NDM News: Citizen journalism and hyper-reality

1) Create a blogpost where you make notes from the article under the following headings: 

Examples

• In 1991, Rodney King was beat and tasered by 4 police officers which was recorded by George Holliday and sparked the reaction of 6 days of riots
• On the 5th July 2005; there were bombings taking place in London which influenced mainstream news agendas due to having pure footage which was unedited and thus had a truer perception of what had actually happened.

Theory

Media is unregulated due to individuals posting it without going through an editorial process which causes crowd sourcing.

Benefits to the insitutions include access to other people's news which could be redistributed online by other institutions

Benefits to the audience include that they can be active in the mediation process and that they are getting a more honest version of the news due to being unedited.

2) What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?
A citizen journalist is quite self explanatory- it is when a regular, non-professional citizen or civillian documents an event that occurred and publishes/shares their version of accounts for the public to see. Other terms for this include 'grassroots journalists' or'accidental journalists' 

3) What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?

The Rodney King case which was recorded by George Halliday

4) List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.
Comments section, private messages and forums.

5) What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?

6) What is a gatekeeper?
A gatekeeper is someone or a group of indidivudal swho make decisions regarding what is to be broadcast and what is or isn't relevant. These are the people who decide what we as an audience are exposed to via the news.

7) How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?

It tends not to occur in NDM but still tends to remain regarding television and print broadcasting.

8) What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?

The fact that journalists are unaccredited and can also lose their jobs as a result of the UGC process. Also the idea that irrelevant information may be broadcast.

9) Offer your own opinion (critical autonomy) on the following:

What impact is new/digital media having on:

• news stories- I think that NDM has so far a negative impact on news stories from the isntitutions' perspective but a positive one from that of the audience. Forinsitutions, this has led to redudancy of journalists as their professionalism in the field of journalism goes seemingly unnoticed. It is as if regular unqalified people are unintentionally stealing their jobs due to citizen journalism. Regarding their actual content, they are unaccredited and often don't receive a fair share of the little revenue that may be produced as a result of their report findings. As fior audiences, NDM has had a positive effect as information is more widely and freely available to them and also at little to no cost to them.

• the news agenda (the choice of stories that make up the news) - This has ruined the agenda because there is now no selection process by the leaders of the world on what information is and isn't exposed. This is a positive thing for audiences who are more in touch with reality. However, it could also cause conspiracies theories regarding the government and as a result, alter audiences' perception of political events that occur within the economy.

• the role of professionals in news - There now seems to be less pf a barrier between professional news and citizen journalism as people don't seem to appreciate the professional news any more. This is because they are exposed to a wider range of material that doesn't necessarily have to be presented "professionally", as long as the message gets out there.