"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write something worth reading or do things worth the writing" – Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
There are really interesting and informative video clips about the future of Journalism:
Peter Barron, Director of Communications and Public Affairs for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Google, began by highlighting the difference between news media 30 years ago and today and the speed of the digital revolution and its effects.
Natalie Nougayrède, Executive Editor of Le Monde, opened by asserting that the most important thing for Le Monde and other providers of high-quality journalism was to keep their identity, while adapting to the changing context.
The Internet can be detrimental to children’s psychological, social and physical well being as it provides not only useful information but also illegal and damaging materials such as graphic sex or gratuitous violence.
This reality is clearly reflected via the case study ‘Sexting, consent and young people’s ethics: Beyond Megan’s Story’. In this case, the video, beginning with a teenaged girl called Megan, depicted a teenage girl’s experience of sexting (Albury and Crawford, 2012, p.463). This case shows that the Internet and social media not only could steal and distribute private information but also could be detrimental for the development of children as it contains many contents that may be unsuitable for children.
Jin (2013, p.1904) asserts that, although various new hardware and software content-filtering products are put into operation, their effects are unsuccessful in excluding harmful Internet content and this shortcoming could be solely resolved by applying strict regulations. In the research “Protecting children from online sexual predators”, Griffith and Roth (2007, p.21) found that 90% of the sexual solicitation happened to children aged 13 years and most of them were online sexual solicitations concentrating among teenage Internet users. This is the reason why Internet safety regulations are essential to protect these children. According to David Campbell, the New South Wales Police Minister, in this age of social media, the threatening of children and young people by online sexual predators is obvious and the Internet surveillance is a suitable and effective way to improve online safety (cited in Griffith and Roth, 2007, p.3).
In Australia, this fact led to the formation of a separate body – the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) – that takes the responsibility to set legally binding standards as well as issue take-down notices for potentially illegal contents hosted online. As per the regulation of ACMA, all online prohibited and potential prohibited content engaging in sexual activity, child pornography, bestiality, sexual violence, crime, drugs or excessive violence will be ranged to restricted access system that prevents from diffusing and approaching. In a nutshell, there is a necessity of the Internet regulation, especially when online predatory activities are increasingly becoming popular.
This reality could be witnessed in one of the editions of Sydney Morning Herald published on 26 June, 2007, that included three articles related to sexual online predators (Griffith and Roth, 2007, p.7). The first case was of a US serviceman who seduced a child over the Internet for sexual intercourse. He was arrested at the Sydney airport. The second story talked about a man who formed an online gothic appreciation club to entice under-age teenage girls for sex or to email their naked images to him. The last one, headlined “Virtual girl traps predators” talked about a journalist who used the Skype Internet chat room to pose as a 14-year old Sydney girl. This chat room quickly drew attention of many Skype users wanting sex with this “virtual girl”.
Another story about a teacher using social media to sexually solicit students also advocates for the need of the Internet censorship. In this case, students aged from 15 to 17 years became victims of their teacher, Stevie Glasspool, who exploited social networks to distribute sexual messages with the promises of marijuana as well as good marks. When the story was detected, it caused the indignation and abomination of the parents who could not imagine the teacher solicited their own children for unlawful sexual conduct. Hence, it is clearly evident that, even though children should have ownership over media devices as well as opportunities to approach all kinds of information, the Internet surveillance should also be there so that it can filter and eliminate inappropriate content on the Internet as well as contribute to the healthy development of children’s psychological, social and physical well being.
It is clear that the restriction on online environment is necessary. However, the government regulation is evaluated as not been able to keep up with a convergent network environment. According to Lumby and Crawford (2011, p.5), the Australian media content regulation has worked in a one-way, top-down manner in which the government constructs such regulation schemes, where netizens do not have many opportunities for direct input through complaints mechanisms. Indeed, in this model, the media audiences are largely seen as passive consumers and the interaction with Internet service suppliers or regulatory authorities stays unimportant. In contrast with this framework, netizens are now not just “consumers”, but active news producers who can identify and inform the relevant host or government agency about offensive contents. Moreover, the Internet contents are growing exponentially. The number of websites, the multitudinous downloadable “apps” and the number of video contents uploaded on YouTube each minute are also unnumbered. It is impossible to classify all these media contents in Australia.
