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Essay on What´s Citizen Journalism or Public Journalism?

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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 …show more content…

They may use their blogs for illegal purposes for example, a blogger named David Milum defamed a bank by giving judges money to protect some drug dealers, and he did not provide any evidence to support his claim then he was sentenced to pay $ 50,000 to the bank (cited Hughes 2010, p.46). What's more, a citizen journalist published news about a plane crash in George Charles airport but the true event was the plane had an emergency landing not a crash (Barnes 2012, p.3). These evidence indicate how citizen journalists influence their practice of journalism by using some personal information which does not based on facts. Therefore, unreal information which come from personal beliefs affect public journalism badly leading to decrease audiences' trust in their news and information.
Another perspective view which provides more reasoned argument is that citizen journalism has many good advantages. The most important advantage is that citizen journalism play an important role in democratization of society. Barnes (2012, p.4) points out that public journalism has significantly supported revolutions in many countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen by using social media. In addition, democratic journalism promote chances of society participation for example, the freedom of speech in South Asian countries has been improved through the work of citizen journalism on the internet (Kaul 2012, p.7).By

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