Citizen Journalism

1420 Words3 Pages

Citizen journalism is the concept of average citizens playing an active role in the media. Blogging, social networks and participatory news sites have helped to contribute to the growth of citizen journalism. The idea of reporting instantly from any place at any time has grown to become a key tool in journalism today.

A blog is a regular informal entry by an individual commenting on news stories or describing an event. They can range in any topic from fashion to politics. A blogger can remove or add an entry at any time with the use of the internet. Also bloggers do not have any editing or boundaries when it comes to their pieces. Many newspapers have embraced the idea and use it as a tool to gain perspective and gather information.

In a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism it is clear to see that most people rely on blogs for politics/government, foreign events and technology news. Traditional press, however, is more reliable for economy and health and medicine news. Expectantly from what research shows blogs are a popular medium for retrieving news because they are online and it makes it convenient to access, carrying it in your pocket via cell phone or with just a few clicks via computer when at work or at home, it is no surprise that online media is more popular.

Social media and the mainstream press have different agendas. It was also found in research that blogs shared the same lead story with traditional media in 13 of the 49 weeks studied. While social media players advocate a different agenda than the mainstream media, blogs still heavily rely on the traditional press for their information. More than ninety nine percent of the stories linked to in blogs came from newspaper...

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