Stemming from the above two reasons, I think that the government, industry and media users should collaborate to improve the capability for the identification of truly harmful materials and the enforcement of criminal law. In this way, an individual not only passively follows government’s laws but also actively forms its own voluntary self-regulation, which orients to educational programming and age-appropriate choices, and limits exposure to profanity and online predators. The principle of this collaboration is media literacy that netizens would receive from the education of government and industry. Education, pointing out Internet’s advantages and disadvantages, supplying online users with resources to actively work in online communities as well as identify problematic material, is the most effective strategy to protect the community, particularly children from inappropriate contents.
REFERENCES:
Albury, K. and Crawford. K (2012): ‘Sexting, consent and young people’s ethics: Beyond Megan’s Story’, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 26:3, pp.463-473.
Jin, C. (2013) ‘The effects of individual innovativeness on users’ adoption of Internet content filtering software and attitudes toward children’s Internet use’, Computers in Human Behaviour, p.1904-1916.
Lumby, C. and Crawford, K. (2011), ‘The Adaptive Movement: A Fresh Approach to Convergent Media in Australia,’ Journalism and Media Research Centre, UNSW.
Robin Jeffrey, a reporter at the ABC News, recently talked about similarity between the explosion of mobile phones and shoes. In the first place, this comparison may sound overstated and unreasonable but think about it. The growth of global economy and the development of technology have made the smart phones as popular as shoes. Indeed, a mobile phone is a personal item that most people use everyday and is evaluated as the pioneering device which has contributed to the revolutionary changes in the media industry.
(Video clip of Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism)
Firstly, the mobiles (inculding the mobile phones and tablets) are changing the way people receive information. It is undeniable that technology advancements and the Internet offer readers a lot of opportunities to quickly consume news and, that too, in a variety of formats. Consumers now prefer digital devices for information than the print version. Among these devices, the mobiles, which became smaller in size and cheaper in cost with passing time, are one of the most popular ones. The investigation of Reuters Institute (2013) shows that, almost all the UK and the US citizens are using mobiles for updating information. These mobiles are contributing to change the electronic reading structure, in which, the majority of readers do not depend on the bulky desktop computer or laptop anymore. They now possess a more portable and convenient tool – the smart phone or the tablet. According to a recent research, almost eighty percent of us are watching and reading news via tablets or smart phones in our hands. The whole world is seemingly converged to the portable mobiles which help us track news, enjoy entertainment programs, and contact with the world irrespective of time and place. René Obermann, the Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Telekom company asserts that mobile phones will soon become the leading tools that people can think about when they want to access the Internet.
(How the smart mobiles can change our life)
Alongside that, the mobiles are also changing the way people communicate, create and distribute information. The implementation of a work of contemporary journalism does not associate with pens, computer keyboard or professional camera anymore. Any video or image without comment could become news today as it can convey its meaning easily and quickly to the whole world and satisfy the information needs of the audiences sitting in front of their computers devices connected wirelessly (Allan and Thorsen, 2009, p.29). Also, we do not need a professional newsroom to edit information. All that we need now are the moblies and the Internet to access a blog, facebook page or websites offering video sharing.
This role of the mobile phones was clearly evident in the case of the disaster that happened in London in July 2005 (Allan, 2007, p.8). Immediately after the first bomb exploded and before the professional journalists could recognise the presence of a bomb, many significant images and information were captured and diffused via the online spaces by Londoners who were equipped with nothing but the mobile phone that could record, photograph and connect with the Internet. Alongside that, because of the tight security, the professional journalists could not access London underground stations to dig for more information (Allan, 2007, p.8). In this particular case, thanks to the assistance of smarts phones, the audiences from all parts of the world could keep up with the lastest information that was reported and disseminated by the victims and citizens on the other side of the blockage area.
