Personally, I rarely engage in the journalistic
opportunities that social media offer outside of observing. I believe there are plenty of people who are
passionate enough to inform the public of what is newsworthy. The extent I wish engage the process usually
lies in sharing some kind of news I find socially or politically impactful to
my peer group. However, I have noticed
that perhaps for the first time in history, people are actually in charge of
the news as opposed to just being the in news.
Journalists used to rely on finding the next big story. Social media have made the search much
simpler by bringing the news and newsmakers to the forefront sooner. Yet, I don’t actually believe the line
between authentic journalism, and word of mouth is as blurred as is
suggested. Journalists are still charged
with the expectation that their facts are verified and truthful. Members of the general public do not receive
such pressures. In fact there is a whole
new genre of quasi-journalism that has come out of this, gossip columns. Gossip columns have now evolved into gossip blogs. The aim of these websites is to inform people
of rumours and perhaps ultimately, the veracity of these rumours. Many of these sites began as celebrity fan
blogs that grew into fully functioning websites with “journalistic”
undertones. These are not to be confused
with tabloids, which do not rely on public response to the accuracy of their
claims. Gossip sites and blogs exist as
means of interacting with the fan base to undercover the facts amidst all the
rumours. They find rumours, quotes, and
news stories, and then speculate on what it all means or at least what is
coming next. Unless the truth comes out
of the proverbial horse’s mouth, one of the next best sources are, you guessed
it, official journalism outlets such as the Associated
Press and celebrity journalists like Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters, and
trusted network news outlets. This
exchange is very much in keeping with measures many traditional new
organizations are taking in order to stay relevant in the Web 2. era. (Bruns &
Highfield, 2012, 4.1). Still, perhaps
the biggest source of instant newsworthy content has become Twitter where celebrities often publicly
post their own comments and content. The
Gossip genre has contributed to what Dahlgren (2012) calls “civic cultures” He describes
these as follows, “In a nutshell, civic cultures comprise those cultural
resources that citizens' can draw upon for participation. Moreover, in the modern world, the civic
cultures operate to a great extent via the media (Dahlgren, 2012).” Social media has given the public new ways of engaging the world and each other. The journalism has inevitably been affected, by given rise to new genres. With the example of the entertainment Gossip site, we see journalism as an effort for cultural exchange developing them at rapid pace.
References
Dahlgren, P. (2012). Reinventing participation: civic agency and the web environment. Geopolitics, History, and International Relations. 4.2, p27.
Bruns, A. & T. Highfield. (2012). Blogs, Twitter, and breaking news: The produsage of citizen journalism. pre-publication draft on personal site [Snurb.info]. Published in: Lind, R. A. ed. (2012). Produsing Theory in a Digital World: The Intersection of Audiences and Production. New York: Peter Lang. p15-32.
I don't engage much in journalistic opportunities either. Like you, I'll share a link to a news piece if I find it particularly interesting or relevant, and that's about it. I figure I'll leave the reporting to the professionals. As you said, journalists are still expected to verify facts whereas citizen journalists are not faced with the same standard. I thought Hermida's observation wording was interesting, that journalists establish "jurisdiction over
ReplyDeletethe ability to objectively parse reality to claim a special kind of authority and status" and that social media subverts this "monopoly on the provision of everyday public knowledge" (2012). I don't normally use a quote in a comment, but his word choice puts an interesting spin on it.
Hello there,
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way as you. These new forms of "news" via social media platforms are just a new form of word of mouth. I completely agree when you say that journalists are still expected to present accurate information and that means that their role is still important. Still, I think that FB and Twitter can be useful resources for real-time, in the moment updates on current events but I feel that reading a good news article provides the details of an event that had both research and time put into it. So I think both are important. One for quick on-the-fly updates, and the other for a more in depth and detailed account of what happened.
~Meg
Hello Carla,
ReplyDeleteGreat post, I think you hit on a very important topic within this citizen journalism phenomenon. Much of it is driven by rumors. Every place that I go to that sells magazines is filled with Gossip papers. So and so is pregnant, this celebrity broke up, blah blah blah. It is insane the success these magazines have when most of their content is extremely inaccurate and in my opinion slanderous. I feel that social media in the right hands has great power. Twitter allows for citizen journalist to hit a large audience from anywhere in the world. But with great power comes great responsibility and I feel that gossip sites are not making the responsible choices.
All the best David B