Today there are more people making the news than ever before.
The rise of ‘citizen journalism’ and User Generated Content (UGC) seems to be dividing the people, in particular, the journalists themselves. The big question: is this citizen journalism democratising the media?
We know that the public have always communicated with the journalists, whether it has been through letters to the editor or radio phone-ins, but now this communication has sky rocketed into a world of instant contribution, reaction and interaction from audiences and readers worldwide.
One crucial aspect to any discussion of journalism and one that I find essential to this debate is in the element of trust. The Watergate scandal in the early 1970s involved one of the most important journalistic investigations and discoveries in American political history that not only centred on the lack of trust between the government and the public, but was also an episode that demonstrated how important trust was in the newsroom. This was depicted in the film All the President’s Men which centred on this scandal as displayed in this dialogue extract between two of the journalists:
Ben Bradlee: How much can you tell me about Deep Throat?
Bob Woodward: How much do you need to know?
Ben Bradlee: Do you trust him?
Bob Woodward: Yeah.
Ben Bradlee: I can’t do the reporting for my reporters, which means I have to trust them. And I hate trusting anybody. Run that baby.
This scene from the film represents the importance of trust that should be inherent to all journalistic practices, but the rise of UGC and citizen journalism has created concerns over whether this trust could be being eroded when so much content is left unchecked.
One of the obvious issues with aspects such as blogging, forums and discussion boards is that it is difficult to know which sources and comments are credible and accurate when so much of the content is unverified. It is evident that fakes and hoaxes aren’t that uncommon on these UGC sites.
Even when considering the debates and comments that develop beneath a Youtube video - questions over authenticity, knowledge and accuracy should be asked as if there is no verification, whom do you choose to believe?
On the other hand, one undeniably positive aspect of citizen journalism is a matter of access. Citizens can often get places where journalists can’t. It does open up questions of safety with the endangering of citizens to capture extraordinary events, but it is difficult to deny the potential impact of utilising public access to certain stories, for example when lives could be saved or if it is for the good of a country.
UGC can also clearly provide many positive possibilities through the sharing of knowledge or opinion for an experience or even a product. If we listen to Rupert Murdoch this revolution won’t hold back journalism, but instead help it progress:
“So unless we awaken to these changes, which are quite different to those of 5 or 6 years ago, we will, as an industry, be relegated to the status of also-rans. Properly done, they are an opportunity to actually improve our journalism and expand our reach”
One important point to consider is how different news organisations deal with UGC. Is the ‘Unedited, Unfiltered News’ that CNN’s iReport promotes really a force for democracy when you consider that a significant proportion of the content is taken up by home videos and genuinely not newsworthy content?
Fox News’s current online tagline is ‘We Report. You Decide.’ , yet ironically they also have a UGC section called ‘uReport’, and when looking at the most viewed videos there is a lack of real journalism present.
Alternatively the BBC has complete control over the UGC in its Have Your Say site with 30 people employed moderating exactly what gets published online and more importantly what doesn’t. Applying old media values to new media has worked so far, but The BBC may be going down CNN’s path of less and less moderation possibly because of financial reasons or maybe because audiences may prefer this.
I find myself still undecided over the democratic potential of UGC and citizen journalism and I think all these questions of trust, quality, accuracy and impartiality will continue to dominate discussions around these issues.
Photo courtesy of rsambrook:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sambrook/100538533/
and
Tommy_Vercetti:
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