What are the pleasures and pains of citizen journalism? I'm not sure whether this is from the point of view of the narrator or narratee [1]. I assume since we are talking about the prod-user [2], it's both. For the person writing or shooting video it would be exciting to be in the middle of a news worthy story and be able to send that on immediately to virtually, the world. The pain in that would come if you happened to be in the middle of a tragedy, natural disaster or dangerous situation. What do you capture? Personal suffering? Death, blood, violence? Where do you draw the line? I'm sure professional journalists have to deal with this every day but what rules are there for the citizen journalist? Are there any? [3]
For the person accessing "non professional" journalism there may be a vicarious pleasure in viewing or reading an event that hasn't hit the news yet and hasn't been filtered by traditional mass media regulations. But how do you know if it's true? Traditional news has to verify its sources and is supposed to remain fairly neutral. Is it possible for a citizen journalist to do this? When you tell a story, don't you usually put your own spin on it? How much of a story you tell can you prove?
We've blogged here before about "news worthy" media events. I agree that the rules and specifications seem rather vague as to what constitutes a true media event [4]. I don't believe celebrity malfunctions fit into the same category as national elections and human suffering. Perhaps someone should tell Stewart M. Hoover [4].
Personally, I can't imagine a world without traditional media. I love my IPod and Kindle but you can't design for a digital album and I can't fathom reading my Communication Arts on a little 5 x 7" screen or on my laptop. What would I watch during breakfast if not the Today Show? Through these last few years I've seen the death of some of my favorite magazines, I truly hope that's not a continuing trend. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, around since the Civil War times, shut down the printing presses and went completely online. [5] New media has some wonderful features and I embrace them fully but there's something to be said for tradition, don't give it up entirely.
[1] Abbot, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2002. p14.
[2] Bruns, Axel: Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Lang 2008. See also his online platform http://produsage.org/, 15.
[3] Tomasky, Michael: Guardian.co.uk. Citizen-journalism's rulebook. London. Tuesday, April 15, 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/15/citizenjournalismsrulebook
[4] Hoover, Stewart M. “Conclusion: The media events debate: moving to the next stage”. Couldry, Nick (ed.): Media Events in a Global Age. p289. (2009) Print.
[5] Pryne, Eric: The Seattle Times. The last deadline: Seattle's Oldest newspaper goes to press for the final time. Seattle. December 16, 2009. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008871618_seattlepi17.html
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