Advantages And Disadvantages Of Citizen Journalism

Clay Shirky who wrote Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (1993) argues that society doesn’t need newspapers society needs journalism to save society. Shirky supports this argument by giving a historical background to the problems newspapers face and how the problems have developed over time and the solutions society has came up with. The blogger concludes that in order for journalism to go farther new models must be created in place of past molds. Shirky directs this blog toward the current and future generations in attempt to motivate new models and methods of journalism.

Ans: I think that citizen journalism will not eventually replace newspapers but instead supplement them as they can’t produce news stories on their own but instead comment on news stories that is already been produced by professional journalist.

However, the article does explore an opposing angle of citizen journalism in-depth where risks of phony photography are high. Undoubtedly, the business of news reporting will always exist, but does citizen journalism hinder the legitimacy of news by providing raw-footage rather than footage that is edited for accuracy? Has photojournalism turned into a commodity due to the ease at which photos and videos can now be captured? Or are we living in a digital age where citizens don’t require news channels to content curate anymore because raw-footage will be accessed through social media platforms anyway? These are questions that can only be answered with a deeper insight into the emergence of citizen-centered

Throughout the ages there has always been to some extent some form of journalism. From World War I with the use of radio and poster, to the more recent Iraq war where were we used more outlets including the Internet. Though the means of acquiring this information can sometimes come at a cost. To what extent should journalist go to obtain the needed information to write such articles and to report on events? Some say that journalist may get in the way or they may place themselves at risk of injury or death. However, such reporting can cause people, on which it’s targeting, to sway in a particular direction. It is by this reporting that journalist combined with media can be a strong political tool to gain favor by guiding the information to support their agenda.

The blog is somewhat informative but mostly persuasive and opinionated. The purpose of this blog is to inform the audience or readers of how ridiculous and impractical the idea of citizen journalism really is and to shift the power that citizen journalism has to traditional or professional journalism. The audience, in this case, are the readers

I’ve come to realize although the work may seem small to me, it makes a difference to those who see and read it. Every word and every picture has an impact on the community. Therefore, I don’t think the profession of journalism is to be taken lightly. Instead, it should be seen as a responsibility to share what is important, what’s right and what people would want to see represent their

Choosing what news station to watch can be a big deal. Maybe one person identifies with Fox News more and maybe one person identifies with CNN more. Whatever news station one chooses there might be some biases with how news stories are reported. These biases may be harmful to the facts that need to be reported on, or it could just be a part of being human. All people have opinions, and that includes reporters. However, it is a reporter’s job to share the facts and not the opinions. In this paper I will first define what journalistic objectivity, and then address the following questions, Can or should a journalist be objective, under what circumstances can objective journalism be beneficial, and under what circumstances can objective

This is seen as an essential to a positive and healthy functioning country (Journalism in the Digital Age, 2016).

The term citizen journalism or public journalism has spread widely around world as it has been connected to publishing the news and information. It can be defined simply as an alternative source of news which is produced and published by the general public. The concept of citizen journalism is not a new phenomenon and it has started long time ago. What has changed is the importance and the prevalence of the citizen journalists as an alternative source of information and news worldwide. There is an argument whether citizen journalism has transferred the news positively or negatively. Some experts argue that citizen journalism has many disadvantages such as lack of credibility and low objectivity which make it unreliable source of news

More unbiased and neutral forms of news are available online and they could be delivered through various platforms such as blogs, alternatives news sites, social media, discussion forums and others. With these existing platforms, journalist are allowed to be more participate in term of news making as they are not tied to function as how working in the news organization. Apart from that, journalist could participate by interacting with other users especially on social media. News could be passed to their followers much more easier, faster and cover a wide range of contents without any censorship (Knight & Cook, 2013, p.

With the decline of the professional and the rise of the citizen journalist, boundaries are indeed needful in reinstating the authority of the professional journalist and controlling the malleable yet powerful public opinion. With this new purpose in mind as concluded in this paper, further work could be done in exploring the methods where journalists could establish themselves as respected moderators of public discussion on new platforms such as social media without getting sucked into the torrents of public opinion.

As previously mentioned, graphic journalism is not the only medium which uses both text and image in order to communicate and convey information - print journalism also incorporates visual language into the work, because according to the research “people are more likely to read a story accompanied by a photograph” (Wolf & Grotta 1985, in Nyberg 2006: 100), but actually does it in a completely different way. While “the news photograph is ancillary to the text” (Nyberg 2006: 100) and plays a supportive accompanying role, in comics journalism illustrations and text are integrated and equivalent, working together to compose a narrative and create a coherent whole, but remaining distinct from each other. Moreover, a photograph usually stands alone “seeming to capture the whole story in a single moment” (Williams 2005: 55), and though has the capacity to draw attention and cause a viewer’s reaction, “it cannot by itself provide an interpretation” or create a narrative coherence, requiring captions and descriptions to be

Nevertheless, it is important that all journalists and media channels in the country remember that aside from their professional, utilitarian and moral duties, they have civic duties as well. Yes, they are all human, and greed and subjectivity may often take the best of them, but a good journalist must never put national security or the public’s sense of security, at stake.

Recent events such as the tsunami disaster (where blogs helped in covering the enormous size of the story), the war in Iraq (where blogs help to present both opinions of all parties involved), the Dan Rather's scandal, a CBS Evening News anchor who reported as authentic a series of forged documents about George W. Bush (where blogs were highly instrumental in exposing him) have all contributed to the growing popularity of citizen journalism. So, why is there a recent growth in popularity of citizen journalism? Is it because of the scandals that has eroded the credibility of traditional journalism or is out of touch with today's media landscape? And does any of it eventually mean the decline of traditional

A more complex and positive definition of citizen journalism by Courtney C. Radsch, suggests public journalism is an ‘activist’ form of newsgathering that could be an ‘alternative’ to mainstream media. Citizen journalism is ‘reporting that functions outside mainstream media institutions, often as a response to shortcoming in the professional journalistic field, that uses similar journalistic practices but is driven by different objectives and ideals and relies on alternative sources of legitimacy than traditional or mainstream journalism.’ (Jljtan005.blogspot.co.uk, 2014) In the view of Radsch then, citizen journalists, without the constraints of working for a commercially driven outlet, are able to make up for shortcomings present in traditional media and are able to offer news that previously wouldn’t have existed.