Journalism, Mass Media and Communication - Literature review Example

Journalism, Mass Media and Communication Journalism, Mass Media and Communication People who are not qualified or considered professional journalists can define citizen journalism as an act of reporting a piece of information or news. The news generated is often self researched and is delivered through social media networking websites in the modern world. Citizen journalists do not have the privilege to write in newspapers and those who are eager to express their feelings take the issue to social media. Social media networking gives citizen journalists access to about 4 billion active users. Some of the more famous websites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ alone have more than 2 billion active users who take an interest in all sorts of news from political to sports. Citizen journalists who are interested to share their views about politics but do not have the qualification to write in newspapers could successfully establish them in these social networking websites as a large audience is present to read their opinion. Social media have given a platform to ordinary people to share their opinions publicly. As a result, every single event or news holds different opinions and analysis from different people that create iteration. The iteration leads viewers to be unable to find the correct source of information, and they lose faith in the traditional platforms. Many publishers are interested in publishing more about an interesting contribution of some amateur from social media. It does not mean that the sources have improved journalism, and the material it contains is reliable but the case seems to be opposite. It is also referred as a crisis in the journalism profession (Turner, 2010). Politics in social media or Internet has highlighted and discussed many of the events and issues: lawlessness, gender, religion, traditions, and technological determinism are few examples. Sometimes people discuss encrypted events of politics on social media that could aid terrorists to use the encrypted data to harm the nation. US government looks for these kinds of data to remove from the domain in order to secure nation. But the embarrassing thing is that the danger to people is always been much bad from this state itself compared to the alleged terrorist. Many citizens have been abused improperly by the violation of their common or civil rights and much worse by the government than the terrorists (Poster, 1997). Internet journalism has become a platform that links to news and contents from different sources. The cost of sharing news has almost disappeared, and the government is no longer considered the gatekeeper to the news. It is considered that watching it in digital can only experience the true and actual event or Internet media as the traditional news media cannot deliver this. People are more interested in watching news in real and then sharing it on social media and message boards. People can also post information they know on the topic being discussed. In this way, individual reading the news can gather more but at the same time there are also chances of receiving the wrong or unauthorized information (Kahn, 2005). Contesting power of media can be realized by the event of January 17, 2001 when the President of Philippine Joseph Estrada was on trial. When the Congress set evidence against the President aside, angry people of Philippine protested against the trial in less than two hours thinking that the corrupt president might get away from the trial. The people protested against the president by sending and forwarding text messages that played a key part in quickly gathering the people on one platform. The mass crowd was gathered in downtown Manila, and over million people were there at the moment. A report suggests that about seven million text messages were sent that week. Later the country’s legislators were forced by the people to present the evidence, and President Estrada was punished for his doings. Text messaging played a great role in this act, and Estrada himself blamed the text messaging generation for his downfall (Couldry & Curran, 2003). Some Internet evangelists report that blogs, emails, social media, and websites are transforming and discussing political events. It is changing the political views and politics itself while some evangelists recognize and accept the power of blogging. Blogging has become a basic function of reporting of politics and media. The blogs in United States, for instance, the scandal was reported about the sexual relation of John Prescott with his secretary and his meeting with a billionaire who wanted to buy the arena. This report pushed the agenda forward for mainstream media political reporting adding many elements in the storyline. On the other hand, it also risks the amount of unverified and unauthorized data movement on political debates. It is networked journalism and now a fact of life (Barlow, 2008). Network Journalism has become full of professional journalists, and it is not limited to blogging. A full variety of new media and many platforms are catering public throughout the journalistic process. In 2007, a positive step was taken by CNN in which they allowed people to ask and post video questions. It brought up a number of political issues in a language that many ordinary people would have considered relevant. But the show was strongly edited, and later the format was locked in the traditional TV studio. But the problem is that, in networked journalism there is no guarantee of healthier or real events of politics. The debates and the level of information can be improved. Networked journalism has always been part of the politics, but policy changes are the work to be done by the government (Davis, 2010). News regarding politics in the UK has become very dull and boring in newspapers and also in television (Fenton, 2009). One of the reasons is because of the constant repetition of the same news over and again. Reputable news channels like BBC and CNN also