Citizen journalism refers to any case of news gathering and reporting – piece of writing and publishing articles about a newsworthy topic , or posting photographs or video of a newsworthy event – that is done by member of the general populace rather than the professional news agencies unremarkably referred to as " mainstream medium . " Citizen news media has been in macrocosm at least since Thomas Paine wrote ego - published pamphlets like Common Sense that stoked the firing of independence in 1776 [ rootage : Glaser ] . But any conversation about citizen news media in the New geezerhood is mostly a conversation about the transformative effect of theInterneton the democratization of information .
Before the Internet , only professional journalists had access to the technology and organisational infrastructure to publish their workplace to a large consultation . If the fair citizen wanted to contribute to the tidings cycle , he or she could write a varsity letter to the editor or circularize a homemade newsprint or " zine " through the mail . But today , armed with a microcomputer and a mellow - swiftness Internet connection , perfectly anyone can share newsworthy information and sentiment with a worldwide audience .
New York University news media professor Jay Rosen offers this definition of citizen journalism : " When the mass formerly known as the consultation apply the press creature they have in their possession to inform one another , that ’s citizen journalism [ source : Rosen ] . " Thanks to technical innovations , these " press peter " now includedesktop publishing software , digital camerasandvideo camcorders , andblogging softwareand social metier entanglement web site for bring out cloth online .
recreational journalists have been responsible for a number of celebrated " scoops " in the past decade . In 2004 , a team of conservative bloggers exposed fraudulent documents used in a " 60 Minutes " story about President George W. Bush ’s military service . The controversy , hump as Rathergate , run to the firing of several CBS employees and tarnished the reputation of respected diary keeper Dan Rather , who left the web in 2006 . photograph and video shot by eyewitness during the the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami , 2005 London Tube bombing and the 2007 Virginia Tech shot also provided vivid mental imagery that land those stories home [ source : Mediabistro ] .
The salary increase of citizen news media has been controversial , because it raises the question : what does it think of to be a " professional " diarist if everyone is a journalist ? Critics of citizen journalism argue that real journalists , professional or amateur , adhere to certain standards like fact check , naming sources , research out opinion on both sides of an progeny and avoiding libelous statements [ author : Hogg ] . You do n’t need to have a degree in journalism or carry press credentials to drill these principles , but publishing a personal judgment about a politician or posting a grainy cubicle telephone video of a fame does not necessarily make you a journalist .
Interestingly , in the backwash of aggregated budget cuts to U.S. newspapers , for the most part due to the rise of the Internet as a communications putz , mainstream medium wall plug have apace ( and somewhat ironically ) moved to incorporate component of citizen news media into their word programs and publication . Cable news networkssolicit witness photos and videos of develop news stories . Newspaper newsperson write blogs and updateTwitter accounts , pay for lecturer fundamental interaction and participation . After all , if the local paper does n’t have the staff to encompass City Hall , then bloggers will step in to publicize issues that matter to local readers [ source : Stverak ] .
To learn more about media , news media and the impact of the cyberspace , see the related link on the next page .