The role of mobile phones was also expressed via the Usagi hurricane case in 2013. In this super typhoon that created lot of destruction on the China’s eastern coastline, it might be only the mobile phones that supported users in photographing heart-rending images and timely supplying profound information to the mainstream media. All these images were invaluable because they showed the first pictures of the devastation caused by this typhoon which might never have been done by the professional journalists. Among all those pictures, the one shown above was the most particular that attracted the attention of the several viewers worldwide. This picture was taken by a photographer, Chance Chan, on September 22, 2013. It shows many people squeezing and simultaneously raising their mobile phones to take the image of muddy waves. This picture, showing the forest of mobile phones, obviously expressed that today is the era of technology, especially the mobile phones helping users capture images and provide news as soon as any natural disaster occurs.
Talking about the role of mobiles, Gerard Goggin (2013, p.198) asserts that mobiles are well established and recognized as a global technology and a pillar of media and communication. In my opinion, accompanying with the Internet, mobiles are driving the news revolution, especially on behalf of an alternative channel for creating and diffusing information. The significant contribution of mobiles to the general dynamics of new media is undeniable.
REFERENCES:
Allan, S., (2007) ‘Citizen Journalism and the Rise of “Mass Self-communication”: Reporting the London Bombings’ Global Media Journal Australian Edition, Vol.1, Issue 1, pp.1-20.
Allan, S. and Thorsen, E., (2009) Citizen Journalism: Global Perspective, Peter Lang, New York.
Goggin, G. (2012), ‘Changing Media with Mobiles’, in J. Hartley, J. Burgess and A. Bruns (eds) A Companion to New Media Dynamics London: Blackwell Publishing, pp.193-208.
Palmer, D., (2012), ‘Iphone Photography: Mediating Visions of Social space’ in L. Hjorth, J. Burgess and I. Richardson (eds) Studying Mobile Media: Cultural Technologies, Mobile Communication and the Iphone, New York and London: Routledge, pp.85-97.
An exclusive role in supplying and possessing the information of news publishers and journalists has changed with the vertical emergence of the Internet and digital media technologies. The information does not flow one-way, top-down, and one-to-many anymore, as the readers are more active than ever before. This reality has completely changed the interaction between journalists and the populace. Professional journalists reinforce conversation with readers, as well as participate in editing this information to create more credible information.
The conversation between journalists and readers in narrating and discussing stories about social issues and politics is an ongoing important element because it contributes to democracy. The case study ‘Journalism at the Speed of Bytes’ (2012) asserts that civilians are now disgusted with the idea that journalists are the intermediaries between politicians and voters. Readers, viewers and listeners have had rights and opportunities to interact and cooperate with journalists, to discuss how society and political processes work (O’Donnell, McKnight, and Estes, 2012, p.27, 38). Stromback (2005, p.339-341) also insists that to enhance democracy, citizens must actively follow current affairs, participate in the public sphere, play a role in political discussion and decision making. All of these activities force media and journalism to create opportunities for citizens to engage in debating and expressing their opinion. Besides, good journalists must listen to ordinary people as they are not “passive victims” but “active subjects” to supply information about social issues and conflict resolutions (Stromback, 2005, p.339-341).
By conversing with the audience, journalists can furnish profound insights about differences between the political alternatives, as well as contributing to voters’ judicious decision making. Moreover, with the dominance of networked communication, readers have moved beyond a “parasitic” role and become the producers of a wide range of information and viewpoints. Ignoring the third-party sources created by active amateurs is impossible in the work practices of professional journalists (Macnamara, 2009, p.43). In a multimedia and disintermediated environment, the process of discussion and interaction with enthusiastic readers, engagement with variety of material sources, identifying and highlighting valuable information are all growing and crucial qualities of good journalists (Macnamara, 2009, p.44).
