Citizen JournalismCitizen Journalism

• Icy WANG z3343280• Mandi Xie z3385147

• Tutorial Time: Monday, 15:00pm – 17:00pm

CONTENTCONTENT

• HOW WAS “CITIZEN JOURNALISM” BORN ?

• HOW TO DEFINE “CITIZEN JOURNALISM” ?

• WHAT’S THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CITIZEN AND MAINSTREAM

• EXAMPLE

From the ReadingFrom the Reading• Earthquake in California in 1989 • Since the 1990s, bloggers and fr

eelancers used their own way to expose the breaking new at the first moment

• The back-story of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky

• Matt Drudge: ‘I am a citizen first and a reporter second. The people have a right to know, not the editors who think they know better’

• CJ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3QtzY7k__A&feature=related

Citizen and Mainstream Citizen and Mainstream JournalismJournalism

• Journalism is where we get information that we can trust

• The speed of people getting response and update the follow-up information is way beyond our imagination. That is why we need citizen journalism.

• http://groundviews.org/about/

Taking the South-East Asia Tsunami as an example

• Traditional Journalism• http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0107_050107_t

sunami_index.html

• Citizen Journalism• http://groundviews.org/2009/12/26/better-governance-the-biggest-

lesson-of-2004-tsunami/

• Combination• http://tsunami2004videoarchive.com/

Citizen Journalism

Example

The Tunisian Uprise• Young activists in several countries across the region put forth calls for

demonstrations on YouTube and Facebook, emulating their Tunisian and Egyptian counterparts before them.

• Publications have been shut down and journalists blacklisted for crossing the country’s three red lines: Islam, the Western Sahara, and the monarchy.

• Demonstrate the implications of the social revolution in redistributing power throughout society.

-Spread person-to-person by mobile devices, unrest mounted amid Tunisia’s newly connected generation outside the glare of network TV cameras.

-The revolution was not televised but tweeted, exposing the shortcomings of traditional media throughout the world.

-Mobile phones and social media were crucial to information flow that helped protestors gather and plan their demonstrations.

Citizen Journalism

Example

The Syrian Up rise• Known as the Facebook page of Syrian Revolution 2011.

• Mainstream, new media became increasingly reliant on citizen journalism due to state-imposed media blackout.

-It is bridging the gap between what activists are doing on the ground and the classic media

• Facebook, YouTube and Twitter emerged as a motor of regime-changing protests in Egypt and Tunisia, and have since been a source of information on demonstrations and killings in Syria for citizens and journalists alike.

• It provides as a voice for thousands of Syrians citizens.

• A major role citizen journalism is playing is that it is magnifying the dispossession and despair of those who cannot speak

Citizen Journalism

ExampleThe London Riot

• U.K., a nation addicted to smart phones. -Mobile phones have become weaponised.

• Citizen journalists can fill the gap in two ways: -Used to spread of violence and destruction by gangs of rioters. -Media and politicians created the impression that the riots were

orchestrated by ‘Twitter mobs’, ‘Facebook mobs’ and ‘Blackberry mobs’. -Thugs and looters are taking advantage the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM)

service to other troublemakers, alerting them to riot scenes and inciting further violence.

• The positive side is that online media can be used to stop the riots and clean up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxaTGwmCepQ&feature=player_embedded

QuestionsQuestions • As more and more citizen journalists come up, do you think

they are nothing but gossip or it will replace mainstream journalism ?

• As mention in the presentation, the use of citizen journalism has been debated by some people. Do you think that citizen journalism should be controlled or monitored by government authority? If so, would this reduce the freedom people has on the internet and is that an infringement of freedom of expression and speech rights?

• Mainstream and traditional media has becoming reliant on citizen journalism and it has become a major source of information in the absence of traditional media. How can we determine the credibility and biasness of the information if the sources are from bloggers and citizen journalist?