How the Professional Journalists Can Raise the Standard of Citizen Journalism - Literature review Example

Abstract The aim of this paper was to analyses how professional journalists can raise the standard of citizen journalism. Before addressing the same the paper applied the theoretical concepts of public sphere and culture, power & transformation so as to see what drove the public away from the institutionalised media. The paper found out that the traditional media is a gatekeeper and have moved from tackling real concerns to personal issues. Further it found out that the public is highly diversified, in apathy and not willing to engage in public sphere. This is now giving the citizen journalism which is participatory an edge over them. To know what is to be improved, the paper reversed the question and looked at what traditional journalism aims to attain. These include quality and constant information. To overcome the challenges associated with traditional media and addresses quality concerns like rumours so as to improve citizen journalism, the key is to take the lead and incorporate the same in traditional media. This would imply professional journalists having twitter handle and taking the lead while allowing public to channel information through them or contribute to a topic in contention. The connection established out of this is that it is significant to remove the public from the apathetic condition through cultural reproduction so that they can engage actively in public sphere, but through institutionalised arrangement. The last would be to fragment objectively so as to cater for diverse audience. How the Professional Journalists can raise the Standard of Citizen Journalism 1.0 Introduction The advancement in information and communication technology has revolutionised how people communicate and pass news (Marsico, 2010, p.967).The end result is the growth of what is known as online community (Elgin, 2006). The one greatest impact that aligns with journalism and media is the growth of social and micro-blogging sites. The concept has brought a new paradigm where news for public domain is passed through individualised platform rather than the tradition institutionalised media. Silver (2009, p. 143) indicates that the future of the sites is quite bright. Individuals find it as an exciting and cheap way to keep in touch with friends and disburse information. The astonishing fact is that nowadays, mainstream media at a time uses the same platform to acquire and disburse news. The case example is when media houses rely on amateur videos to break news (Hermida, 2010, p.300). The subsequent discourse aims at interrogating secondary resources backed up with individual knowledge so as to show how the professional journalist can raise the standards of citizen journalism on twitter. 2.0 Contextualising Citizen Journalism Professions have different ways of explaining concepts and phenomenon in their fields. Before contextualising the concept of citizen journalism, it is important explore the term and see how it has grown. To explain the term citizen journalism, Markham (2011, p.2) cites Pickard (2008), Allan (2006) and Gillmor (2004). In their definition they see it as active engagement of public as non professional actors in media production. The three respectively see it as political, public and civic indulgence. Hermida (2010, p.298) sees the same as a collective intelligence. Moreover, Sunstein (2006, p. 219 cited in Hermida, 2010, p.298) understands it as a new media that allows one to “obtain immediate access to information held by all or at least most, and in which each person can instantly add to that knowledge’’ . The essence then is public who are unprofessional in journalism participating in disseminating news outside the established institutions (Hermida, 2010, p.299). To assert the importance of social networking media to citizen journalism, research indicates that the number of people visiting social networking sites is growing at a rapid rate. In 2006 for instance the number of people visiting 10 social network sites grew from 46.8 million people to 68.8 million in a period of one year (Bausch & Han, nd,). A 2009 survey indicated 770 million people visited these sites (OECD, 2010, p.36). In addition, the former, projected that their growth is not likely to wither years to come but rather it will become entrenched into the mainstream sites. To understand the growth of citizen journalism, the paper looks at it from two perspectives. The first is the growth of information technology; and human beings as rational people are likely to take advantage of the opportunities presented. Hayek (1979, p.15 cited in Hermida, 2010, p.298) contextualises this argument as he states that ignorance can be overcome not by more knowledge, but by knowledge that is widely dispersed among people. Social Networking Sites are web-based services which enable people to construct either public or semi-public profile within a system that is bounded in nature from where they are able to connect and share information. As such a social networking site could be described as a computer-mediated communication site or system (Boyd & Ellison, 2008, p.210). There are hundreds of Social Networking Sites around the world with varied interfaces and technological features encompassing a variety of practices as well as interests. Some of the most commonly known social networking sites include Facebook, You Tube, BlackPlanet, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo as well as Cyworld among others. These Social Networking Sites have millions of users whom have integrated them into their daily practices. These new media technology offers huge potential as exemplified by