Besides conversation, professional journalists also take part in the editing process of information that is supplied by citizens. While you might think that citizen media is only the province of people outside the mainstream media, that’s not remotely the case. In fact, one of the pioneering efforts in citizen journalism was the OhMyNews site in South Korea, launched in early 2000, which has become a popular mainstream news source in that Asian country. The site is a hybrid of professionally reported and citizen reported stories, with citizen journalists being paid small sums for the more popular work they do.
Mainstream newspaper publishers have created some of the more viable citizen media sites, from the Northwest Voice, to the series of YourHub sites or Minnesota Public Radio, which are all platforms for citizen contributors to help give reporters a more informed view of society. Alongside that, these grounds are also places for preditors – a neologism combing “producer” and “editor” – to edit copy, utilize their knowledge of publishing law and regulation to create a strong sense of news values, which satisfy ethical standards (Wilson, Saunders and Bruns, 2009, p.6).
In my view, we still need professional journalists to create credible news. Journalists, who are expected to adhere to a code of ethics – as they are trained methodically as media professionals – could sift through all the waffle, present a clear and concise picture of any given story, and try to make sure the news is written from a neutral point of view.
REFERENCES:
Macnamara, J. (2009) ‘Journalism and Public Relations: unpacking myths and stereotypes’, Australian Journalism Review, Vol 34, No.1, pp 33-50.
O’Donnell, P., McKnight, D. and Estes J. (2012): ‘Journalism at the Speed of Bytes’, Sydney: Walkley Foundation for Excellence in Journalism.
Stromback J.(2005), ‘In Search of a Standard: four models of democracy and their normative implications for journalism,’ Journalism Studies, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 331-345.
Wilson, JA, Saunders, BJ and Bruns, A (2009), ‘“Preditors”: making citizen journalism work’ in J Gordon (ed) Notions of Community: A Collection of Community Media Debates and Dilemmas, New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group, pp. 245-270.
The pictures shown above expose the dehumanization and sexual degradation of Iraqi prisoners by US military in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Can anyone doubt the authenticity of these pictures or underestimate the value of these pictures because they were taken by those who was not professional journalists? Maybe, you don’t doubt it.
In the past, there have been many human rights groups that attempted to draw media’s attention towards this by supplying information about the US military’s ill treatment. Rather, the prominent professional journalists ignored their efforts for several months until the above-mentioned digital images appeared. This information, distributed by Joseph Darby, a soldier deployed inside Abu Ghraib prison, actually exposed the ill treatment done on an unimagined scale. This incident caused a strong reaction in the international public opinion. There was no doubt about the authenticity or value of these pictures, as they were neither taken by any professional journalist nor firstly published by any famous media organization (Allan & Thorsen, 2009, p.26).
According to me, the above story proves that the active audiences now determine valuable and credible news among the variety of available information sources, rather than just being “dazzled” by the brand of any major media publisher. Institutional authenticity, which is the foundation for trustworthiness, does not effectively work in the modern media environment as it used to do in the past. In fact, many famous news organizations such as The New York Times have suffered outright distrust or even an accusation of supplying slanted or politically biased information from their viewers (Hayes, Singer & Ceppos, 2007, p.270). Jay Rosen, a professional journalist, investigated and mentioned on his own weblog that the media has been facing a steady decline after Watergate (1973) in the readers’ confidence from more than 70 percent to 40 percent today.
(A steady decline in the readers’ confidence)
In my opinion, there are two main reasons for this decline. Firstly, the process of receiving and analyzing information for each person is creative and individualistic. This process is formed through people’s educational background, social classes, political views, age, and genders. According to Hall’s “sender – message – receiver” model, the correspondent can just create and translate coherent information to audiences. They cannot participate in the receiver’s information processing, which is mostly determined by the reader’s experience, emotion and culture (quoted in Allan, 2010, p.131-133). And since the encoding and decoding processes are independent, the readers are always active in choosing, analyzing and evaluating the trust and accuracy of information.
