Is Citizen Journalism the Saviour of Free Space - Case Study Example

Is Citizen Journalism the Saviour of a free space? Is Citizen Journalism the Saviour of a free space? Affiliations Is Citizen Journalism the Saviour of a free space? Discuss the opportunities and Challenges raised by this new of media, production with reference to specific examples. Internationally and even locally in some countries, there have been and still there is debates in whether the media should be regulated. Those against this regulations believe that it is a way in which the media freedom is being endangered. Those advocating for regulation believe that control of the media is a significant way in which self-interests are being protected. Furthermore, the arguments for free space have an assumption that every individual knows what free press is. However, this is normally not the case because there are some arguments on what should be used to consider what free press is. Currently, there is a worry that the freedom of media is being hindered by different regulations. There have been demonstration and debates on the saving of media freedom. In some countries, some media policies have been adopted which have seen slowness in the media. Considering that the policies have begun to fail, some have begun identifying ways that can help in saving the free press. Even though different policies have been hindering free media, citizen journalism is the suitable way in which the freedom can be saved. The desire for free press is what dominates the mind of many journalist. In relation to media, free press refers to the adoption of legal policies that will help protecting the media use in public communications. In particular, it advocates for a media in which there is no government control in the dissemination of news. Apart from news, free press advocates for people to have rights to connect and communicate freely. For example, free press demands for an open and free internet, press freedom, and reduce runaway media consolidation. Also, there is need to ensure that different voices are being represented in the media (Wolf, 2008). Also, through free press, there is argument that the media houses do not have to merge to obtain a monopoly advantage. Also, they should not rely on the government, individuals, or even other business for their survival. The operation of the media should be based on the protection of the public interests and not focus on profitability (O’Neill 2012). The today digital world has provided people with different ways in which they can communicate factual messages. Possibly, this attribute has resulted into the rise of journalism. Ideally, this concept refers to a kind of journalism in which citizens normally play a significant role in the process of “collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information” (Mashable, 2014). Other terms used refer to citizen journalism include democratic, guerilla, public, street journalism and participatory. It is different from community or civic journalism. The latter are normally practiced by professional journalist. Also, it is different from collaborative journalism, which involves the cooperation between non-professional and professional journalists. With citizen journalism, the media and citizens normally generate content. With the new technology like media sharing websites and social networking, the cellular phones, have enhanced citizen journalism. Therefore, it is technology that has made citizen journalism very develop and hence making it stronger than the traditional reporters. Theoretically, citizen journalism is viewed as an alternative for media because it is radical in institutionalized and professionalized of the mainstreamed media. According to Terry Flew (2005) the rise of citizen journalism has been influenced by three elements, which included collaborative editing, open publishing, and distributed content. Partly, free journalist has been critical in the development of citizen journalism. Citizen journalism has been built by the belief that people without journalism training have the ability to use modern technology tools and the globally distributed internet to develop and check media on their own and also integrate with others. For instance one can write about a county council meeting on his or her blog or in a public online forum. In another instance, one can decide to conduct fact check on a newspaper of magazine. This can result into identifying errors or bias. Last, one can snap a photo for a given event in a town and later post online or one can videotape a particular event and present it on a site like youtube. Such opportunities have increased the need to utilize citizen journalism in disseminating information and news. Historically, the idea of an ordinary citizen to participate journalism in the United State has a long history. For example the current journalism movement in the united began after some journalist began to question their ability to report on events like the occurrence of the 1998 U.S. presidential election. The journalists at this time began to join the public or even the civic journalism movements as a measure to overcome the decreasing trust of the media news and the increased public disillusionment about the civic affairs and politics (Merritt 2005). Originally, the public discussions on journalism were centered on the promotion of journalism and the way the journalist were doing their work. The earliest public journalists made the efforts in making achievements in special projects that at times were time consuming, episodic and expensive. Ideally, these journalists’ projects deal with a particular issue and later they did other things. The discussions were driven by professional journalists. There goal was to create a story related to a welfare like traffic problems, environment or even the economy, and they could select citizens