2. What are some of the challenges facing the
‘big’ media today?
• The challenges faced by the ‘big’ media today consists of the rise of citizen journalism where making the
news in the 20th century was mainly dominated by journalists that made decisions on what the news was.
The rise of citizen journalism has allowed anyone to become a journalist through the development of
modern technology at a scale that is larger than it has ever been. Allowing local news normally only
reported within a certain region to reach audiences worldwide. Making communication around the rest of
the world, just a little bit easier.The ‘big’ media will face competition from the small people, which affect
their profits.
• In the past the ‘big’ media was able to have the freedom to do anything they wanted, having little attention
towards its audience. However, they are now facing challenges in trying to adopt new ways of
communicating with an audience that is becoming more active and involved in current affairs.The rapid
rise in wireless technology and all things on the web has also resulted in circulation numbers decreasing
annually due to the movement of companies becoming more active on the web.
3. How does Gillmor view citizen journalism and
the impact it is having/will have on news?
• Gillmor views citizen journalism as a problem for the ‘big’ media to the extent that the ‘big’
media isn’t the only source of news for the audience anymore, as citizen journalism
becomes more prominent and is just as reliable as a source of news as well. He suggests
that this will have a huge impact on the news overall as technological development has
allowed the spread of news and current affairs at a rapid pace with news reaching
worldwide in a few minutes resulting in news companies/broadcasting stations not being
able to keep up.
• However, Gillmor also sees this as a positive impact on the news, as the ‘big’ media learns
that it is no longer the monopoly and changes the way it has connected and interacted with
its audiences to be able to keep up with the competition. - Citizen journalism allows the
truth to come out.We are hearing the news from people in the public, in some cases this
will give us more truthful opinions than what we would get from the official media.
4. What are the positive outcomes that Gillmor
sees from the rise of citizen journalism?
• The positive outcomes viewed from the rise of citizen journalism is the
ability to help us listen, as it is able to make anyone make the news and for
those who’ve felt voiceless, their opinions will be heard. It also brings
opportunity to fill in the gaps as many times they’ll find things the
professionals miss. Relating to Bruggeman, he was not longer just a
consumer, he was a producer, he was making the news.
5. What are some of the challenges that citizen
journalism presents?
• The challenges citizen journalism presents are the challenges of authority and the
boundaries on when information is found to be credible or not. How would we be
able to control this as anyone has the ability to make the news and if in the wrong
hands could lead to extreme consequences to our society? Gillmor states that the
future may consist of measures to prevent copyright infringement where
permission would be needed in publishing a material that is deemed too risky.
Citizen journalism presents many challenges for the government as what they
release into the media is ‘pure’ and has not been controlled by the government.
Official news will always be more trusted and official than the news we get from
citizen journalism