Twitter. Vascellero (2009 cited in Hermida, 2010, p.298) notes that by April 2008 to April 2009 twitter subscribers had rose from 1.6 million to 32.1 million users. The major worry by most professional journalists about citizen media is the issue of accuracy and rumours (Hermida, 2010, p.299). Markham (2011, p.2) postulates two critical points that can be critical used as entry point of analysing the growth and strengthening of citizen journalism in social media and blogs. To quote he posits that “the emergence of citizen journalism and blogging as normalised practices represents a partial transition in the field of cultural production from institutional to individual production”. Thus, the first theoretical framework of understanding citizen journalism is citizen journalism as an indication of cultural reproduction. The second is where he hypothesizes that citizen journalism has potentially dangerous information. This is tied to the fact that journalism aims at advancing truth based on the fact that “power is all-pervasive, intractable, and constitutive rather than restrictive – that is, it produces will rather than thwarting it” (p.4). The next theoretical framework that can be used to conceptually understand citizen journalism is public sphere context. The model has been analysed in two perspectives. The first is the diminishing urge to participate in public affairs as a result of private matters which have become more domineering. On the other hand, it seen that the interest of public has increased as result of the urge to shape their destiny under the concept of participatory democracy (Mckee, 2005, p.1). The tying point for the two framing theories and urge for participation which drives the debate between citizen journalism and institutional media is norms and values as entrenched in the traditional institutional media (Hermida, 2010, p.299). The second being the underlying premise of journalism which is to provide up to date, gathered selected and edited information in an institutionalised and professional manner (Hermida, 2010, p.300). 3.0 Citizen Journalism in the Context of Public Sphere and Culture, Power & Reproduction 3.1 Public Sphere and Citizen Journalism From the contextual literature outlined above, then citizen journalism is framed from the perspective of public sphere model and culture, power & reproduction theory. While talking of the two factors used to frame the topic in contention, the public sphere concept aims at showing that it is in the belief that public should participate in reshaping their societies as an epitome of democracy (Mckee, 2005, p.1). Consequently this urge can be seen out of the fact the traditional domain is bureaucratic and a preserve of few. Thus, the peripheral group which are not in the core have to opt for a different platform where their voices can be heard. Farhi (2009 cited in Hermida, 2010, p.300) calls the concept gate keeping role of journalism whereby through institutional arrangement, what is relayed to public is determined the journalists themselves. Public sphere does not exist as physical entity, but rather academia creation so as to answer how people engage in public and social issues. To provide insightful definition on the same Mckee (2010, p.4 cites Habermas, 1997, p.105) who states that public sphere is “A domain of our social life where such a thing as public opinion can be formed [where] citizens ... deal with matters of general interest without being subject to coercion ... [to] express and publicize their views”. The essence here is a platform where public can engage in exchange of ideas and interrogate public information so as to shape their society. This concept becomes more interesting in modern society where new means of disbursing information and news has become significant. This is coupled by the belief that the social fabric is becoming fragmented with the advent of modernism as people become isolated and in need of self of actualisation instead of public interest. Mckee (2010, p.2) offers four point trivial questions that are applicable to the debate of public journalism. The same trivial questions will be used to answer how -if seen in a different perspective can improve journalism on twitter. The first observation he makes is that the content presented by the mainstream media is currently fragmented, commercialised and trivialised leading to lethargy among the public. In the belief of responding to demand driven publication, the traditional media has fallen into the trap thereby ending publishing unimportant news about personal lives of celebrities. Hence, the connection that one can build from this observation is that the packaging has driven the public away from the mainstream media into new media so as to engage in public sphere environment. Secondly, Mckee (2010, p.2) observes that the quality of materials presented to public domain has significantly deteriorated with their main aim being financial growth. From this argument, the picture that one can build from the rational consumer is that one is likely to switch the allegiance from mainstream media that does not appreciate the need to deliver public interest content to new media where they are able to input what they feel should be presented outside the controlled system. On the other hand, he presents a different angle that contrasts the later two points. He notes that “public culture is too spectacular. Audiences have short attention spans. They only want flashy visuals and superficial distractions - not serious, in-depth discussions about important issues. People do not read enough - they are passive couch potatoes in front of the media”. This then allows an individual to postulate that as result of their inactiveness, they have