By Mohd Kashif
Journalism is constantly struggling to hold the confidence of its audience, and to retain a positive reputation it must adapt to the contemporary needs and demands of media consumers. In this multimedia age, people are involved in the media world in many ways - through their comments, uploaded photos, and video clips. They are no longer just passive observers; they have the opportunity to be active creators and critics. Why, then, would the media not open the door a little wider and allow entry into a whole new realm?
What is citizen journalism?
Citizen journalism is the dissemination of information by people who are not professional journalists. Citizen reporters do this kind of journalism not because it is their job, but because of the way they want to improve society. Citizen journalism is a basis of democracy that encourages citizens to participate actively in social processes.
Jay Rosen, professor at NYU and a member of the Wikipedia advisory board, gives this definition of citizen journalism: "When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another, that's citizen journalism."
The development of information and communication technologies, especially the internet, has led to the emergence of citizen journalism - the active role of citizens in collecting, reporting, analysing, and disseminating news and information. Citizens create and distribute content with the help of mobile phones, the internet, and computers. Thanks to digital technology, citizen journalism is universally accessible and globally relevant, and it has become an important part of the content within traditional media, both public and commercial. It has also become an important corrective to official sources of information, helping to create a more real and objective view of the world.
How the internet changed the media
The mass media are now mostly privately owned, and their main guide is profit. They are financed by advertising, and advertisers and other factors largely influence editorial policy. The development of technology has changed the mass media in many ways. This is primarily related to the rise of the internet, which first caused the popularity of other media to decline, and then pushed the media to change and adapt their content. Today most newspaper companies have websites where you can read free content from the print edition, publish text, photos, and videos in one place, and receive immediate feedback from readers.
As the internet expanded the possibilities of earlier media, it also allowed ordinary people to express their opinion - and for that opinion to reach millions of people worldwide. An important step came in the late nineties with the massive popularity of blogs: websites that allow users to write on a variety of topics, from intimate diaries to political commentary. Today the blog is a category that most newspapers carry on their own websites.
The early 2010s brought further experiments. Video tutorials appeared in which leading experts in journalism explained how to do amateur, or civic, journalism, covering everything from finding ideas for stories to technical implementation and presentation. YouTube Direct opened a channel through which media outlets could download or commission amateur journalism work, involving major media companies such as The San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, The Huffington Post, and Politico. A World Blog Expo held around that time ran a first training session on citizen journalism, and interest was great.
The Guardian built a system that gives readers insight into the stories journalists and editors are processing, and invites them to participate through comments and suggestions in choosing the topics they would like to read. Through columns such as "News Desk Live", readers could follow a daily blog in which journalists explained the reasons for selecting a particular story, while all stakeholders were free to offer ideas and suggestions to make the final product better. While most media still prefer to close their doors to proposals, examples such as The Guardian give a glimmer of hope that journalists still exist primarily because of their audience.
Can citizen journalists earn money?
Citizen journalism can be voluntary, but people can also earn money from it. The Citizenside website was a good example of both: it allowed contributors to earn money for photos and video clips that they would otherwise only have published on their social network profiles, paying up to 65 percent of the selling price when a photo or video drew worldwide media interest.
Conclusion
In contemporary society, the role of the media is changing in many ways. Although citizen journalism is sometimes dismissed as unnecessary or too amateur, big media companies have had no choice but to support it. And although it may seem that journalists lose their place because of it, they are actually in a position to improve the quality of their work - thanks to this new type of competition.