and record their points. Considering that not all reporters and editors participated in the public journalism, some began to oppose it. Beginning 2003, this movements seem to be closing down. Fortunately, the current technological life has been an opening for the new citizen journalism. This is because the technology has made it possible for an individual to capture news and later distribute throughout the world because of technology. The ability of many people to encode and decode messages has resulted in many users of citizen journalism news and information globally. According to Papandarea (2007), the definition of journalism has taken a different direction. Since the first amendment of the U.S constitution was done, the press freedom has been literally referred to the freedom to make publications using the print media. It does not relate to the freedom to have entities that are organized to participate in a publishing business. The earliest printers in 1775 could publish the newspapers exclusively. For them to survive financially, they had to dedicate their efforts on printed materials as a way of paying clients. The available pamphlets and newspapers during the American Revolution period were dominant by the partisan and this increased during the century. The printers had to participate in limited news gatherings instead of seeking opinion from a large mass. In 1830s, the ordinary use of the term journalism began to occur at a similar time when the newspapers that were utilizing the high steam presses began circulating in the eastern United States. The available printing press, and newspapers used to distribute exact copies that were meant for a high number of readers at a low cost. Furthermore, there was an increase in the advertising demand as a result of new products. This resulted into subsiding the newspaper printing. In particular, the advertising revenue had contributed to this development. During the nineteenth century, the concept press developed and was used to describe companies and individuals that were involved in sometimes competitive commercial enterprise activities. Citizen journalism has resulted into the development of citizen journalists who are considered as former audiences. This people are unpredictable and can report on what they think the media has ignored. In the United State, they consider Abraham Zapruder who filmed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy assassination, and had a home video camera as the ancestor of the citizen journalists. Other citizen journalists like Wael Abbas, who has received different international reporting awards, and Pawel Rogalinski as instrumental citizen journalist. The duo are recognized for the reporting in their blogs. There have been significant world events in which the citizen journalists have played a crucial role reporting the news on time. For example during the 2004 tsunami that affected Indonesia and other parts of the Indian Ocean, there was a web blog comprising of unrelated bloggers that helped in covering the news in time. This blog then became an instrumental source in reporting about the tsunami during the first week. The reporting of Tsunami also relied much on the footage of different people in broadcasting. There was an analysis of different blogs to pick the suitable ones to report throughout the world. Since the coverage of such events by citizen journalists, researchers have suggested that citizen journalism is a significant in the reporting of future new and dissemination of information. Also, they see it as a way of warning disasters and being highly reliable than the normal warning systems. This is because the technology for handling the disasters normally require the participation of third parties. Another instance that has showed the significance of citizen journalists is the reporting on Iranian election protest that occurred in 2009. This protest were reported using a microblog on twitter. This was significant because they helped in reporting on what the foreign journalists had been banned from. As a result, twitter was forced to delay its maintenance because the blog was playing a crucial role in public communication. Also, the citizen professionals play a crucial role because sometimes they are bloggers and also professional journalists. In such a way they are trying to reveal that citizen journalism has a place in the society today. Precisely, citizen journalism is vital because it is trying to solve some of the problem that alternative journalism is experiencing and perhaps this is what makes it relevant for free press considering that regulations highly target alternative journalism. As a result of criticism, citizen journalism articles have been improving in quality. For example Grubisich (2005) examined ten sites that were being run citizen journalists. This researcher determined that this websites were lacking quality content. A follow up on the similar sites a year later revealed that this sites had improved on their quality. The best sites had editorially improved and was almost approaching profitability, although it was not revealing the editorial costs. Furthermore, the sites that were having the weakest editorial during the follow-up period also made aggressive improvements because they had now found helpful financial sources. Even though the quality of citizen reporters is improving, they are still open to criticism. Some view them as individuals who aim at satisfaction of general interests. This is what makes some people to prefer alternative journalism because it follows standard in making their information and news reliable and valid. However, this does not guarantee the alternative journalism power over the citizen journalism who can provide their report in real time. Citizen journalism is helpful in the development of current affairs. The opportunity in social networking has saw