NDM News: Citizen journalism

Examples

• Rodney King, police brutality - 1991, Los Angeles 
• Asian tsunami - December 2004, India/Bangladesh/Indonesia 
• 7/7 bombings - July 5th 2005, London 
• 2007 Virginia Tech shooting 
• Bombings - November 2008, Mumbai 

Theory (audience reception etc.)

• Surveillance 
• Crowdsourcing 
• Two step flow model? 

Benefits to institutions

Institutions generally can't be everywhere at once, by utilising their audiences as citizen journalists, it gives them an upper hand in beating their competition as they would be able to break the news a lot quicker than other people.

Benefits to audience

The power to make and break news has moved beyond the traditional news institutions. This has given audiences a huge amount of power, not even in terms of the fact that they can now choose what they wish to consume, they can have a huge impacting factor on what it is that they are consuming in the first place.

Wider issues and debates

• Monetisation of free content 
• User privacy would be a huge issue and debate 
• Dumbing down society due to content that anyone can make anywhere anytime 

SHEP

• Social - Use of social media rises a lot quicker and society becomes a lot more interconnected 
• Historical - Digital revolution, fast rapid expansion and evolution one that has never been seen before in history 
• Economical - Huge lasting impacts on media industries in economical terms as many traditional platforms would be going out of business due to the rise of new digital media 
• Political - Politicians will tend to use UGC and new digital media as well as social media to their advantage to pander for votes 

What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?

Citizen journalism means when the general public collects, reports, analyses and distributes news and information. Most commonly through the use of social media.

What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?

One of the first examples of news being generated by ordinary people was back in 1991, when Rodney King was arrested and beaten by four Los Angeles police officers, this was all filmed and distributed by a near by onlooker recording everything on a camera phone that had become a lot more common. The home video footage made the news and was the focus for complaints for police officers and cases of police brutality.

List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.

• Social media such as Twitter 
• Comment sections on blogs 
• Message boards such as forums 
• Chat rooms 
• Questions and answers 
• Polls 

What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?

User generated content footage tends to be a lot more raw and uncompromising. First-hand is often more emotive as it is a lot more closer to the scene compared to professionally shot footage which are almost always behind police lines due to regulations. Profesionally shot footage a lot more mediated and first hand UGC content is unmediated which audiences can experience a lot easier through news makes audiences relate to the the stories a lot more.

What is a gatekeeper?

A gatekeeper is someone or a process that results in news that is being sent for publication or distribution on any type of platform to be mediated or edited in one way or another to promote or reinforce a specific dominant reading.

How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?

Users and audiences are able to create content whenever they want and send it in as much as they want with little to no limits. This means it's up to the gatekeepers to turn the high frequency content into actual news in a way, rather than actually getting news and mediating it with preferred or dominant readings.

What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?

Journalists have to worry about their positions at media institutions as it is very likely that in the future fewer and fewer trained journalists or staff at news organisations would be needed due to them going out from the rise in citizen journalism and social media.

Offer your own opinion (critical autonomy) on the following:

What impact is new/digital media having on: 

• news stories - I believe that news stories have been diluted with weaker and soft news as the content no longer interests those with intellectual interests in terms of hard news with the increased usage of clickbaits and listicles. 
• the news agenda (the choice of stories that make up the news) - The news agenda changes up quite drastically as they are a lot more focused on staying in business and revenues which mean they are more likely to focus on using soft news rather than hard news 
• the role of professionals in news - Professional journalists no longer have the same power they once had in terms of holding the power and corrupt to account in the forms of investigative journalism.

02/11/16 - Why do we still accept that governments collect and snoop on our data?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/30/government-data-collection-citizens-acceptance-global-rights-privacy-free-speech

The article talks about how the recent film about Edward Snowden and other changes in the law and policies has resulted in worldwide attention on the scope of government surveillance programs. One of the biggest cases for this was the fact that a British court admitted that British intelligence agencies were acting unlawfully by hiding away a huge amount of spying programs for the decade, yet the worst part was that they claimed it was right and had no intention of owning up for their mistakes. The article also talks about how government surveillance violates rights to privacy and freedom of expression which are rights that are granted to everyone by international human rights law, yet we still as a populace allow governments to exploit our basic privacy rights on a daily basis.

• British intelligence were taken to court for exploiting these privacy rights
• The case went to European court of human rights, a principal submission was filed
• The court plays a role in critical role in the international human rights system 
• Enforcing the European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty ratified by 47 nations
• The NSA was recording every single phone call into, out of and within at least two countries
• It was also collecting data from Google and Yahoo user accounts which the companies allowed

I personally think it's ridiculous that governments as well as big corporations are able to get away with this type of behaviour, this could possibly due to the lack of journalism as a whole, as journalists have lost their power in holding the powerful to account and exposing the corruptions. This is evident as the whistle blower Edward Snowden wasn't actually a journalist. However, I do believe that despite the court cases taking too long, they are being processed through the proper structure of the justice system which is fair.