tend to repeat their news sometimes for several days in a week. The lesser known channels and newspapers also copy news from the more renowned channels and newspapers often slightly changing the angle and adding a different perspective or opinion to it. All this repetition has made the entire entourage around the world of political news very boring (Fenton, 2009). Citizen journalism offers audience something new. It is often self-researched work that can be published from anywhere in the world. Citizen journalists are often found to be amateur writers who do not often concentrate on hard-core political news related to the country but about news that daily affects the lives of a small group or even a large number of people living in a society (Allen & Thorsen, 2009). People take interest in these types of news as it directly affects them. Examples of citizen journalism under a political structure include exposing truth about a government project or a politician or even reporting about the negligence shown towards a particular project concerning local citizens (Meikle & Redden, 2011). Facebook and Twitter, for example, are flooded with pictures showing polluted areas attracting mosquitoes or other harmful insects that could be of great threat to hundreds of people living in that locality. Established news channels do not have time or space to show these sorts of details. Thus, citizen journalists come handy to the locals where the big media corporations cannot help (Washbourne, 2010). Citizen journalism is becoming popular because it is making people aware of the damage that could be done to them as a result of the negligence from the government or some other local body. It is not rare to see a group of people taking their complaints to higher authorities and getting it resolved. As a result, these problems would not be taken up if they were unreported. Moreover, citizen journalists do not write under the influence of politicians. Television news channels and newspapers have lost their credibility over the years. People at large have started to think that these television channels and newspapers are much influenced by political parties and their secret agendas (Hindman, 2009). People have also started to believe that each political party has its television channels and newspapers to promote their status and create propaganda against rival political parties. Typical news found on established sources often contain news that talks about the success of a political party in accomplishing their objectives and also highlights the errors made by the opposing parties. Popular news channels have mostly been showing only the positives things about their countries and it has seem that defending the nation’s political objectives have been the main aim of television and print media (Witschge, 2009). On the other hand, citizen journalists have no such aims and objectives to protect or defend the pride of a nation. Over the past few years citizen, journalists have reported news that major television and print media have failed to cover. The war of America against terrorism, for example, has been shown by just one angle in television and print media (Kaye, 2010). The Afghanis, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Iranians, and Palestinians have been shown as extremist fighting against the interest of the European and North Americans. It is only because of the efforts of citizen journalists and their work that the ambiguity has been lessened. Citizen journalists belonging to the countries labelled as terrorists have come up to support the war of America and other European countries against terrorism and differentiated themselves from the extremists determined to cause destruction in the world. They have received appreciation and support from citizen journalists all over the world. Television and print media have not been able to do that (Kaye, 2010). When they reported news regarding terrorist activities, they failed to differentiate the terrorists from the local harmless citizens. For a brief time, people of European and American countries were of the opinion that these countries were territories designed to produce terrorists. Citizen journalists cover news that local or foreign television and print media avoid doing. For this reason people are developing the habit to like and believe the news from citizen journalists (Redden & Witschge, 2009). Politics has become much globalized. Over the years, larger media corporations have hired voluntary citizen journalists to work for them. It is one area where citizen journalists can become very successful. The normal task of the citizen journalist under big corporations is to collect data and analyse them from their perspective. BBC News, for example, exists in nearly every country of the world through these types of journalists. They do their independent research and hand over their hard work to big media corporations (Lewis & Usher, 2013). BBC, CNN and to some extent Sky are the three channels that have employed citizen journalists and that’s one reason they have managed to cover the political entourage of different countries. These channels have small sections of global politics, world politics or international politics where they cover news that the rest of the media channels do not. It becomes very informative for the viewers to know what is happening in the world through the research conducted by citizen journalists (Goode, 2013). Viewers benefit the most through this collaboration has been discovered that citizen journalists have less selfish aims than larger media corporations. Citizen journalists only raise issues that have been ignored by the larger media of their country so that people could learn the truth. BBC and CNN are employing citizen journalists so that they could win back the trust of the public. Recently BBC has been more interested in penetrating Africa through these citizen journalists and is trying to expose the truth of the landlords and their atrocities leading to poverty and deaths in different parts of the continent. When