For example, in the case of famous cyclist, Lance Armstrong, he was examined according to the readers’ independence in decoding information. Although most newspapers accused Armstrong of a doping scandal, many advocated his case by supporting him via arguments such as Armstrong is a cancer patient, drug abuse is not the determinant for his success and, without hard-working and brutal training, he could not have reached seven Tour de France titles. Alongside that, people also argued that Armstrong has a tender heart. He not only participated in many volunteer events to donate money for disabled people, but also shared the pains that they were undergoing. Armstrong’s perseverance has actually been an excellent role model for many cancer patients in their fight against cancer. In this particular case, the audiences, i.e. the receivers, still admire Armstrong for his achievements and contributions and are not persuaded by condemnations encoded and disseminated by the mainstream media, i.e. the senders.
(The reader is always active in receiving and analyzing information)
Secondly, the convergent media and the proliferation of communication technologies help information flow horizontally on the Internet. Ready information sources are always ubiquitous in the online environment for the reader to access and determine the trustworthiness of the source. Besides that, the emergence of blogs and online forums has actually blurred the gap between the roles of information producers and consumers. Now, the readers are no more dependent on mainstream media for news, rather they take part in the process of distributing and generating their own stories. For instance, all the information about the US-led invasion in Iraq and the dangerous life of ordinary Iraqis was censored and trivialized by their country’s mainstream media. The globe was only updated with the latest news from witnesses inside Iraq through the warblogs that became an alternative means of war reporting. In this scenario, the world could not depend on famous and official news organizations to gain credible information (Allan & Thorsen, 2009, p.27).
On the basis of these two above reasons and the quote “Relying on the authenticity provided by institutional reputation as a hallmark of journalistic credibility is risky business” (Hayes, Singer & Ceppos, 2007, p.270), I strongly believe that the value of information in the Internet-based news environment depends on the reader’s self-assessment, rather than the value (brand) of journalists or organizations that create and disseminate the information.
REFERENCES:
Allan, S. (2010) News Culture, Open University Press.
Allan, S. and Thorsen, E., (2009) Citizen Journalism: Global Perspective, Peter Lang, New York.
Hayes, AS, Singer, JB, and Ceppos, J (2007), ‘Shifting Roles, Enduring Values: The Credible Journalist in the Digital Age’, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Vol.22, No.4, pp. 262-279.
The above pictures reflect a new trend of reading newspapers in the convergent media environment. Indeed, with the worldwide growth of the Internet and digital communication technologies, audiences now prefer smart phones and tablet computers to update information rather than newspaper, which is so very last century. But this conversion has caused a “headache” for media organizations in finding the most sustainable business models that can resolve all their current thorny problems, especially the revenue. One of these models is “charging for news” – paywalls or “charging for per online content” – micropayment. So, the question that arises here is whether these approaches will save and increase revenue for publishers or not.
Undoubtedly, the newspaper cannot be the future of media as it has all of the worst characters of old media product. The cost of publication and distribution of print version is far higher than the e-paper (available on the Internet), which is more eco-friendly as it does not need paper (resulting in the cutting of trees). Pressing ink also leads to deteriorating readership while the online news always enables readers to participate in debating, disseminating and even recreating their own contents. The increasing number of tablets and smartphones consumed reflects the gradual changes in the habit of reading of consumers, as they now prefer using digital devices for news rather than the newspaper. This reality takes the revenue of newspaper advertising to a significantly low level (Macnamara, 2010, p.21). On the basis of above reasons, I contend that the printed, home-delivered newspapers cannot be the feasible media business models for the news publishers anymore. As a result, a large number of famous organizations such as Wall Street Journal, New York Times, US Today or New York Daily News are cutting down or transferring from daily to weekly circulations with increasingly rapid pace.
Forced by this reality, many prominent media organizations have shifted their contents to the Internet with the high hopes that virtual realm would be a revenue solution for newspaper industry. But the online news are not proving to be exactly cash cows as both the online advertisement profit and “charging for online contents” approaches fail in attracting the attention and persuading readers to spend money on information which is easily available at other sources. In fact, the online users are usually an inconsistent bunch that just spends a few minutes on each article. In that case, the chances of paying attention on the messages of the advertisers by these readers are very low. This reality has completely shrunk the cost of diffusing an advertisement to thousands of online audience and is on its way to zero, as the viewers have to pay to access web sites (Farhi, 2009).