citizens give their testimonies. The social network have realized the power of citizen journalism and are developing the opportunities for filmmakers and documentary makers. The owner of social media believe that the social websites have enough content that can help in building a film. Such opportunities prove that citizen journalism is exposed to vast information sources that is helpful for the ordinary citizen. The opportunity of citizen journalism in covering the news in the areas where there is much oppression on the alternative journalism. It is apparent that there are some countries in which control over the media is very high. Government control the media and has adopted even polices that ban the broadcasting of certain events. This is particular in the past in some Muslim countries in which the government has been using the media to broadcast its interests and in return banning the media houses that object their interests. However, the banning by the government cannot easily apply in citizen journalism. As independent reports, citizen journalists use the opportunities on the internet to report what cannot be attained through the alternative journalism. When compared to alternative journalism, citizen journalism provides more opportunity for individual expression. One of the arguments as to why free press should be embraced is to promote individual expression. This opportunity can be easily impressed through individual journalism. As a result of technology, individual can respond to a given event independently without having to use a certain media house. For example one can develop a blog and manage it individually. Here one gives opinions without limitation. Internet freedom has made this possible. Also, an individual will reach many using the internet than it would have been to rely on a single media house or publish the opinion on the website (Skinner 2005). Also, the use of citizen journalism particularly open door for reporters in Arab countries. In these countries, there many bloggers who are increasingly working to provide quality information and news. Interestingly, these bloggers know and meet each other implying that they have joined to use the power of in citizen journalism in reporting n the vents in their countries. This is a significant step considering that the Arab countries have really reduced the power of free press. Their policies on the media are normally very strict. However, considering that citizen journalism is very much promising in such countries, there is need for the professionals to remain vigilant on what is published by the former journalists. For example in Tunisia, the social media is being used as a source of news and yet formerly it was not. This has made the media more reliable. It is therefore vital to ensure that certain standards before ensuring that certain citizen journalist sources are accepted (Granger 2012). Citizen journalism is also challenged by objectivity. For example, as a citizen journalist provide news and information, they are likely to be bias. For example, as they report about a given community, they are likely to be activists in the same community. This criticism has been drawn from the traditional media. For example, there was a time when the New York Times made acquisitions that the proponents of public journalism were abandoning the earlier objectivity goal. Traditional journalist believe that citizen journalism has some skepticism because it is only a trained journalist that have an understanding and execute the ethics that should be considered. Therefore, it is the fear that citizen journalist may fail to adopt to ethics that many consider it unsuitable in disseminating information and news (Walker 2005). To sum up, the citizen journalism is the savior for free press. This form of journalism has more opportunities than the alternative because of the improvement and development in technology. This journalism can also help obtain information and news in areas where alternative journalism is highly been restricted or has been banned. Also, it is one way in which individual interest can be better expressed when compared to alternative journalism. However, there is need for professionals to be vigilant on the reliability of citizen journalism sources for it to be more effective. Reference List Flew, T. 2005. New media: An introduction. South Melbourne, Vic.; New York: Oxford University Press. Granger, W. 2012. Session 6: Social Media: Saviour of Traditional Media? [Online]. Available from http://www.wan-ifra.org/articles/2012/01/25/session-6-social-media-saviour-of-traditional-media [Accessed December 10, 2014]. Grubisich, T. 2005. Grassroots Journalism: Actual Content vs. Shinning Ideal. [Online]. Available from http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/051006/ [Accessed December 10, 2014]. Mashable. 2014. Citizen Jornalism. [online]. Available from http://mashable.com/category/citizen-journalism/ [Accessed December 10, 2014]. Merritt, D. 2004. News Media regain Vigor, Courage. [online]. Available from http://pjnet.org/post/318/ [Accessed December 10, 2014]. O’Neill, O. 2012. So, what is a free press? [online]. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/23/what-is-a-free-press [Accessed December 10, 2014]. Papandrea, M. 2007. Citizen Journalism and the Reporter’s village. Boston College Law School (Minnesota Law Review, Vol. 91). [Online] Available from http://lsr.nellco.org/bc/bclsfp/papers/167/ [Accessed December 10, 2014]. Skinner, D. 2005. Converging Media, Diverging Politics. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Walker, L. 2004. “On Local Sites, Everyone’s A Journalist,” Washington Post. [Online]. Available from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46519-2004Dec8.html [Accessed December 10, 2014]. Wolf, B. 2008. “Media Reform” in Battleground: The Media, Vol. 1. New York: ABC-CLIO Read More