resorted in new media platform where contents are not filtered. The next interesting discourse that Mckee (2010, p.3) advances is the fear that public culture is facing segmentation at alarming rate. The blame for fragmentation is pointed towards the diverse needs of public in terms of content. The argument states that the unified national culture that countries used enjoy is diminishing or one can’t be sure if the same is enjoyed by others. The ramification of this can then be understood from the paradigm of dominance and segregation, to cater for their personalised needs people resorted to platforms that unite them with a common denominator. This is why it is common to have people following different personalities and other societal concerns as a result of cultural diversification. Media (2002: np) cited in Mckee (2010, p.3) notes that media is to blame for the public apathy. Moreover he notes that no one wants to take responsibility about the same. Can it then be postulated that out of the apathy people have to be dynamic enough to find a new platform of articulating their issues? 3.2 Citizen Journalism, Cultural Reproduction & Structure Problem The next context of understanding the growth of new media informs of citizen journalism and the traditional institutionalised journalism is the framework of power, culture and reproduction. Bourdieu cited in Swartz (1997, p.6) advances a critical thinking by building a nexus between culture, social structure and action. The reality is that culture is a powerful tool that can transform the social action of individual or group. This can be seen as a soft power that transform or restricts population that ascribes to the same to certain boundaries. The theme of his study rotates on how culture reproduces individuals. From this one can deduce a number of connections in relation to the norms and value of quality and constant reporting. The next important development is out of the concept of agency of structure problem. The main question is what shapes human behaviour. The answer to this can be answered from the externality perspective where the actions of an individual are shaped by external factors. These factors include mode of production and social structure. In addition to the later, a perspective of own identifiable reasons can be drawn (Swartz, 1997, p.8). From these two literary works, we can deduce certain point of view. The first deduction is that is cultural reproduction responsible for citizen journalism as result of traditional media failures driven by concept of gate keeping and preserving the powers that exist or as result of apathy. 4.0 Analysis and Discussions According to Croft, James and Crause (2010, p. 10), the development of the social sites is based on the need for man to express his inborn social status. Therefore, the wide arrays of the services available in the social sites are largely determined by its structure. The site includes nodes and graphics that are interrelated and therefore help to link up different people in different locations. Individuals as well as business organizations find these sites quite beneficial. The important trait of users who are important and thus forms the area of improvement is those who use it share information and reporting news (Hermida, 2010, p.299). The aim of this section is provide on how the standards of citizen journalism on twitter can be enhanced. The norms and value of traditional journalism is to give a chronological account of happenings in images, video and writing with guaranteed quality and accuracy. This means that for professional journalist to enhance the content of citizen journalism (veracity and validity) he or she has to align it with the value and norms as stated later (Hermida, 2010, p.299). In addressing raised standards in citizen journalism two critical factors emerge as outline in the theoretical frameworks. The first would be to redefine the role of journalism in attracting public back to be engaged in public sphere in an institutionalised manner, but without the gate keeping role. As way of achieving this point, the ultimate goal would be to get involved in twitter platform so that others draw their subsequent news from the institutionalised media houses. This would reduce the apathy that has been associated with the traditional media that had driven people to individualised and collective production outside the media institutions production. The subsequently lies with how do professional journalists ensure that new is transmitted through institutionalised platforms rather than collective or individual efforts. The first is to be proactive in the process. Media houses and journalists have taken this initiative of being in twitter and other social media platforms (Hermida, 2010, p.299). The end result would be creation of culture that shapes people to channel news through the expected format. However, this calls for media houses to regain their lost glory of being investigative and authentic rather than focusing on personal issues of celebrities, gate keepers of the influential and reporting constantly as envision in the norms and values of traditional media. While there is fear from the sceptical lot in the media fraternity, I think this is the best way to go. Tung (2001, p.40) citing Darwin indicates that it is not the strongest that survives, but that which is able to adapt to change. The next way of improving citizen journalism is derived from the concern of media practitioners because of the possibility to spread rumours and inaccurate information which would otherwise not be tolerated in mainstream institutionalised media (Hermida, 2010, p.299). while at a time the citizen media has played a critical role in urgent reporting and