big corporations work with citizen journalists then, the chances of success are higher as citizen journalists would be more eager to expose the culprits causing damage to the society. Citizen journalists have a great scope in politics in the years ahead as media companies are employing more and more of them (Goode, 2013). However, citizen journalism also has some drawbacks that negatively affect politics. As citizen journalism comprises of amateur journalists, the news cannot be regarded reliable. There is no way to authenticate the news unless and until there is concrete evidence. Registered television channels and newspapers can be relied on as the goodwill of the company is at stake. They simply do not generate news out of the blue unless there is substantial evidence to prove it. Many scandals have been created in the past by anonymous Internet users (Kperogi, 2011). Some of the scandals involve high-ranking government officials and ministers claiming their involvement in some illegal activities. In order to publish anything online citizen journalists do not need any concrete evidence. Anything can be posted to be viewed by millions of people. It makes the situation very weak for a person who has been wrongly accused. Sometimes it takes a long period to prove innocence or any involvement into the matter. Citizen journalism can prove to be very damaging if it is used in the wrong manner to defame politicians or governments (Rantanen, 2009). Citizen journalists are not also found to be professional researchers. They do self-research from their own, and the quality of their research work do not compare with the quality of a professional journalist. It is mainly because citizen journalists are not trained in journalism. Most of them do not follow the correct order of gathering, analysing and distributing their research. They do not have an apple pie order to conduct their research (Lee- Wright, et al., 2012). Moreover, they do not have the tools available to gather and analyse their data. A professional journalist working for large media corporations have access to resources dating to even a century before. They also have the latest computer software to insert and analyse the research. There is better organization of information with large media corporations. Citizen journalists have to work with limited resources, and this could lead to inaccurate information (Deuze, 2005). In conclusion, citizen journalism has the potential in the realm of politics. The general public is getting bored of the news provided to them by large media corporations and these citizen journalists add a new dimension to it. People are more concerned with the news that affects them together with the well being of other people all around the world. It is exactly what citizen journalism brings them. Citizen journalists raise issues that are often ignored by other media corporations. A pile of garbage lying around at some corner of a neighbourhood may seem to be an irrelevant issue or problem for a very big media corporation, and these are the issues raised by the citizen journalists. There is no doubt that these journalists are contributing a lot for the welfare of society but at times citizen journalists have also created problems for some politicians by generating fake news. If citizen journalists are controlled and work in collaboration with large companies then it could prove to be very beneficial for every stakeholder. The big media corporations would get more news to cover, more journalists would get employment and above all the general public would get more reliable and efficient news. List of References Allen, S. & Thorsen, E., 2009. Citizen Journalism: Global. 4th ed. New York: Peter Lang. Barlow, A., 2008. Blogging America: The New Public Sphere. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group. Couldry, N. & Curran, J., 2003. Contesting Media Power. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Davis, A., 2010. The paradox of online. New media and fat democracy, 12(5), pp. 745-761. Deuze, M., 2005. What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered. Journalism, 6(4), pp. 296-327. Fenton, N., 2009. New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age. 3rd ed. London: Routledge. Goode, L., 2013. Social news, citizen journalism and democracy. New Media & Society, 11(8), pp. 141-169. Hindman, M., 2009. The Internet and the democratization of politics. In The Myth of Digital Democracy. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kahn, R. a. K. D., 2005. Cultural Politics. Oppositional politics & the Internet, 1(1). Kaye, J., 2010. Funding journalism in the digital age: Business models, strategies, issues and trends. 3rd ed. New York: Peter Lang. Kperogi, F., 2011. Cooperation with the corporation? CNN and the hegemonic co-optation of citizen journalism through iReport.com. New Media & Society, 13(2), pp. 312-341. Lee-Wright, P., Phillips, A. & Witschge, T., 2012. Changing journalism. 3rd ed. London: Routledge. Lewis, S. & Usher, N., 2013. Open source and journalism: toward new frameworks for imagining news innovation. Media, Culture and Society. Culture and Society, 35(5), pp. 176-194. Meikle, G. & Redden, G., 2011. News online: Transformations and Continuities. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan . Poster, M., 1997. Cyberdemocracy: The Internet and the public sphere. New York: Routledge. Rantanen, T., 2009. Epilogue: Today was yesterday. In When News was New. 2nd ed. London: Wiley-Blackwell,. Redden, J. & Witschge, T., 2009. New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age. 5th ed. London: Routledge. Turner, G., 2010. Ordinary People and the Media: The Demotic Turn. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE. Washbourne, N., 2010. The Internet, public life and political change in Mediating Politics: Newspapers, Radio, Television and the Internet. 4th ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Witschge, T., 2009. Open Democracy. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 31 December 2014]. Read More