Theory
Mark Glaser, a freelance journalist who frequently writes on new media issues, said in 2006:
The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as YouTube.
In What is Participatory Journalism?, J. D. Lasica classifies media for citizen journalism into the following types:
- Audience participation (such as user comments attached to news stories, personal blogs, photos or video footage captured from personal mobile cameras, or local news written by residents of a community)
- Independent news and information Websites (Consumer Reports, the Drudge Report)
- Full-fledged participatory news sites (NowPublic, OhmyNews, DigitalJournal.com, GroundReport, fairobserver )
- Collaborative and contributory media sites (Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Newsvine)
- Other kinds of "thin media." (mailing lists, email newsletters)
- Personal broadcasting sites (video broadcast sites such as KenRadio).
New media theorist Terry Flew states that there are three elements "critical to the rise of citizen journalism and citizen media": open publishing, collaborative editing and distributed content.
Read more about this topic: Citizen Journalism
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“By the “mud-sill” theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be—all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly.... Free labor insists on universal education.”
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