In her article titled Citizen Journalism and the Reporter’s Privilege , Professor Mary-Rose Papandrea states how citizen journalism has existed in America for a long time.The First Ammendement’s ‘freedom of press’ actually means “freedom to publish using a printing press, rather than the freedom of organized entities engaged in the publishing business”. Newspapers were seen as more of a tool to express views than to gather news by printers for financial gain. (Wikipedia, 2007)
Newspapers being used for citizen journalism for decades is encouraging but this brings to mind the evolution of some individuals who have more power and influence over the rest of the public.
Newspapers being used for citizen journalism for decades is encouraging but this brings to mind the evolution of some individuals who have more power and influence over the rest of the public.
Dan Gillmor points out an interesting fact that only certain priviledged individuals have the ability to influence or even control what prominent newspapers like “The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post” publish (Gillmor, 2004). Like we do not have clutter in the form of unwanted advertisements to deal with. This notion of controlling information is indeed scary as it depicts a world in which a powerful few help the key to everyone else’s mind.
Media has a tendency to exaggerate reality in order to bring in the big bucks.The conflict in Middle East brings to mind the persuasive effects of the media.The Palestine media constantly portrays its enemies as the bad guys while they are the good guys. This is the same for the Israeli media
However,citizen journalism,like blogs, allows people to listen or see both sides of story before they judge the issue for themselves. An analogy can be drawn to a book I am currently reading pertaining to the Israeli-Palestine conflict,titled “We just want to live here”. Amal Rifa’i ,a Palestinian, and Odelia Ainbinder,an Israeli, met on a student exchange program in Switzerland in 2000.However,they lost contact after the Intifada broke out a few weeks after their return. Sylke Temple,a longtime Middle Eastern correspondent, wished to show the perspective of the young people affected by the conflict.He came to know of these two females from Jerusalem and encouraged them to develop their friendship through letters. . The letters show the differing views of two ordinary,opinionated and open minded female teenagers. The walls of misunderstandings, perceived sterotypes and cultural differences they have of each other and of each other’s nations ,crumbles down as the days go by (A,O,S, 2003).Similarily,citizen journalism have more value than what is merely reported in the news media.
I am not a user of STOMP so for this assignment I decided(or should I say I had to) to take a look at the website. My initial impression was “I am not impressed”. In addition,many governement bodies are “friends of STOMP” in one sees at the end of the home page. I assume they are the sponsors of the website. I later learned that STOMP is an extension of the Straits Time.This undermines the credibility of the website and its efforts to bring in sousveillance.STOMP just seems to be another way authorities can keep an eye on the public. People may be hesistant or even fearful to post something controversial yet true as it might anger the authorities.It seems rather superficial th
at there is citizen journalism in ST Foodies Club and Singapore Seen, while the real issues that affect us like politics or freedom of speech are not allowed for public scrutiny. This brings to mind a question. What is the real purpose of STOMP? To allow the public to voice its opinions or to merely seem so?
Media has a tendency to exaggerate reality in order to bring in the big bucks.The conflict in Middle East brings to mind the persuasive effects of the media.The Palestine media constantly portrays its enemies as the bad guys while they are the good guys. This is the same for the Israeli media
However,citizen journalism,like blogs, allows people to listen or see both sides of story before they judge the issue for themselves. An analogy can be drawn to a book I am currently reading pertaining to the Israeli-Palestine conflict,titled “We just want to live here”. Amal Rifa’i ,a Palestinian, and Odelia Ainbinder,an Israeli, met on a student exchange program in Switzerland in 2000.However,they lost contact after the Intifada broke out a few weeks after their return. Sylke Temple,a longtime Middle Eastern correspondent, wished to show the perspective of the young people affected by the conflict.He came to know of these two females from Jerusalem and encouraged them to develop their friendship through letters. . The letters show the differing views of two ordinary,opinionated and open minded female teenagers. The walls of misunderstandings, perceived sterotypes and cultural differences they have of each other and of each other’s nations ,crumbles down as the days go by (A,O,S, 2003).Similarily,citizen journalism have more value than what is merely reported in the news media.
I am not a user of STOMP so for this assignment I decided(or should I say I had to) to take a look at the website. My initial impression was “I am not impressed”. In addition,many governement bodies are “friends of STOMP” in one sees at the end of the home page. I assume they are the sponsors of the website. I later learned that STOMP is an extension of the Straits Time.This undermines the credibility of the website and its efforts to bring in sousveillance.STOMP just seems to be another way authorities can keep an eye on the public. People may be hesistant or even fearful to post something controversial yet true as it might anger the authorities.It seems rather superficial th
at there is citizen journalism in ST Foodies Club and Singapore Seen, while the real issues that affect us like politics or freedom of speech are not allowed for public scrutiny. This brings to mind a question. What is the real purpose of STOMP? To allow the public to voice its opinions or to merely seem so?In the article “We The Media”,it is mentioned how Majority leader Trent Lott had to step down after how voiced out his support for Republican Senator Strom Thurmond. Lott was not condemning the Senator but actually complementing him. He fel
t USA would better off if Thurmond “had won”. Thurmond ran for President in 1948.At that time, he was proposing a plan that advocated maintaining the racial divide among the people. The news media hardly commented about the racist remark by Lott. Citizen journalism stepped in (literally) to give a piece of their mind regarding the remark. The influx citizen journalists caused the entire issue to be headlined in the mainstream media days later. This caused Lott his resignation (Gillmor, 2004).. Can this happen here? A majority leader forced to step down because of bloggers? You wish! Only when STOMP gives the public this option, then only it can be considered an ideal form of citizen journalism.
References
t USA would better off if Thurmond “had won”. Thurmond ran for President in 1948.At that time, he was proposing a plan that advocated maintaining the racial divide among the people. The news media hardly commented about the racist remark by Lott. Citizen journalism stepped in (literally) to give a piece of their mind regarding the remark. The influx citizen journalists caused the entire issue to be headlined in the mainstream media days later. This caused Lott his resignation (Gillmor, 2004).. Can this happen here? A majority leader forced to step down because of bloggers? You wish! Only when STOMP gives the public this option, then only it can be considered an ideal form of citizen journalism.References
Gillmor, D (2004,July ). Retrieved March 30, 2007, from We the Media:Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People Web site: http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html#chap7
2007,28 March). Citizen Journalism. Retrieved March 30, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Citizen_journalism&oldid=118429022
Rifa'i,Ainbinder,Tempel, A,O,S (2003). We Just Want To Live Here. New york,NY: St. Martin's Griffin.
2007,28 March). Citizen Journalism. Retrieved March 30, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Citizen_journalism&oldid=118429022
Rifa'i,Ainbinder,Tempel, A,O,S (2003). We Just Want To Live Here. New york,NY: St. Martin's Griffin.
No comments:
Post a Comment