Citizen Journalism Post

• Beyond a simple definition, what are the implications? What might be good, what might be bad?

This is a kind of journalism that is written and produced by the average citizen. It is an off-brand kind of journalism, where the reporting could be coming from your best friend and not a news anchor talking about the wars happening in Lebanon. The media that is used is a mix of social media and websites. The reason why this came to be was because of these few reasons, according to ivint.org: 

• Rising lack of trust in traditional media

• Greater coverage on minor issues

• Less censorship in certain areas

• Highlighting and providing a diverse range of voices and perspectives

• Enabling young people to voice more progressive viewpoints

The implications of this is that these people are typical eye witnesses of a scene. It would be as simple as someone recording a burning building, but the person recording does not have any degree in journalism and was just someone in the neighborhood. The good of this is that people on social media can see what is happening in real time, however this information is almost never accurate. This has brought journalistic companies into a swirl of disaster trying to discern. In an article on  Brittanicia, it states that, "Traditional news media, while battling declining readership and viewership, leapt into fray with their own websites and blogs by their own journalists." This further elaborates that news organizations and journalists could lose their money to the average person just posting some random video on Twitter, that gains more traction than a news organization on the TV. Another article called Tate.org.uk discusses how the internet brings a bunch of new waves of information, but we are not only the recipients of that, but now the creators. 

- How might it affect society as a whole?  

This affected society as a whole when John F Kennedy got assassinated and the moments of that happening was caught on camera, but some guy who just so happened to be recording. There is an active website that is still trying to discover what happened on this day. An article called, The JFK Files is actively recruiting citizen journalists to take what information they have and give it to them via google form. 

How might it affect different segments differently — rich/poor, old/young, male/female, gay/straight, majority/minority?

This will overall end up affecting different segments of life by letting the more poor people have access to reporting and maybe even give them the creative ability to potentially make a living out of it themselves. This goes for any kind of person no matter who they are. The common phrase is "anyone can be a reporter". The major impact this would eventually have on people is that they fall in love with reporting and eventually land a career in it, like how a few reporters, such as: Robert Macneil and Jim Lehrer. 

- How might it affect society as a whole?  

This affected society as a whole when John F Kennedy got assassinated and the moments of that happening was caught on camera, but some guy who just so happened to be recording. There is an active website that is still trying to discover what happened on this day. An article called, The JFK Files is actively recruiting citizen journalists alts to take what information they have and give it to them via google form. 

How might it affect different segments differently — rich/poor, old/young, male/female, gay/straight, majority/minority?

This will overall end up affecting different segments of life by letting the more poor people have access to reporting and maybe even give them the creative ability to potentially make a living out of it themselves. This goes for any kind of person no matter who they are. The common phrase is "anyone can be a reporter". The major impact this would eventually have on people is that they fall in love with reporting and eventually land a career in it, like how a few reporters, such as: Robert Macneil and Jim Lehrer. 

How might it affect you? Your family and friends? Your generation?

This will affect our generation of society wanting to create their now news outlets to discuss topics that the larger media companies are failing to cover. This debate has been going on for over a decade now and the rise of social media and technology makes it so much easier for anyone, no matter how old or young, to document and report on things happening around them. There is a difference between this and people who are a part of non-profit newspaper organizations, pursuing journalism at a college level degree. The main takeaway from this is that these are people around us or that we talk to on a day to day basis. My parents could be documenting on things in a local sense. One day, I feel like our generation will eventually be overtaken by some of these blogs, despite them not be 100% credible, but at the same time will be more to human interest due to their easy accessibility, no subscription and no hiding or scamming people out of knowing the truth.