Out with the old and in with the new - the rise of social media.

As we have previously seen, the rise of technology in the 21^st century has forced the journalism industry to embrace a new business model, adapting the ways in which journalists source and disseminate news in order to survive. Arguably, the most significant catalyst for this change in the news making process has been the rise of social networking sites. Social media is constantly challenging and redefining traditional journalistic practices and, as more and more people are becoming technologically savvy, social networking sites are experiencing an increasing boom in popularity. This raises the question: are these social networking sites a wealth of valuable information for journalists? Or are they a hindrance?

If the statistics are to be believed, there’s a high probability that you’re a regular user of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or perhaps all of these social networking sites. Social media offers individuals an opportunity to connect with others, to join a digital community where they can talk, participate and share information. The terms ‘Facebook me’ and ‘retweet’ have become common vernacular, normalising and integrating these social media sites into our everyday lives. Indeed, checking your Facebook newsfeed or seeing what’s trending on Twitter has become part of many people's daily routines. The popularity of these sites cannot be disputed, with Facebook alone boasting over 750 million users worldwide. With access to millions of users from across the globe, Facebook has the potential to be a valuable source for journalists. Similarly, Twitter, which has over 200 million users, “is an extremely useful journalistic resource: reporters can use it to watch for breaking news, follow sources and search for information” (Heald, 2009). What’s trending on Twitter tells us what’s happening around the world and the journalist then seeks to expand on and contextualise this information.

And yet, despite the growing power and prominence of social media, these sites have often been approached with trepidation by the journalism industry. The beauty of social media is that anyone can post anything. However, this is also its downside. It is a basic journalistic principle that news should be factual and ethical and, in the fast paced world of social media, it can often be hard to establish whether the information you’re reading is truth, rumour or a blatant fib. As Posetti states, “the biggest issue with social media is verification” (Posetti 2011). Social media may be valuable sources of information, but it’s when journalists take what they’re reading as credible and factual events (sometimes even recirculating it as news) without checking the facts that they can become an issue. Take for instance Brian Stelter, journalist for the New York Times, who retweeted an image that claimed to depict a tiger roaming the streets of London during the recent London riots. The photo was, in fact, taken in Italy in 2008. It’s somewhat worrying that a journalist working for a credible news organisation republished an image found on Twitter without any attempt at checking their facts and verifying sources.

Look familiar?
Above: Image taken from Google.

So, should social media play an intrinsic role in the way journalists source information? As these sites continue to grow, it seems like a wasted opportunity to neglect the potential benefits they have to offer for the modern journalist. However, it is essential that, when taking information from sites such as Twitter, a journalist must “proceed with extreme caution and request evidence to support the claim” (Hill 2011). Fact checking is a fundamental aspect of journalism and, despite the ‘newness’ of social media, some traditional journalistic practices must still be adhered to. 

References:

Heald, E 2009, Twitter for Journalists and Newsrooms: Sourcing, Publishing, Connecting. Accessed 1/9/11 2011, <http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/2009/06/twitter_for_journalists_and_newsrooms_so.php>

Hill, J 2011, ‘Go Forth and Verify’, The Walkley Magazine, vol. 67, p. 13.

Posetti, J 2011, ‘BBC Social Media Summit Fixates on Creating Open Media’, MediaShift, 7 June. Accessed 1/9/11 <http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/06/bbc-social-media-summit-fixates-on-creating-open-media158.html>

On death dow - The end of news as we know it?

 As the 21^st century powers on, it seems that those who fail to adapt to the rapid advances of technology are being left behind. Indeed, the rising star of the Internet may spell the end for journalism as we know it. 

Above: Image sourced from Google Images.

The changing face of journalism in the 21^st century has seen some interesting developments. We have seen the continual rise of online as a news medium and the fall of some traditional news forms, including the humble newspaper. With newspaper readership in Australia falling to record lows in recent years, some individuals, like Roy Greenslade, have predicted the eventual demise of print journalism. Greenslade states, “Popular newspapers, the mass newspapers, are dying and will die. They have no future whatsoever” (ABC 2008).  Print journalism’s former audience is now embracing new technologies to source their news, determining what content they want, how they want it and when they want it. Has our favour for online content ultimately been to the detriment of print journalism? Partly. However, online is not, perhaps, the sole cause of print’s dwindling audience. Indeed, society is more information hungry than ever before, yet the journalism industry has failed to adapt to their audiences’ increasing demand for online content. Some media groups have approached the rise of the online ‘news sphere’ with trepidation. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch confessed that his own media conglomerate, News Corp, was too slow when it came to recognising the power of the Internet (Doran, Holland and West 2011). The journalism industry is operating under a business that no longer reflects the needs of its users.

