“On July 7th, when terrorist bombs exploded on London subway trains and a bus, it was a day of intense pressure for our news teams to get things first, but more importantly to get things right. Our initial indication that we were facing more than the ‘power surge’ the transport authorities were reporting came in an e-mail a viewer sent to us. Before long, many more text and e-mail messages containing images and information arrived from the public, and these became an integral part of how the BBC reported the day’s events. Within six hours, we received more than 10,000 photographs, 20 pieces of amateur video, 4000 text message and 20,000 e-mails. People were participating in our coverage in a way we had never seen before. By the next day, our main evening TV newscast began with a package edited entirely from video sent in by viewers.”
This quote from Richard Sambrook’s 2005 article on Citizen Journalism and the BBC provides evidence as to the necessity of Citizen Journalism in the modern age of advancing technology, including most importantly, the internet as a tool for media communication. According to Bowman, citizen journalism is the act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.
Professional journalists argue that the way they practice their craft performs a ‘social responsibility’, or ‘Fourth Estate’ role, whereby ‘the institution of the media keeps a check on the practices of the other major institutions in a democratic society, namely the parliament, the executive and the judiciary. One of the problems with the idea of the ‘Fourth Estate’ is that news production throughout mainstream media has often been tainted by the fact that this media has sometimes been funded by Politicians and members of other industries with key interests in news content and how it portrays these conglomerates. Even today, news producers may have a responsibility to news ‘owners’ or corporations who still have the power to decide what is broadcasted or printed. In 2009, Gentzkow said, “A free and informative press is widely agreed to be crucial to the democratic process today.” (Gentzkow, Glaeser and Goldin, 2009) This gives citizen journalists an advantage in producing news content that is free from affiliation to parliament, the executive and the judiciary.
The emergence of the ‘blogosphere’ has thrown up challenges to the view of ‘mass media’ with suggestions that conventional mass media will be removed or weakened by the proliferation of alternative forms of media. To quote Flew, “One feature of blogs and citizen journalism is that they are typically a lower-cost means of generating content that traditional news practices, such as hiring feature writers, high-profile on-air talent and opinion journalists, and this is certainly attracting the attention of established news media outlets.” (Flew, Terry (2007) A Citizen Journalism Primer. In Proceedings Communications Policy Research Forum 2007, University of Technology Sydney.)
The advantage that the ‘blogosphere’ has over traditional mainstream media such as newspapers is that it is accessible globally. Most mainstream media outlets are somewhat localised, whether it be a state wide news paper, or a television news half hour, a lot of the information provided is only accessible by the limited number of people residing in that area. Blogs on the other hand are available almost everything that has internet access.
Journalists may worry about an increasing divide between traditional media and citizen media, however currently, old and new media can work together to provide news. This is evident again in the initial quote I read to you from Sambrook at the BBC, who said that at the time of the London bombings in 2005, professional journalists and citizen journalists worked in unison to get information out to the public. He continued on the say, “Our reporting on this story was a genuine collaboration, enabled by consumer technology – the camera phone in particular – and supported by trust between broadcaster and audience. And the result was transformational in its impact: We know now that when major events occur, the public can offer us as much new information as we are able to broadcast to them. From now on, news coverage is a partnership.” (Sambrook, 2005)
To reiterate my point, the biggest advantage that citizen journalists have over professional journalists who are working for a corporation is that their ‘free agent’ status allows them to report the whole truth, often without repercussion. With more information available in new news media, it is more likely that the public will be well informed about issues which may affect them, and their community.
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