breaking news especially in areas where democracies are not well embraced or in time of emergency, one would ask why such a demand from the sector. The answer means that the competitor sic institutionalised media failed to respond to certain dynamics. Allan (2006 cited in Markham, 2011, p.5) outlines the challenge to be answered by institutionalised media whereby he posits that the like of wiki news has shown that “no individual’s perspective on events is uniquely accurate, and the highest ‘truth’ is produced through the synthesis of a maximum number of authors”. The first is the segregation and apathy that has slowly crept in and bureaucracies associated with the same. This implies the fact that there is need to balance the need for edited materials so as to fulfil the legal and social obligations, but when need also requires there is need to present the facts as it was. In tandem with the discourse in the immediate above paragraph, attaining what Allan (2006 cited in Markham, 2011, p.5) calls as maximum number of authors as the guarantors of truth, professional journalists should build their own blogs, and twitter handles where they can interact with the audience. This implies that he or she as a professional journalist will have those who are following him or her and can post story on her or his board/ page. The beauty of this approach is the ability to elicit mixed reactions from the followers of the professional journalist who can then edit the same information and present it in a professional manner. Moreover, the same concept can be applied to media houses as a corporate entity. The simple key to attaining this is in line with the two theoretical discussions. The first is having a culture that ropes back public back into public sphere domain and addressing the unique needs of the diverse society. This would imply being issue driven, transparent and having contact points that are friendly to citizen journalists. Closely related to taking lead initiative as a proactive means by dictating the tempo of what is expected, is segmentation of the content so as to cater for different segments of consumers. In the literature it is noted that the public has become segment as result of numerous cultures. As a journalist one can’t claim to be knowledgeable in all areas. The basic then is to have sub domains that cater for the wide interest of the public. In designing twitter handles for engaging in public discourse the overriding theme shouldn’t be personality based, but content based. This will allow for people interested in the same to join the conversation or contribute to the same. 5.0 Conclusion The aim of the paper was to examine how professional journalist can raise the standard of citizen journalism on twitter. The areas that paper found out should be addressed by the professional journalists so as to improve the level of citizen journalism is accuracy, validity, real time and quality. However, this can’t be addressed in isolation. Factors that are driving public away from institutionalised media to individual and collective production outside theirs should be addressed. The emerging solution as advocated for in the analysis and discussion is for professional journalist to advance two point approaches. The first is direct participation through the platform of twitter so as to rope those outside their fold. This would mean using the same platform so as to cater the online community. But, before catering for this population would be prudent to address what drove these populations away into online community. The essence is to advance a demand driven approach where they have to reinvent their role in public sphere to reduce apathy. The tool to advance this argument would be as advocated for by Bourdieu. The answer is to have a strong cultural process from the professional journalists. Secondly, under the first approach, the basis is to fragment according the numerous demands of public and maintain the norms and values of the traditional media of consistent quality of reporting. References Bausch, S., and Han L. Nd. Social Networking sites Grow 47 Percent, Year over Year, Reaching 45 Percent of Web Users, According to Nielsedn//Netratings. Retrieved on 19 October, 2012 from: www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_060511.pdf. Croft, D. P., James, R. and Crause J. 2010. Exploring Animal Social Networks. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Elgin, B. 2006. Yahoo’s Social Circle. BusinessWeek Online, 23 Jan. Retrieved on 19October, 2012 from:http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?sid=1e1d7df7-7790-4a2c-b046-c4bf42407980%40sessionmgr115&vid=2&hid=121&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=bth&AN=19582224. Hermida, A. 2010. Twittering the News. Journalism Practice, 4:3, pp. 297-308. Markham, T. 2011. Hunched over their laptops: phenomenological perspectives on citizen journalism. Review of Contemporary Philosophy 10, pp. 150-164. ISSN 1841-5261. Marsico, E. M. 2010. Social Networking Websites: are MySpace and Facebook the Fingerprints of the Twenty-First Century? Widener Law Journal 19 (1): 967-976. Mckee, A. 2005. The Public Sphere: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OECD. 2010. The Economic and Social Role of Internet Intermediaries. Retrieved on 19 October, 2012 from: www.oecd.org/dataoecd/49/4/44949023.pdf. Silver, D., 2009. The Social Network Business Plan: 18 Strategies That Will Create Great Wealth. New Jersey, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Swartz, D. 1997. Culture and Power : The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. ISBN 0226785947 Chapter 1 pp.1-14. Tung, R. L. 2001. Learning from world class companies. London: Cengage Learning. Read More