02/10/16 - Teens should be educated about safer sexting not just abstinence, report says

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/31/teens-should-be-educated-about-safer-sexting-not-just-abstinence-report-says

The article focuses on the aspect of young teenagers using digital media as a way of sexual interaction amongst each other. It talks about how a report from Yfoundations regarding youthful populations health and public policies suggests that teenagers should be educated on how to "sext" more safely and be respectful of each other rather than be persuaded by educational materials to not "sext" at all.

The article also talkes about how Prof Catharine Lumby from Macquarie University, a researcher of young people, media consumption and relationships says that "young people are the future" not the "paternalistic and authoritarian approach to young people that we seem to have"

• Sex educators should accept that digital technologies will be used for dating, sex, friendship and romance by young people
• This behaviour should not be ignored or condemned
• "Shame based education acts as a preventative barrier for young people to access mental health, medical or youth services at a time of need"

Personally, I think it's great that authoritative figures such as Professors and parents will be able to use this research to see that a preventative and "fear inducing" education is not the way to prevent things but rather embracing new changes and accepting that this is what young people do, will help to understand actions a lot more. It also means that this will allow adults to use the research and understandings of young people to further improve medical services.

The decline in newspapers: MM case studies

What was the New Day trying to achieve?

The aim of New Day was to try to target and gain readership for newspapers from people that normally didn't read newspapers. They had hoped to create a modernised idea and approach to news which didn't focus on the political aspect of all news like most other newspapers.

List the key statistics on the first page: how many people buy newspapers in the UK? How has this declined in the last year?

• Over a million people have stopped buying a newspaper in the past two years
• What is currently available on the newsstand is not meeting their needs
• Six million people buy a newspaper in Britain every day.

What audience were the New Day trying to attract?

The New Day hoped to attract a middle aged both male and female audience aged about 30-55. This suggest that their target demographic was the modernised populace that chose not to use newspapers as an information outlet.

Why do you think the New Day failed so spectacularly? There are several possible reasons listed in the article but do develop your own opinion here as well.

I personally that the New Day's failure was due to the fact that the company did not realise that the industry was dying quite rapidly due to the increase in new digital media. This meant that instead of actually adapting their existing product they were deciding on creating yet another product that was similar to their dying platforms with little changes.

The Guardian

List the key statistics on page 10: How many unique digital browsers used the Guardian website in June 2016? What are The Guardian's latest print sales figures? How does this compare to the Telegraph? In terms of finances, how much did the Guardian lose in 2015? 

• The February 2016 statistics record the Guardian as having nearly 9 million ‘average daily browsers’
• The print circulation of the Guardian was only 161,000.
• Way behind the Daily Telegraph (472,000)
• In the course of 2015, the Guardian reportedly lost ‘around £70 million
• This led to cutbacks of 20%

What has been The Guardian's strategy for reversing this decline?

In order to tackle the decline in their industry, the Guardian chose to taken on the strategy of developing 24 hour coverage for major world news events. This was developed by making the Guardian interconnected across the globe as it's different branches would take over different stories at different times in order to target the changing audiences for their outlet due to time zones.

What global event did The Guardian's digital coverage win awards for?

The Guardian's digital coverage won awards at the 2015 Press Awards for their reporting on the Charlie Hebdo Paris attacks.

In your opinion, will the global website strategy be enough to save The Guardian?

I personally think that it will be, this is due to the fact that they are able to accurately identify the best way to adapt their outlet and focus more on the expansion of the digital media aspects. However, at the same time, they are giving this expansion an extra boost by expanding the range of their readership by targeting a greater populace for their news.

26/10/16 - Newspaper websites suffer post-Olympic dip as print sales hold steady

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/20/newspaper-website-print-sales

The article talks the figures of visitors of major newspaper websites in September after the Olympics, all of the UK's national newspaper websites saw a dramatic decline in its figures.

• Best digital performer was the Sun, daily average browser numbers dropped by only 1.52% to 2.9 million
• Mail Online saw a drop of 3.2% to 14.7 million
• The Guardian dipped by 4.65% to 7.9 million
• The Mirror dropped by 6.65% to 4.9 million
• Telegraph.co.uk reported an 8.79% decline to 4.3 million
• Independent.co.uk, dropped by 11% to 3.2 million
• Express.co.uk dropped by 9.48% to 1.49 million
• Dailystar.co.uk fell by 26.3% to 710,127, the greatest percentage drop out of them all

It's interesting to note how inconsistent this entire set of data actually is. The fact that some hard news platforms had major declines as big as those which provide soft news makes me to believe that the type news is not the reason for this great decline. One of the reason for this could be the fact that websites such as the Sun, Mail Online, Guardian and Mirror actually invest a lot more in their digital counterparts compared to websites such as Dailystar or Express. This lack of investment in digital media could be the reason as well as other factors which could be the reason why users are more likely to get their news from other sources rather than Dailystar or Express.

