Citizen Journalism, is it good for society or bad?

Source: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism - University of Oxford

Barely 5 years ago, journalism was a completely different landscape. In a time before we really knew the power of the smartphone, the only way to have our thoughts, opinions, and information published to the masses was via letters to the Editor.

As technology advanced and became easily available for people, citizen journalism was born. An outlet for ordinary people to share and report on issues they thought required a voice. A recent example of this was the 2017 Manchester bombings, where attendees took to uploading videos and tweeting their followers, essentially breaking the news to the rest of the world.1

But with the power of reporting now in the hands of ordinary people, is this a good thing for a bad thing?

Citizen journalism has proven many times to be beneficial for society. It has allowed ordinary people to hold powerful organisations to account and provide alternative truth to government censored news agencies. Countries such as Libya, Syria, and Israel provide a great example of citizen journalism when done right.2
Local people give first-hand insight to the unrest and social issues that otherwise may not make it to the rest of their country, let alone western media. Citizen journalism provides them with a way to have their voices heard and to raise awareness of the important issues they face.

However, this type of grassroots reporting has also muddied the waters between fact and fiction. With the rise of “fake news” on the internet, citizen journalism has become an outlet for some to push specific agendas. From stoking tensions within politics to spreading fear and hatred of other cultures.  This side to citizen journalism has no regard for accuracy or unbiased reporting. Proving dangerous to society.

Whilst it is not always deliberate attempts to mislead or spread inaccuracies, citizen journalism will always be infected with the biases and prejudices of those providing it. It cannot always be ensured that citizen journalists will provide content with the long-standing practices and ethics of professional journalists.

1 Mason, E. Is Citizen Journalism Killing Professional Journalism? Art + Marketing. https://artplusmarketing.com/is-citizen-journalism-killing-professional-journalism-b60531ee1d0c 15 January 2018.
2WJaffe-Hoffman, M. The Making of Middle East Citizen Journalists. Forward. https://forward.com/life/391083/the-making-of-middle-east-citizen-journalists/ 2 January 2018.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is your personal information on the internet secure?

Image
Source: Illustration/iStock Arguably the greatest invention of the 21st century. The internet is an endless source of information, communication, and socialisation. However, with the great also comes the not so great. In the first half of 2019, Forbes reported over 4 billion personal records were exposed by data breaches. 1 What is a data breach?  When you sign up for an account on a website you provide your email address, create a password and sometimes, supply your mobile phone number. Your personal information then gets stored in secure servers with the millions (or even billions) of information supplied by other users. Every now and again, hackers will find a way into these secure serves and export the information contained therein. Once they have these details, they usually sell the information on to other scammers and hackers for a big price. How to tell if your information has been compromised  Have I Been Pwned , a website created for users to check whether ...
Read more

The Dark Side to Social Media

Image
Source: B&T Magazine It’s difficult to think of a time where social media wasn’t a mainstay in our lives. From Facebook to Instagram and Youtube. There are a variety of platforms to document our lives for the rest of the world to see. While this has been a positive addition to the lives of most, there is a dark side to social media. The need to be relevant has risen in the last few years. No longer content with normal life, millennials have taken to perfectly curating their feeds to showcase life of luxury, excess, and fun. All for the sake of gaining clout. Social media is the modern-day schoolyard and we are all striving to be the popular kids. We equate our number of followers to our level of worth and the amount of likes we receive as peer approval. Social media has provided us the means so seek unlimited approval from our peers. But at what cost? A study undertaken by University of Pennsylvania took 143 students and randomly allocated them into one of two groups....
Read more