NDM News: Citizen journalism and hyper-reality

NDM News: Citizen journalism and hyper-reality

Citizen journalism and UGC (user-generated content)

1)

Examples

• 1991 Rodney King beating
• 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
• 7/7 London bombings
• 2007 Virginia Tech shooting
• 2008 Mumbai bombings
• US Airways Flight 1549

Theory (audience reception)

• Surveillance (Uses and Gratifications - Katz and Blumler) - in terms of obtaining information useful for living, we now rely on other people as well as institutions.

Benefits to institutions

• Footage of events that their professionals may not have been able to obtain can be gained for free through social media

Benefits to audience

• They become empowered in that they are not solely consumers of news but also producers of it too
• Access to news that we may not have got without things such as mobile devices
• They have the ability to access this news in places other than in the products of the institutions (e.g newspapers)

Wider issues and debates

• Potential job losses in the future for trained staff
• Influx of unmoderated content
• 'Monetarising' UGC content
• The existence of gatekeepers

SHEP

• Social - The UGC is able to bring to light injustices that we'd perhaps be unaware about without it
• Historical - As early as 1991 with the recording of the Rodney King beating, UGC has been becoming more prominent 
• Economical - It's cheaper for news corporations to obtain footage that's been user-generated but at the same time, there could be less profit for them since less trained journalists will be likely to be employed (crowd sourcing)
• Political - The rawness of UGC in comparison to connent from institutions can be said to make it less susceptible to political bias

2)

Citizen journalism - the collection, dissemination, and analysis of news and information by the general public, especially by means of the Internet.

3)

One of the first examples of citizen journalism was with the Rodney King beatings in 1991. George Holliday, from his apartment window, filmed the beating from his video camera resulting not only in four of the police officers that were in the video being charged with use of excessive force and assault, but also in six days of riots where 53 people died.

4)

• Comments sections
• Polls
• Chatrooms
• Social network accounts

5)

One of the main differences between professionally shot footage and UGC is that the latter of the 2 captures events essentially exactly as they happen. Professionally shot footage on the other hand, goes through processes (mediation) which make it 'appropriate' for consumption by mass audiences which detracts from this idea of rawness that UGC has.

6)

Gatekeeping - process through which information is filtered for dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication.

7)

The role of a gatekeeper has changed in that stories can now be posted without an institution having to be behind it. While in the past news publishers were required for a story to become quite notable, things like social networks render gatekeepers less influential then they once were.

8)

One of the primary concerns held by journalists is that the need for trained staff at news organisations is decreasing. The idea of crowd sourcing is becoming more prominent where a small amount of staff 'gatekeep' content from citizen journalists which reduces the need for having large number of actual trained journalists.

9)

• News stories - new/digital media is making it so that news stories also cover events that are chronicled through citizen journalism from a local standpoint. Not only this, but videos relating to popular events recorded by citizen journalists may be used to form parts of stories too e.g. police brutality in the USA
• The news agenda - I believe that the stories that make up the news, as a result of citizen journalism, will perhaps become more hard-hitting and impactful on audiences
• The role of professionals in news - this is without a doubt going to be consistently on the decrease as not only will news corporations be cutting down on their amount of workers, but just in general audiences are becoming producers of news on a larger than ever seen before scale

Hyper-reality and the digital renaissance

1)

Examples

• Cinema
• Television
• Internet
• Social networks
• Skype

Theories

• Baudrillard: state of hyperreality exists, where our reality is based upon the reality presented to us through the media.

Positive aspects of new technology (or 'digital renaissance')

• It's effective in reinforcing traditional structures of society and culture regardless of the hyperreality that's been created

Negative aspects of new technology on audiences and society

• 'Society alienated from itself'
• With the increasing prominence of the internet, both humanity and morality are losing their places in society

Wider issues and debates

• Postmodern culture
• Moral stance

2)

• Twitter
• Snapchat
• Instagram

3)

They fit in, in that they again like social networks will change the way that we think about society an culture. It could be perceived as a force for good in that they allow people to report on notable things live as they happen with a key highlight of this being the shooting of Philando Castile. They could be said though, to only contribute to blurring the lines of reality which is something that be seen as recently as last month where a live stream was shown of the battle for Mosul in which emojis could be seen 'flashing across a warzone.'

4)

Personally, I believe that citizen journalism is contributing to help news depict a more accurate version of reality. The only way hyperreality could begin to crop up from it is if processes of mediation began being applied to it.