The case example is when media houses rely on amateur videos to break news (Hermida, 2010, p.300). The subsequent discourse aims at interrogating secondary resources backed up with individual knowledge so as to show how the professional journalist can raise the standards of citizen journalism on twitter. 2.0 Contextualising Citizen Journalism Professions have different ways of explaining concepts and phenomenon in their fields. Before contextualising the concept of citizen journalism, it is important explore the term and see how it has grown.

To explain the term citizen journalism, Markham (2011, p.2) cites Pickard (2008), Allan (2006) and Gillmor (2004). In their definition they see it as active engagement of public as non professional actors in media production. The three respectively see it as political, public and civic indulgence. Hermida (2010, p.298) sees the same as a collective intelligence. Moreover, Sunstein (2006, p. 219 cited in Hermida, 2010, p.298) understands it as a new media that allows one to “obtain immediate access to information held by all or at least most, and in which each person can instantly add to that knowledge’’ .

The essence then is public who are unprofessional in journalism participating in disseminating news outside the established institutions (Hermida, 2010, p.299). To assert the importance of social networking media to citizen journalism, research indicates that the number of people visiting social networking sites is growing at a rapid rate. In 2006 for instance the number of people visiting 10 social network sites grew from 46.8 million people to 68.8 million in a period of one year (Bausch & Han, nd,).

A 2009 survey indicated 770 million people visited these sites (OECD, 2010, p.36). In addition, the former, projected that their growth is not likely to wither years to come but rather it will become entrenched into the mainstream sites. To understand the growth of citizen journalism, the paper looks at it from two perspectives. The first is the growth of information technology; and human beings as rational people are likely to take advantage of the opportunities presented. Hayek (1979, p.15 cited in Hermida, 2010, p.298) contextualises this argument as he states that ignorance can be overcome not by more knowledge, but by knowledge that is widely dispersed among people.

Social Networking Sites are web-based services which enable people to construct either public or semi-public profile within a system that is bounded in nature from where they are able to connect and share information. As such a social networking site could be described as a computer-mediated communication site or system (Boyd & Ellison, 2008, p.210). There are hundreds of Social Networking Sites around the world with varied interfaces and technological features encompassing a variety of practices as well as interests.

Some of the most commonly known social networking sites include Facebook, You Tube, BlackPlanet, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo as well as Cyworld among others. These Social Networking Sites have millions of users whom have integrated them into their daily practices. These new media technology offers huge potential as exemplified by Twitter. Vascellero (2009 cited in Hermida, 2010, p.298) notes that by April 2008 to April 2009 twitter subscribers had rose from 1.6 million to 32.1 million users. The major worry by most professional journalists about citizen media is the issue of accuracy and rumours (Hermida, 2010, p.299). Markham (2011, p.2) postulates two critical points that can be critical used as entry point of analysing the growth and strengthening of citizen journalism in social media and blogs.

To quote he posits that “the emergence of citizen journalism and blogging as normalised practices represents a partial transition in the field of cultural production from institutional to individual production”. Thus, the first theoretical framework of understanding citizen journalism is citizen journalism as an indication of cultural reproduction.

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