehgal, U 2011, ‘Journalism tops list of most useless College Degrees’, Fishbowl NY, April 28, accessed on 30/04/12, http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/journalism-useless-college-degrees_b34212

Rosen, Jay 2008 ‘’A Most Useful Definition of Citizen Journalism’’, PressThink, accessed on 30/04/2012, http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2008/07/14/a_most_useful_d.html