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.