Is it all doom and gloom when it comes to the relationship between journalism and the online world? Can journalism and online ever really get along? Kim Porteous, multimedia editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, believes that newspapers and online news can successfully coexist. Porteous offers this advice for modern journalists: “The web has changed the way we read and the way we consume news. Tailor your journalism to it. Explore the new ways of producing serious…journalism” (Porteous 2010). The media should realise that new technologies like the iPad have dramatically affected the way that news is consumed. Therefore, news should be adapted to suit these new technologies, rather than simply taking articles written for a newspaper and placing it online in the same format. Journalists should “tailor their reporting to capitalise on the web medium” (Porteous 2010).  Technology should be used to journalism’s advantage, not to its detriment.

As more and more citizens are turning to online to source their news, it has become clear that, in order to survive, the journalism industry must adapt a new business model; a model that understands the changing face of the media in the 21^st century. After all, isn’t it adapting to changing societies that has allowed journalism to survive thus far? By listening to its audience and embracing new technology, journalism may live to fight another day. 

References:

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (2008). Roy Greenslade in Conversation with Margaret Simons. Accessed 12/8/11 <http://fora.tv/2008/05/01/Roy_Greenslade_in_Conversation_with_Margaret_Simons#fullprogram>

Doran, Holland and West E (2011). Journalism: the good, the bad and the ugly. CMNS3420 presentation. Viewed 24/8/11.

Porteous, K (2010). Can newspapers and the internet get along? Accessed 25/8/11.
<http://www.walkleys.com/features/984>

I did it my way - Citizen Journalism.

As we discovered in my last blog, the 21^st century has marked a turning point in the nature of journalism. As technology continues to shift the boundaries of what journalism is and who does it, the role of the citizen in the disseminating of news has undergone some significant changes.

As Allan Stuart states, “the ‘news’ of some description has been in circulation since the earliest days of human communities” (Stuart 2010 pg. 1). As members of individual and collective communities, people have always wanted to know what’s going on in the world around them, to learn about the people and events that make their society tic. This desire for news seems to be an intrinsic human trait that has remained unchanged throughout the centuries. The news exists to inform society and the citizens within it, but who uncovers the news? From society’s need for information, there stems the need for those who are willing and able to discover, investigate and communicate newsworthy events.

Historically, journalists have been known for their ability to sniff out a story. I’m sure that we can all picture the Romantic image of a journalist; someone out on the beat interviewing, searching for leads and uncovering major scoops or scandals before they go public.  As Hamilton and Lawrence state, “professional journalism...is rooted in the concept of reporters going out into the world seeking information” (Hamilton and Lawrence 2010 pg. 1). And yet, there is more to journalism than the ability to interview and uncover stories. So, what really makes a journalist? According to the Media Arts and Entertainment Alliance’s (MEAA) code of ethics, a journalist adheres to the principles of honesty, fairness and independence. They “describe society to itself…convey information…inform citizens and animate democracy” (MEAA). So from this definition of a journalist, we can see that it is a journalist’s role to honestly uncover and convey information to inform citizens. 

And what is the role of the citizen in all of this? In the past, the citizen’s role was chiefly a one-way affair. That is, it was their role to purchase the newspaper, tune into a radio broadcast or turn on television news. They rarely, if ever, constructed and communicated their own news stories. However, with the emergence of new media and the rise of social networking sites such as Twitter, audiences no longer exist solely to be informed. Technology has allowed the citizen to play a participatory role in news, where publishing news is as simple as clicking a button.

The above video, taken of looters during the recent London riots, was filmed and uploaded to Youtube, not by professional journalists, but by everyday citizens. The footage may be amateur at best, filmed on a camera phone, yet it still provides us with images of the riots as they were happening. This type of footage is generally beyond the reach of the traditional media, who often take up these images and use them to form their own news of the event. For instance, I first saw this footage on Channel Ten news.

