Citizen Journalism

In the second EOTO I researched Citizen journalism. Citizen Journalism is defined as journalism that is conducted by people who are not professional journalists but who disseminate information using web sites, blogs, and social media.

Some important fun facts about citizen journalism are ...

• Anybody can be a citizen journalist 

• Citizen journalism has grown in population in recent years

• A big advantage of citizen journalism is the fact that it is not done by a professional so it gives normal people a chance to shine light onto not as popular stories

• Citizen journalism has been around in theory for hundreds of years but with the innovations of technology throughout time it has become more mainstream and popular, especially in recent years with the use of social media

There are so many positives with citizen journalism. Citizen journalism provides an active voice for the public, meaning anybody can let the public know about a story that they feel is news worthy. Even if it may not be front page news worthy people still have the opportunity to inform others about it throughout the use of the internet and social media platforms. Citizen journalism can shine light on issues the mainstream media is not talking about. Maybe a story won't capture the attention of the news stations target audience but it is still news worthy. This is where Citizen journalism comes into play. It can reach an audience even though it is not done by a professional. The main advantage of Citizens journalism is nobody can gate keep a citizen journalists story. If somebody wants to report the story they can just do it. They don't need the approval of higher ups and their peers to post it or write about it. They can simply decide to just write/post about it with their own free will.

Like all great things, nothing is perfect. There are some negatives of citizen journalism. It can confuse people since it is not done by a professional. Citizen journalism tends to not follow the same format as regular journalism. Since it is not done by a professional reporter who tend to know how to cover stories and word their narrative correctly people can get very confused. A lot of citizen journalists tend to ramble on and on where as news reporters are trained to be brief and get directly to the main points that they are supposed to talk about. The other big issue with citizen journalism is the fact that they tend to be smaller stories. Meaning they may be worthy of front page news but if a citizen journalist posts something a lot of the time it does not spread as much as it should. Since it is not usually posted on a platform with a lot of followers they tend to get less views than if it was say a story posted on a news website since people are actively searching for news stories and most news sites already have their audience and are credible towards their consumer.

Sources

“Citizen Journalism.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/topic/citizen journalism.

Dangerfield, Micha Barban. “Power to the People.” Tate, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/photojournalism/power-people.

Diffusion Theory

 Diffusion theory can be defined as why, how and at what rate ideas of and technology spread. People fall into 5 separate categories in the diffusion theory and they are innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. 

    Innovators are willing to take risks, have the highest social status and have financial liquidity. Early Adopters have the highest degree of opinion leadership. Are interested in trying the new technology and catching on before everybody else. Early majority are people who adopt the innovation after the innovators and early adopters. Tend to set the wave for the general population in terms of popularity. Late majority are those who adopt and realize the importance of the innovation later than most. Are late to the trend but still realize its importance. Laggards are the last people to realize and adopt the innovation. Can be considered followers who jumped on the trend late. 

The best example of diffusion theory in todays day and age that I can think of has to be TikTok. TikTok was an innovation in itself. During my lifetime I have never seen an app get downloaded and talked about so much in such a short amount of time like TikTok was. The average consumer of the app TikTok can be broken down into the same five separate categories as the diffusion theory is. 

The innovators of TikTok would be the early influencers and makers of the app. They paved the way of this new form of social media. They were the first people to realize the potential of this app and how great it could be. 

The early adopters were the first couple thousand people to download the app and share it with their friends. Them sending the videos to their friends in a way influenced them to download the app therefore spreading it more. 

The early majority were the first couple million people to download the app. They started making the app really known worldwide. Wether that be by posting TikTok's or sharing it with their friends. Creators started to be able to make a living when the early majority caught onto the popularity of TikTok. 

The late majority would be the people that have downloaded TikTok in the past year. TikTok really blew up in 2019-2020 so the late majority would be people that have downloaded the app anytime after 2021. The late majority in this case tended to be a bit older and people who got the app from recommendations from their children or grandchildren. 

The Laggards would be the people who downloaded TikTok this year. It is way past the peak of the app and these people are too late to the worldwide trend that is TikTok. 

Sources 

“Networks.” How Diffusion of Innovations Made TikTok More Popular than Instagram? : Networks Course Blog for INFO 2040/CS 2850/Econ 2040/SOC 2090, https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2020/12/16/how-diffusion-of-innovations-made-tiktok-more-popular-than-instagram/.

“Diffusion of Innovations.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Jan. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations.