Citizen Journalism

          With the creation and dispersion of new innovations the focus of journalistic reporting has shifted from professionals to the masses. As Flew (2008) discusses in his book, the development of such powerful mobile devices allows citizens to capture and report news worthy events before professional journalists can even hear about them. Starobin’s (2009) article mentions George H. W. Bush commenting that he gets more information from the CNN news network than from CIA informants (p. 2). Now, with the rise in “citizen journalism” and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to disperse information quickly, his comment would probably be something more along the lines of learning more from his Facebook “posts” than from watching CNN. An excellent example of this came from my brother’s high school this past week.

Figure 1 http://www.facebook.com/photo.
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8195.5912.1301910859&type=1&theater

            Last week a shooting took place on a road outside of my old high school. The culprit was stopped for having expired tags on the back of his car. When the officer got out of her patrol car the culprit fired several gun shots at her before fleeing into the woods. All of the schools and roads in the area were put on lock down while the SWAT team was called in to search the area. After 5 hours the culprit was finally found and apprehended. All of the facts of this story, including the gender of the officer and the picture of one of the SWAT members (figure 1), I initially found posted on Facebook. All details of the incident found on Facebook have been verified by my brother Jack Evans (2011), a student at this high school, and by Alongi (2011), a reporter for the Greenville News.

            As this event was occurring all the kids in my old high school were locked down in their individual classrooms. In previous years this would have meant that they would not have any real contact with the outside world, and would just have to wait out the event unsure of how it was unfolding. With the ability to access sites like Facebook and Twitter from their phones however, students were able to communicate between classrooms and schools, and look for news reports online to find out what was going on. Then, using information from all these various sources, they were able to post the story from their perspective, stuck in a classroom somewhere in the school, on various sites. This is a prime example of how “citizen journalism” gets more perspectives of an event out much faster than the old, professional style of journalism. Events can be captured in real time. The technology to easily and cheaply produce this content is the enabling force behind “citizen journalism”, and it is evident in other forms of “citizen” production as well.

Figure 2 http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuff
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             Cheaper and easier to obtain/use technologies have lead things like “citizen filmmaking” and “citizen games development” to follow suit after “citizen journalism”. Mini films are created and posted on Youtube by amateurs all the time, and it is becoming easier and easier for people to program their own games. In an attempt to capture audience new infatuation with interaction, some companies have created games, such as LittleBigPlanet, that focus on user generated content to fuel the game. Online games such as Line Rider (Figure 2), provide another platform for “citizens” to show off their creativity. Some, such as myself, do not have much talent to show off, but some have tremendous talent to show off in this form. Many people know Justin Bieber got his start singing on Youtube before he got noticed. In the future, it may be likely that several famous screenwriters, directors, and game developers will also rise to fame through the “citizen” realm.

References

Alongi, P. (2011, October 31). Mauldin man charged after deputy-involved shooting, authorities say. The Greenville News, pp. 1A.

Evans, J. (2011). Interview with a Christ Church Episcopal School Student. Retrieved October 29, 2011.

Flew, T. (2008). New media: an introduction (3^rd ed). (p.22-24). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Starobin, P. (2009). In new media, image is still everything. National Journal. Atlantic Media, Inc.