A tag on the video reads: “Share this around, someone [sic] people will know who these scum are and help them get caught!!” This action sees the citizen journalist informing the public, even motivating them into action. Is this not the role of the traditional journalist? The man in this video has since been caught  and, without this footage, the crime may have passed under the radar.

But is this really news? Many professional journalists often view citizen journalists with disdain, although there can be no denying that they can provide the world with powerful images of events that the traditional media may miss. Whether these citizen journalists are credible, ethical and accountable is another matter entirely. Similarly, whether this can be classed as journalism at all is a matter of intense debate.

Informing society is the bedrock of journalism and, historically, it has been the role of the citizen to be informed. Yet technology is transforming the symbiotic relationship between the journalist and the citizen, placing the power of news making and disseminating in the hands of the citizen. Whatever your stance on citizen journalism may be, there can be no doubting that the number of citizen journalists will continue to increase as more people embrace the freedom that technology has given them

References:

Hamilton, M (2010). Bridging Past and Future. Journalism Studies, vol. 1 no. 5. Accessed 15/8/11.

Media, Entertainment and Art Alliance (nd). Code of Ethics. Accessed 12/8/11 <http://www.alliance.org.au/code-of-ethics.html>

Stuart, A (2010). News Culture. OUP, London. Accessed 14/8/11.

Who exactly is a journalist, anyway?

It seems that one of the most pertinent questions surrounding journalism today, is who exactly is a journalist.

Journalists have long been hailed as the gatekeepers of society’s information, the ‘fourth estate’. They brandish the rights of free speech and freedom of the press, reporting on issues that are at the heart of society’s interest. Essentially, journalists inform the public, the ones who have “a right to know” (Rosen 2010).

And yet, as we move further into the 21^st Century, technology is continually shifting and blurring the boundaries of what journalism is and who does it. It appears that the public no longer need to rely solely on the journalist to inform them of the innate goings-on of the world around them. The public have a new source of information: each other.

Cutting out the middleman (in this case, the journalist), sites such as Twitter and the growing blogosphere are allowing the rise of the ‘citizen journalist’. That is, the public “are connected horizontally to one another as effectively as they are connected up to Big Media; and they have the powers of production in their hands” (Rosen 2010). Even sites such as YouTube are allowing people to upload videos of the news as it happens, often gaining access to images out of the reach of journalists. For example, images of the recent riots in London. Should someone who posts amateur videos of rioters on to YouTube be labelled as a journalist? This is the big question.

Above: Image taken from Toothpastefordinner

According to Roy Greenslade, blogger and columnist for the Guardian, “while journalism does indeed matter, journalists don’t” (Greenslade 2008). This statement may seem perverse, especially coming from a man who is a professor of journalism. However there is more behind this ominous statement than the sentiment that budding journalists should start searching for a new career.

Greenslade continues, stating, “proper journalism is worth fighting for” (Greenslade 2008). Quality journalism respects the truth and ethical practice. It is this integrity that perhaps sets the citizen journalist apart from the journalist.

However, instead of allowing technology to sideline journalists, they are increasingly encouraged to embrace the digital world and even their ‘opposition’, citizen journalists. Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, believes that journalists should work in collaboration with their public: “We bring important things to the table, and so do the users” (Rusbridger 2010).

Definitively defining journalism and journalists is a precarious task that may take some years to achieve. In the mean time, journalists should recognise that their industry is changing and they must adapt in order to remain relevant to the technologically tuned in generations of the 21^st Century.


References:

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (2008). Roy Greenslade in Conversation with Margaret Simons. Accessed 12/8/11 <http://fora.tv/2008/05/01/Roy_Greenslade_in_Conversation_with_Margaret_Simons#fullprogram>

Rosen, J (2010). The Journalists Formerly Known as the Media: My Advice to the Next Generation. Accessed 12/8/11 <http://jayrosen.posterous.com/the-journalists-formerly-known-as-the-media-m>

Rusbridger, A (2010). The Hugh Cudlipp lecture: Does journalism exist?. Accessed 12/8/11 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/25/cudlipp-lecture-alan-rusbridger>