I don’t agree with the premise at all — citizens’ media has never been more robust or reliable — but here is a new meme beginning to make the rounds.
Shaping the Future of the Newspaper blog: Citizen journalism on its way out?
Citizen journalism is being hindered and may even be dying at the hands
of citizens themselves, a growing number of media experts believe.
Steve Boriss, associate director of the Center for the Application of
Information Technology at Washington University in St. Louis, concluded, Citizen Journalism is dead. Expert Journalism is the future. A somewhat amazing conclusion, given that his treatise focuses almost exclusively on newspaper-sanctioned citizen journalism — a very small subset of citizen journalism.
This meme presents a false choice, similar to the notion of economic vitality vs. environmentalism. As Doc Searls likes to say, it’s "or" thinking instead of "and" thinking.
In his latest column in E&P, An Important Lesson About Grassroots Media, Steve Outing writes about the lessons learned in the closing of citizen media site the Enthusiast Group. "Quality matters," he points out. (I made a similar observation in a recent entry about Web video.)
Outing’s conclusions are true enough, but he’s talking about citizen media as a business model rather than citizen media as a cultural phenomenon and as a tool to empower citizens and pursue social justice. Newspapers, alas, are rarely in that business anymore, and other sites are picking up the slack.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
It is laughable that citizen journalism is dying. We are just starting to see the beginning of it.
As communication becomes easier and more accessible, millions more people from around the world will distribute their thoughts online.
It is laughable that citizen journalism is dying. We are just starting to see the beginning of it.
As communication becomes easier and more accessible, millions more people from around the world will distribute their thoughts online.
I agree with Fred. It’s silly to think that people will ever stop citizen journalism; in these changing times, people have the ability to influence in ways that were never possible before. This is only the beginning. People will continue rely on a trusted network of citizens, their views and intelligent opinions over mass media.
I agree that citizen journalism is on the rise, but here’s the kicker: people will go (regularly) to the sources they trust, while others will be found depending on what their search engine finds. Their visits will be a combination of traditional media outlets because they have recognizable brands and citizen journalists who have proved themselves with their quality. Those who are keen to publish unsubstantiated trash—and there are a lot of citizen journalists who are unprofessional and immature, wanting to get their own back against their cruel world—may attract the few who are mentally inclined to like that stuff, but the credible news will still come from those with some authority and specialist knowledge. In other words, JD, I agree with your general position on things.