It is undeniable that there are innumerable websites that support all kinds of the updated information. In such cases, the viewers who are inconsistent and disloyal are ready to leave websites that charging for content and move on to the free ones (Farhi, 2009). Chyi and Yang (2009) affirm that even a single cent for online information also pushes the readers’ demand towards zero and encourage them to shift their choices from charging news sources to other available substitutes. This is clearly demonstrated in practice as the readership and revenue of many famous publishers such as the National Business Review and New York Times have been critically deteriorated, as they apply “pay for new” model (Macnamara, 2010, p.26-27). According to the article, ‘Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2013’ the number of people who are willing to pay is increasing, but they are very less in number. The numbers are so low because of the existence of many newspapers that do not charge for news as well as the availability of large number of high quality free news apps (Newman and Levy, 2013, p.11).
From the above analyses, one might conclude that “paying for news” is not a valid answer for the revenue problem of media organizations as the audiences are unwilling to pay for news that is available at other substitutes. But in my opinion, this conception is neither false nor completely true. It is pretty clear that the readers who always seek to maximize utility would not want to spend a single cent for general information. But, I believe that, they can loosen their purse strings for some worthy news that are suitable to their pleasure or perceived personal benefits. Greybeal and Hayes state that readers could “buy” executive, high-value online articles, which are worthy and worth paying for and also could not be found on other websites (2011, p.140).
So, in my opinion, the print version is not sufficient enough to support the survival of media organizations, especially with the boom of the newer, smarter communication technologies. They have to keep looking for other sustainable methods to gain substantial profits. According to me, one of these methods could be “paying for news” where the general news is offered for free while the deeply-investigated, deeply-social, academic contents or unique, timely news that is not available at other sources, is chargeable.
(John Stackhouse, Editor-in-Chief of the Globe and Mail, Toronto discussed The Globe’s introduction of a metered paywall to its online edition and the ways it had sought to encourage its readers to become digital subscribes).
Chyi, H. I., & Yang, M. J. (2009), ‘Is online news an inferior good? Empirically examining the economic nature of online news among users’, Journalism &Mass Communication Quarterly, 86, 594–612.
Graybeal, G. & Hayes, J. (2011), ‘A Modified News Micropayment Model for Newspapers on the Social Web’, International Journal on Media Management, Vol.13(2), pp.129-148.
Macnamara, J .(2010), ‘Remodelling Media: the Urgent Search for New Media Business Models’, Media International Australia, No.137, pp. 20-35.
Newman, N. & Levy, D. (2013), ‘Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2013’, The University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
The news of the murder of a British soldier in the streets of London on May 22, 2013, spread like fire around the world. A video clip of the incident, shot by one of the witnesses, was the first source of information for everyone. This video shows the suspects holding knives covered in blood. It was shot with a mobile phone of a man who was on his way to a job interview. This video was everywhere spread on the Internet within few minutes. In short, we can say that the man who shot the video acted as a “citizen journalist” with the assistance of the simplest mean – the mobile phone.
This case is one among the hundreds that reflect the true picture in the current media environment. The emergence of digital technologies as well as the exponential growth of the Internet and social network, have expanded unparalleled opportunities for online users – citizen journalists – to actively engage in compiling stories from mainstream media, adding further evaluation and commentary on existing news or creating sophisticated ones. The line between a journalist and a reader now seems to fade away as anyone can now work as a citizen journalist (Allan and Thorsen, 2009, p.18-19).
This participation of contemporary media users is evaluated as an important element in the case study ‘Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture’ by Mark Deuze. But on the other hand, the audience participation is not truly evaluated by online newspapers as Domingo et al’s case study (2008) proved.
