“Citizen Journalism” has been hailed by many as a ‘new’ form of Journalism that will overtake ‘traditional’ forms of Journalism. Do you agree? Discuss the pros and cons of such an argument.
Citizen Journalism is an argumentative concept by its very nature and one which is particularly hard to define. It involves non-professional, un-trained locals reporting on news themselves and using social media as a platform to do so, in a basic sense. These reporters are from outside the mainstream media, certainly not trained or qualified enough to be journalists. “They write and report from their position as citizens, as members of communities, as activists as fans.” (Atton, 2009) The expansion of Twitter and Facebook over the last ten years has made the need for instant reporting an essential part of the news room and citizen journalism has certainly challenged and shaped the future of mainstream media. As Melisa Wall states, however you want to define or label it, “Citizen journalism is now an essential part of news gathering and delivery around the world”. Anyone with access to a
…show more content…
But with major influx of technology, the fact is changing. Social media like Twitter facilitate the instant, online dissemination of short fragments of information from a variety of official and unofficial sources, namely citizen journalists. Hermida suggests that synchronous and always-on system availability of news are enabling citizens to maintain critical awareness of their surroundings, hence giving rise to ambivalent journalism. The emergence of ambivalent journalism, followed by growing social media, is a sort of question to verifying duty of journalists. The author suggests that to get to the ideal scenario, it is important to regulate and negotiate the flow of awareness information, facilitating the outreach of right information to right