SubscribeThe state of Citizen Journalism
Posted in Citizen Journalism, Internet, News, Pro Am Journalism on July 20th, 2007. By Maren Hermans.
Citizen Journalism is growing. Now it is time to set standards and learn some lessons about this new way of reporting. But from whom? What can the traditional journalist add up to it, and what does it need to make Citizen Journalism a reliable source of information?
Still in its infancy, Citizen Journalism is a rather vague field. It is distinct from traditional journalism, and so are its values and styles. Already playing an important role in our society as a very popular way of information, it needs certainly some help to evolve into a good and reliable source. Dan Gillmor reminds us (via Smart Mobs) on what is probably the most important lesson for citizen journalists and their readers:
‘What becomes increasingly clear is the need to update media literacy for a media-saturated age.’
Gillmor writes in his report on Citizen Media. People need to internalize some principles to be able to choose between good and bad reporting- in making and consuming. A new twist to Citizen Journalism gives the concept of crowdsourcing: by using many voices of citizens, a project could actually turn out more efficient, interesting and democratic than the work of one professional person.
But the experiment of Assignment Zero, a cooperation between ‘journalists’ and ‘people in the public’ showed that it needs a big effort and good people to conduct the mass of reporters. A Wired article summarizes the outcomes of their experiment, and quotes Charles Leadbeater, author of the book The Pro-Am Revolution:
‘It thrives on decentralized cooperation and people taking responsibility for working together. So it needs leadership that makes the conditions for that possible.’
No Comments
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL