I've recently been browsing through some of my old notes and texts and I am amazed at how things have changed in just 5 years. When this text was written civic journalism was still quite new and professional writers were not entirely in favour of the 'average' citizen being able to publish their thoughts so easily. Now everyone has social media accounts and the ability to be their own broadcaster, rather than threatening traditional journalism it seems to be enhanced by the immediacy of instant news.
How does new technology impact upon areas of news blogging and civic journalism?
Online journaling originated in 1994, initially only a small minority mainly academics, used them as a means of sharing resources and ideas. The internet was still in its infancy and the software was not yet available that would make online journaling appealing to the masses.
In April 1999 Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal.com as a college project, it became a huge success and as of 17 February 2011 there are over 29 million users worldwide; the majority of which belong to online communities with a common area of interest.
However the biggest success story in social networking history so far, belongs to Mark Zuckerberg who in 2003 founded Facebook whilst a student at Harvard University. Although initially only available to the University network, by September 2006 anyone with a registered email address could open a Facebook account. There are now over 500 million registered users. Also in 2003 WordPress started with the objective of making it easy for anyone to maintain a blog and publish their own documents online.
The introduction of broadband in 2000 had a huge impact on blogging and social networking. The increased speed of connection enabled various media such as photographs, video and audio to be incorporated into a blog, with the added bonus that it didn’t tie up your telephone line. Within a year the Blackberry phone was introduced in America which made it possible to send emails by mobile phone. A Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) was developed specifically for mobile Internet services and the mobile internet phenomenon was underway.
According to Socialnomics.net the number of years it took for the radio to reach 50 million users was 38, for television it was 13, the Internet took 4, and Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months.
As more and more people have access to the internet not only twenty-four hours a day but also wherever they happen to be during those twenty four hours so the traditional methods of communicating news stories has had to adapt. These days by the time a story has made it into a newspaper it is no longer news. So the majority of newspapers and magazines now have online or downloadable versions, you can even download your favourite magazines through iTunes. Letters to the Editor are being relegated to history as now you just need to leave a comment on the newspapers blog or even email the journalist direct with your comments on their story.
Whatever is happening in the world you can virtually guarantee that somebody with a smartphone is there to capture it; these items, quite often including video, are even broadcast on the mainstream television news programmes. There is a television channel called “Current TV”, co-founded by former Vice President of the United States Al Gore, that specialises in “viewer created content” which they refer to as “vc2”. The station actively encourages viewers to make mini documentaries on a wide range of subjects but especially art and social issues. Anyone with access to a way of capturing video and uploading it to the internet can get involved. This means that communities or individuals who traditionally do not have a voice can demolish barriers and make themselves heard.
Freedom like this just wasn’t possible before the internet. Brian Clarke writing about “… this brave new social media world” for copyblogger.com stated that “…anyone willing to put in the work can become a media producer/personality without speaking a word to anyone in the existing media power centres of Los Angeles, New York, et al” (CLARKE, 2009).
This is the modern equivalent of Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame theory, anyone can achieve some level of fame by posting on YouTube, or contributing to a blog or even just by amassing a large quantity of ‘friends’ on Facebook.
There are however some members of the British media who do not approve of the proliferation of bloggers considering them not worthy of their online presence. At the 2010 Cheltenham Literary Festival journalist Andrew Marr stated that bloggers are “… socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting”. He also dismissed “so-called citizen journalism” which is “the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night” (PLUNKETT, 2010). These comments created quite a stir especially due to the fact that the majority of newspapers, television and radio stations require their journalists and presenters to maintain some sort of online dialogue.
In my opinion Kevin Arscott writing under the pseudonym ‘Uponnothing’ in his ‘Angry Mob’ blog summed the situation up best by stating that “… we need to accept that all journalists and bloggers are writers and we should attempt to judge them purely in terms of how accomplished they are as writers – the label they writer under is irrelevant” (ARSCOTT, 2010).
Channel 4 news presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy defending bloggers in his own blog also raised an issue that illustrates a major difference between amateur or freelance bloggers and their counterparts in the established media. By using Channel 4 as an example of how a large media group encourages interaction between its correspondents and the public he wrote “… we tweet away all day and blog whenever we have something to say.” “Obviously we can’t give opinion in the way bloggers who aren’t also public service broadcasters can…” He also alleges that journalists at the BBC are “restricted from tweeting or blogging unless approved and many have to be checked by an editor before being published online” (GURU-MURTHY, 2010).
This hesitancy though is something that should probably be practised more frequently. Because the internet is thought of as anonymous it can be easy to forget that what you write can go global in minutes and not everyone might agree or approve of your opinions. There is a blog written on WordPress about people who have been sued for what they have written online “how I got my money back from you know who wealth. wordpress.com”, but probably one of the most discussed cases is that of Bruce Everiss who writes a blog called “Bruce on Games” and who was sued by games company Evony because of statements he made in his blog.
The thing that garnered the most discussion though was the fact that Evony is an US registered company and Everiss is a UK resident but the libel case was issued in Australia; this was justified by Evony due to the fact that Everiss has readers in Australia. Jonathan Bailey who blogs about legal issues involving the internet defined the situation as “…since works published to the Internet are distributed all over the world, you can defame the reputation of a company and/or a person in any country or jurisdiction. That, in turn, means you can be brought into almost any court in the world for a defamation suit” (BAILEY, 2010).
The Electronic Frontiers Foundation comprising professionals from the legal and technological worlds have launched a campaign backing freedom of speech and consumer rights for the digital age. Although based in the US and taking actions through the American legal system they report on international actions and laws that my affect bloggers rights.
Now that there is no stopping the spread of social media and blogging what can we look forward to? American department store JC Penney have now launched a Facebook page with a shopping section so that you can purchase and review items without leaving Facebook, which is fine so long as you don’t mind everyone knowing what you are buying. Tweeting is also on the rise with The Lord Chief Justice making it easier for the media to use Twitter during some court proceedings, but only where it can’t influence witnesses and only if prior permission is given.
Ford are among the car manufacturers also utilizing technology by introducing ‘My Ford Touch’ which has a touchscreen and voice control, which will amongst other things convert text messages and incoming tweets into spoken words and then enable you to reply without taking your hands off the steering wheel.
But all this freedom comes with a price and the biggest issue is going to be security, as we manage more and more of our lives through wireless technology we are leaving ourselves more open to attack and unlike physical attacks a virtual attack can originate from anywhere at any time and the perpetrators are almost impossible to find. Personally I love the internet and what it stands for but I fully intend to keep one foot in the physical world.
REFERENCES
Typrewriter Image: FreeImages.com/llh Snap
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