In my opinion, with the arrival of digital media, the future of journalism may belong to those who use social networks. It is possible for a citizen to record an incident through his phone that can capture images and upload them on Internet within seconds but it not quite possible for any professional journalist to be present at the crisis in a fraction of a second. This argument is supported by the case study of Deuze (2006), which asserts that the Internet and social media have become a platform wherein anyone can consume, diffuse, and recirculate content. Nowadays, readers do not rely on “journalists, public relations officers, marketing communications professionals, and other professional storytellers to make sense of our world” as they are more active than ever before in narrating and disseminating their own versions of stories (Deuze, 2006, p.66).
One of the most heinous disasters of today’s times that happened on September 11th 2001 in the United States can be considered as the evidence for the role of amateur journalism in “Do it yourself” culture. In less than ten minutes after the first aeroplane crashed the World Trade Centre, many discussion forums emerged (Allan, 2011, p.224). Through these online discourses, many citizens participated, annotated, conversed, and propagated their information, video clips, and experiences they had witnessed. In fact, the information supplied by the independent online users on these forums came faster than the mainstream media.
According to Deuze, the participation of audience in the consumption, distribution and production of news is the radical element of digital media as it also contributes to democracy of society (2006, p.68). The case of “Nail House” in Southwest China can also be seen to highlight the role of citizen journalists fulfilling the gatekeeper function of the media (Xin, 2010, p.336). In this particular case, the original owners of the house were sued because they refused the compensation of a real estate company that wanted to destroy the house for a business purpose. Later, these house owners were ruled to move out from their house by the local court. This injustice encouraged a Chinese blogger, Zola Zhou, to conscientiously investigate the incident by interviewing the local residents. By adopting the role of an unbiased grassroots-blogger, Zhou not only achieved the trust of the interviewers but also hundreds of online forum participants who followed, shared, and debated on Zhou’s blog. The house disputes also attracted the attention of the government that ultimately made the appropriate mediation for both the real estate company and the house owners (Xin, 2010, p.336). In this scenario, the house owners’ would have suffered the injustice without the participation of these Internet users as the mainstream media failed to publish information.
Thus, the proliferation and the considerable role of audience participation in today’s internet-based news environment are undeniable. But, according to a recent study researching readers’ participation in 16 online newspapers, only few websites let citizens create their news stories (Domingo et al, 2008, p.333). These websites encouraged their viewers to submit audio-visual materials, offered links to social network sites, and left space for weblog but they distanced the readers from the process of selecting, filtering and deciding on the content of news. The decision making process was actually the monopoly of professionals (Domingo et al, 2008, p.334-337).
In my opinion, since the viewers have moved beyond a “parasitic” role, the professional journalists should urge enthusiastic amateurs to create their newsworthy contents by increasingly conversing, listening to, and assessing these stories at its true worth rather than just encouraging their readers to submit audience blogs and audio-visual material relating to entertainment and travel. Macnamara truly asserts that interacting with active readers and highlighting their valuable information are indispensable requests in a multimedia environment of professional journalists (2009, p.43-44). Deuze also emphasizes that media publishers should now truly evaluate and prepare for upcoming news created by grassroots journalists who now play an important role in unfolding events (Deuze, 2006, p.68).
REFERENCES:
Allan, S. and Thorsen, E., (2009) Citizen Journalism: Global Perspective, Peter Lang, New York.
Allan, S. (2010) News Culture (3rd Edition), Berkshire: Open University Press.
Deuze, M. (2006) ‘Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: Considering Principal components of a Digital culture’, The Information Society, no.22, pp63-75.
Domingo, D., Quandt, T., Heinonen, A., Paulussen, S., Singer, J., & Vujnovic, M., (2008) ‘Participatory Journalism Practices in the Media and Beyond’, Journalism Practice, pp326-342.
Macnamara, J. (2009) ‘Journalism and Public Relations: unpacking myths and stereotypes’, Australian Journalism Review, Vol 34, No.1, pp 33-50.
Xin, X. (2010) ‘The Impact of ‘Citizen Journalism’ on Chinese Media and Society’ Journalism Practice, Vol.4, No 3, pp.333-346.
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