26/10/16 - Greenslade - Local newspaper content too full of listicles and clickbait - lecturer

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/oct/26/local-newspaper-content-too-full-of-listicles-and-clickbait-lecturer

The article focuses on the greater increase in newspapers and journalism being reduced to "click bait" articles with little to no content. These clickbait consist of having a title which exaggerates the lack of content in the article and also by sort of baiting the reader into picking up the newspaper to find out out more only for the article to be anti-climatic. These articles essentially mean that the journalists and content going into the articles aren't going to be as detailed as regular print articles which actually aim to present news to audiences. 

Personally, I think this is another case of print institutions unable to understand the way digital media works, I honestly believe that the use of clickbait and "listicles" in print platform is due their greater increase and also popularity in online media platforms. This has encouraged print platforms to adopt this method in their articles, but what they don't understand is that this new layout and method only sometimes works online with the majority of intellectual users attempting to stay away from such articles. I believe this has resulted in many readers put off from their preferred newspapers and thus resulting in a greater decline in profits and readership. It also means that the few people that do end up staying with said newspapers, tend to not want intellectual or hard news which in turn dumbs down society.

NDM News: The future of journalism

Why does Clay Shirky argue that 'accountability journalism' is so important and what example does he give of this?

Clay Shirky argues that accountability journalism is one of the most fundamental parts of journalism going as far as to refer to it as the "iron core of journalism" he talks about how accountability journalism has been able to hold the powerful to account for the citizens and powerless when they could not. Shirky believes that accountability journalism is a public good with his main example and focus being the 2002 Catholic Church scandal where the Boston Globe exposed the Church for sexually abusive behaviour towards children.

What does Shirky say about the relationship between newspapers and advertisers? Which websites does he mention as having replaced major revenue-generators for newspapers (e.g. jobs, personal ads etc.)?

Clay Shirky talks about how the relationship between newspapers and advertisers was not as good at the time, as advertisers were over charged for a service that was frankly not as useful or effective to them in terms of marketing and targeting their demographics. This was especially distressing for advertisers because at the time there were not many different platforms that they could advertise on and as such there was a lack of migration to other services. He mentions that websites such as Craigslist having replaced major revenue generators for newspapers as it was used as a huge source of people listing their job requirements and personal ads online instantly with no fees.

Shirky talks about the 'unbundling of content'. This means people are reading newspapers in a different way. How does he suggest audiences are consuming news stories in the digital age?

Clay Shirky suggests that people are consuming and reading news in many different ways, one of the biggest way he describes is that audiences are not reading news by paper but by other members of the audiences. This suggest that audiences are much more likely to use social media compared to traditional print platforms, which ultimately could lead to a decrease in newspaper readership.

Shirky also talks about the power of shareable media. How does he suggest the child abuse scandal with the Catholic Church may have been different if the internet had been widespread in 1992?

Clay Shirky suggests that shareable and social media has a huge power as it allows for greater inter connectivity of people and allows the news and media to have a higher global reach as it would travel a lot faster. He suggest that if the internet had been as widespread in 1992, it would have meant that society would be reusing and sharing the news stories about the Catholic Church scandal a lot quicker which could have led to the individuals in the church as well as the church itself stopping the criminal activities.

Why does Shirky argue against paywalls?

Shirky argues against pay walls due to the fact that he believes journalism to be a "public good" he believes that without using paywalls it can be easily accessed by anyone but by creating these paywalls, this beneficial service would be heavily restricted to people and would then in turn have a huge negative impact on society as a whole.

What is a 'social good'? In what way is journalism a 'social good'?

Journalism is seen as a social good as it essentially benefits a large number of people in society in the best possible way in the form of providing news and information but also by holding to account the corrupt and powerful when the powerless citizens cannot. This is evident through the 2002 Catholic Church scandal as well as the Watergate scandal where the Washington Post was able to expose Richard Nixon and led to his impeachment.

Shirky says newspapers are in terminal decline. How does he suggest we can replace the important role in society newspapers play? What is the short-term danger to this solution that he describes?

Clay Shirky talks about the utter importance of accountability journalism and how this has an overall positive impact on society, he talks about how there are different methods we can replace and keep this idea of accountability journalism alive through methods such as crowdfunding even if it is a small percentage of journalism, as long as it is still alive. However he talks about how this will not stop the decline in journalism and newspapers and could mean that accountability journalism will decline a lot more faster.

Look at the first question and answer regarding institutional power. Give us your own opinion: how important is it that major media brands such as the New York Times or the Guardian continue to stay in business and provide news?

I believe that these brands need to stay in business and provide news as they are important factors to society remaining open minded and away from ignorance which means that society will continue to grow as a whole. The access of free news and information means that society will be easily educated but also it means that people in society will be a lot more aware of what is going on in their worlds. Furthermore it is also important because of investigative journalism, which means that journalists will still be around to hold the corrupt and powerful governments to account if they do not have the best interest of society and the population in mind.