What´s Citizen Journalism or Public Journalism?

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The term citizen journalism or public journalism has spread widely around world as it has been connected to publishing the news and information. It can be defined simply as an alternative source of news which is produced and published by the general public. The concept of citizen journalism is not a new phenomenon and it has started long time ago. What has changed is the importance and the prevalence of the citizen journalists as an alternative source of information and news worldwide. There is an argument whether citizen journalism has transferred the news positively or negatively. Some experts argue that citizen journalism has many disadvantages such as lack of credibility and low objectivity which make it unreliable source of news comparing to traditional media. However, others support the citizen journalism because it has important advantages like promoting democratization of society and increase the speed of news. Therefore, this essay will argue that citizen journalism has apparently positive aspects in promoting democratization by removing corrupted regimes and being the first in providing media coverage.

To some degree, citizen journalism has several disadvantages which may have negative impacts on the quality news provided. One of these disadvantages is the low level of credibility. Therefore, citizen journalists are usually not invited to attend any media conference or meeting because they do not have formal training and qualifications in the media field (Bruns 2010 p.3). In addition, a study conducted in Singapore by Polytechnic University on 801 people shows that 80% of people who participated in the study think that traditional media is better than citizen journalism because of its issues with the credibility (Elsem...

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...ccording to Sambrook (2005), participatory journalism which covers the news might be used sometimes by traditional media for instance, networked journalism took part in the coverage of the terrorism attack that occurred in London with BBC channel by sharing 1000 photos, 20 videos, 20,000 email and 4,000 text messages within the first 6 hours and their media were used to make the headlines news in the major news channel. Moreover, another example is the earth quick in Haiti which was covered by citizen journalists who used the internet to show the world the horrible situation by publishing a lot of pictures (Barnes 2012). These evidence show that the rapid spreading of the news by citizen journalism can provide instant news coverage. Improving democratization of society and increase the speed of news are great deal of advantages to public journalism.

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