NDM News: Citizen journalism

Media Magazine: The Rise and Rise of UGC (Dec 2009). 

examples

• LA police officers beating Rodney King with clubs and tasering him. The home video made prime time news.
• The natural disaster of the Asian Tsunami on December 26th 2004 was another turning point for UGC
• the London bombings on July 5th 2005, provided another opportunity for citizen journalists. 
• It was on Twitter again that the story of the Hudson River plane crash on January 15th 2009 was broken to the world.

theory (audience etc.) 

• the audience have become ‘users’ and the users have become  publishers. Audiences now create their own their own content.
• We are in the era of user generated content (UGC) 

benefits to institutions 

• Citizen journalism benefits institutions as it makes their company more known; they're gaining more views from the public.

benefits to audience 

• It allows them to see a different side to the story as the media may decide to filter out

wider issues and debates 

• However, audiences may misinterpret the footage in another way as the quality maybe be poor e.g too shaky and blurry.

SHEP

social - creates moral panic to the audience and viewers as citizen journalist can be anyone and film things live which are not edited therefore their news are the 'truth'
- also causes the audience to take action about the footage and what is happening eg riots. 

historical - everything was communicated through word of mouth due to there being no mobile phones etc. stereotypes and moral panics have always been in peoples minds 

economical - there were a few economic problems are there was less communication from the police during the riots in order to stop them as 53 people died and 4000 got injured which causes chaos 

political - causes negative reputation to the political side of all of this as the riots are negatively representing the UK due to the fights/fire/death of people that had caused chaos in news channels and also perliments.






Next, answer the following questions in the same blogpost:

1) What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?

 -The term citizen journalism, is where the public record footage themselves and publish it on social networking sites for everyone to watch globally 

2) What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’? 

-Having caught Rodney King, an African-American, after a high speed chase, the officers surrounded him, tasered him and beat him with clubs. The event was filmed by an onlooker from his apartment window. The home-video footage made prime-time news and became an international media sensation,

3) List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.

 -comments

 -chat rooms

 -talk shows

 -being able to share stories

4) What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)? -ugc is more of a uncencored and low-quality footage, it is more real and shows the other side of the story which professionally shot footage doesnt.5) What is a gatekeeper? -someone who controls the information and content that is allowed it be published.6) How has the role of a gatekeeper changed? -there are less people control the content that is published, information is more accessible, also ugc doesnt have gatekeepers as it does not go through the editing and censoring process.7) What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?

-journalists are losing their jobs, as what they usually do for a living is being taken over by this ugc which shows more reliable and more accessible information which may not be shown by real jurnalists so sooner or later they wont really be needed as much. 

Finally, consider the following questions and answer each bullet point in the same blogpost:
What impact is new/digital media having on the following:news stories

 -people are now able to access news from many different platforms and sites. there is more ugc for news which provides another side of the story which makes the readers more aware. 

the news agenda (the choice of stories that make up the news) -uncensored news can now be shown. there is also more informal news that may be on less important topics.

the role of professionals in news

 -the role that professionals have is becoming less important and less needed as ordinary people can deliver the content with ugc which may be more reliable and convenient.