Citien Journalism

The concept of citizen journalism derives from public citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information. Citizen journalism is practiced by professional and non-professional journalists working together. Citizen journalism is a specific form of citizen media as well as user generated content.

New media technology, such as social networking and media-sharing websites, and the increasing prevalence of cellular phones have made citizen journalism more accessible to people all over the world, who can often report breaking news much faster than traditional journalistic avenues. Notable examples of citizen journalism being used to report major world events include the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. At the same time, the unregulated nature of citizen journalism has drawn criticism from professional journalists for being too subjective, amateurish, and haphazard in quality and coverage.

September 11, 2001 seemed to be the first time I notice citizen journalism. People all over New York were showing what they had seen from their point of view. News stations were streaming these videos on TV and on the web. People were able to show what at that moment they witnessed. All over the web, you could see various web videos of the event. People were in shock over what they witnessed. People were also able to see the hard work our firefighters and rescue personnel put in live as the activity took place.

With the technologies we have today, people are able to simply record information on their phone. We often see videos on the news in poor quality because those videos were from citizen journalists. It takes time for a news team to get to a site. What they have missed is covered by citizens. Due to private ownership of social media technology, it has allowed professional news teams to rely on citizen journalism to report the news.

In the future I believe citizen journalism will evolve even more. Look at the popularity of U-TUBE as a prime example.  Many people are beginning to find that the news is slanted and prejudice depending on who is telling the news and their political beliefs and agenda. Since most people believe they cannot trust the news, new websites will be created for people to enjoy what others have to offer. We will be able to make our own decisions and formulate more valid opinions based on viewing the facts with our own eyes based on first-hand citizen journalism. With each new social media technology finding its way into our hands, we have to ask, "What is next for Citizen Journalism?"