This document discusses citizen journalism and its implications. It begins by outlining learning objectives around understanding citizen journalism. It then presents differing views on citizen journalism, noting both optimism about its potential to democratize the news and pessimism around issues of verification and ethics. Examples are provided of different types of citizen journalists and discussions of how YouTube has influenced the news agenda and blurred boundaries between professionals and audiences.

1. Learning Objectives:
• Understand what citizen journalism is and
consider its implications.

3. “Read-only” vs. “Read-write”

4. Journalism 2.0
Journalism 1.0
Conversation
LECTURE

5. • YouTube presents an interesting case study
to illustrate the main themes:
– YouTube style content is now infecting the
mainstream media news agenda
– Digital convergence has led to a blurring of the
boundaries between reporter and audience
– Mainstream news organisations are now using
‘citizen-journalist’ sources in greater numbers
– This has implications for what we say about
professionalism in journalism

6. Media futurist Dan Gillmor
predicts that by 2021, ‘citizens
will produce 50 percent of the
news peer-to-peer’, however
mainstream news media, that
we have grown up with, are
yet to meaningfully adopt or
experiment with these new
forms.

7. The digital sublime
• every radical media transformation
induced by a new technology brings along
the myth of the beginning of a new era
• including the hopes for social change and
almost religious visions of miracles which
the new modes to move information
should bring

8. YouTube and the
surveillance society
Police and other authorities
now surveiling YouTube for
“criminal” activity

9. Non-professionals
• Accidental journalists – eyewitnesses with
a recording device/cellphone
• Amateur journalists – bloggers who cover
news, do original research and expose
hidden issues
• Citizen journalists – Amateurs with a
particular social mission in politics, etc
• Pro-am – a combination of the above with
a professional journalist/mentor

10. “Open source” journalism
Grassroots journalism is part o the wider phenomenon of citizen-
generated media—of a global conversation that is growing in
strength, complexity and power.
When people can express themselves, they will.
When they can do so with powerful yet inexpensive tools, they take
the new-media realm quickly.
When they an reach a potentially global audience, they literally can
change the world.
Dan Gillmor, We the media (2006)

11. ‘by the people, for the people’
• Gillmor is a digital optimist
– Society can no longer afford to rely on “Big
Media”
– News reporting is becoming a two-way
conversation—a “seminar”, not a “lecture”
– “Professional journalism’s worst enemy may be
itself.” (xxvi)
– Blogging and citizen journalism are in the
tradition of bourgeois liberalism (eg: Thomas
Paine)

12. American Carnival
The weakening of journalistic professionalism and centrality
in this rapidly transforming system not only makes lies and
hoaxes more possible but also poses compelling new
questions about the quality of news informing democratic
society. (p.117)
In such a new and still-evolving order, governed less and
less by professionalism—or at least incognizant of the need
for standards—it becomes far easier for objective truth and
basic facts about important issues to become debatable
notions in civil society and political discourse. (p.31)
Neil Henry, American Carnival (2007)

13. “Fun house” and “freak show”
• Neil Henry is a digital pessimist
– Blogging and citizen media is more noise,
less news
– Attacks on professionalism / job cuts /
reduced budgets weaken journalism
– PR “hucksters” take advantage and bombard
us with “fake news”
– Does journalism matter? Yes it does
– …but it is “troubled and confused” (p.208)

14. The YouTube effect
Welcome to the "YouTube effect." It is the phenomenon
whereby video clips, often produced by individuals acting on
their own, are rapidly disseminated worldwide on websites
such as YouTube and Google Video.
YouTube has 34 million monthly visitors, and 65,000 new
videos are posted every day.
YouTube is a mixed blessing: It is now harder to know
what to believe. How do we know that what we see in a
video clip posted by a "citizen journalist" is not a
manipulated montage?
Moises Naim, LA Times, 20 December 2006

15. As a former journalist, I have finally realized what
bothers me so much about the notion of citizen
journalism. It is the veritable absence of
investigative journalism. Why is it missing?
Money. Pure and simple.
(comment on Flip the Media blog in response to
YouTube announcement)
In the professional media, there is a firm code of
ethics, such as preserving privacy and fairness of the
point of view. Cub reporters are supposed to take a
lecture about ethical issues
I am concerned about the thriving of citizen media
without their following a code of ethics , it will be out of
control.

16. The observation that some videos actually reveal “truth” is the
start of a trend that is changing the way journalists approach
stories.
Yes, a journalist might have a great clip for a story from
YouTube. But the question remains: Is the story legitimate?
Even though a video poster has uploaded his or her video for the
world to see, the journalists still have to sift through the fact and
fiction.
They still have to make the phone calls and set up interviews to
confirm information.
Journalism for the 21st Century blog January 2007

17. TV to reckon with YouTube
BBC does deal to get
licensed content on to
YouTube
On the other hand,
Viacom sued Google for
copyright infringement
Both show that the
mainstream media
cannot ignore the
“YouTube effect” any
more

18. Optimism v Pessimism
• Citizen journalism will forever undermine the
power of the major broadcast and publishing
news media
• Journalism will either have to adapt or die, either
way it’s a good thing
• The corporates cannot afford to ignore UGC, nor
let it outflank them
• Instead the corporate global media giants will
attempt to harness the power of social networking
and UGC to enhance profits

19. "The journalist of the future is going to be someone who
is trained from the beginning to be flexible and work in
an environment that mixes digital images, sound, text
and the Internet as well as traditional newspapers,
magazines and television and radio broadcasts.“
Sybril Bennett, New Century Journalism, Belmont College

20. Who’s who in the digital zoo?
• Clearly Youtubers are not ‘professional’ or
‘career’ journalists
• However, it opens up parts of the news
agenda to non-professionals
• For audience it blurs the edges of ‘news’
even further
• It appeals to digital natives more than
mainstream media does
• Professional journalism is still coming to
terms with the “YouTube effect”