Stephanie Sword, a Griffith University communications student, asked me a few questions for an assignment. Below are Stephanie’s questions and my answers about Citizen Journalism: read on to see my comments on the term itself, and generally where I think the “citizen” fits in the evolving media environment.
Stephanie: As a professional journalist, how do you feel citizen journalism is radically reforming/challenging traditional journalism?
Dave: I’ve said this elsewhere, but I think citizen journalism is both a challenge and a benefit to traditional journalism. The traditional journalist/s can’t be everywhere. Not only can they not be everywhere in physical location, but they also can’t be everywhere in terms of local/inside knowledge about the players and/or access to them. While it might take professional journalists to distil the news into something short and consumable, citizen journalists can either be there more quickly, or are already there because they are simply involved in the story.
In the age of media convergence, how does the role of a ‘citizen journalist’ differ from that of a professional journalist?
Defining a citizen journalist is going to be difficult. Is the citizen journalist the person who calls themselves that, and makes an attempt to get to stories, find stories and produce content about those stories? I would argue that if someone calls themselves a “citizen journalist”, and makes an attempt to be at stories, or cover news, then they are going to be more of a freelance journalist. The difference is that Citizen Journalists don’t do “journalism” or “news” reporting as their job. They have real jobs.
I would say the citizen journalist is the person who just happens to be there and records an event occurring, whether by photo/video/audio or text. Instantaneous “text” citizen journalism might be something like Twitter updates, so include the Denver plane crash, the Hudson River plane crash or the Mumbai bombings, where someone has posted text online (in these cases on Twitter). At the same time instantaneously there can be images posted online (via Twitter-based services or Flickr). [Yes, those links are shamelessly only to News Ltd content].
So the role difference is huge. Citizen journalists are likely to simply be recording an event they have witnessed or been involved in, and generally making that content available online. When they make it available online, it’s most likely to be in the same way they share their lives online with family and friends through a variety of social networks. Putting it online won’t be for the purpose of being citizen journalists, and I can’t imagine anyone would want to call themselves citizen journalists.
Should media outlets actively encourage citizens to become amateur reporters by using new digital media technologies? What are the benefits of soliciting viewer input into news programs?
I don’t think they should encourage people to become “amateur reporters”, they should encourage people to share their content for some of the reasons already mentioned – they’re there when mainstream media can’t be, and they’re the people the story is happening to. People will be amateur reporters if they want to be, but I’d say there are very few people who would want to describe themselves as that. It’s semantics, but I think that specific terminology would likely turn people off. The benefit of soliciting public content is that it is content the news program or site would not have, and it’s also newsworthy content that otherwise might have never been seen by the wider public.
There is always going to be a struggle with mainstream media not just using that sort of content because it’s available (although not freely available, it’s still subject to copyright) and published on the web, but also having the hubris to decide which of it is the most important to show. Naturally, advocates of the semantic web argue that if the content is already going to be made available on the web, mainstream media shouldn’t have to “aggregate” it, because suitable information systems will be in place that will automatically present individually relevant information. But we’re not there, and mainstream media will continue to present to the public what it thinks is important, interesting, and/or will make them money.
What are some of the issues of relying on public eyewitness accounts as news suitable for broadcast? Can you clarify the difference between a citizen journalist and an eyewitness?
The issue of relying on public eyewitness accounts for news for broadcast is that you might have no way of verifying the person knows what they’re talking about, was even present when the incident occurred, or has not manufactured a fake news event. Similarly there’s the chance, and it will happen, that PR will move into the realm and submit subtle marketing or positive spin material (see my co. If you’re asking about relying on public content (user generated content) for broadcast, the actual provision of UGC is fairly infrequent, so can’t be relied on as a basis for news. In terms of relying on UGC as “broadcast quality”, like grainy video from a phone, I don’t think it’s an issue. No matter how bad the “quality” of the content, if it’s compelling you use it.
I don’t know if I can clarify the difference, but I think I can suggest the difference between a citizen journalist and an eyewitness is that a citizen journalist has recorded the event in some fashion – audio, video, or still image. An eyewitness is perhaps just that, someone who has seen an event but not recorded it in any other way, so can only relay what they have seen. The difference then is that you listen to a first-hand account as it is told by an eyewitness. A citizen journalist can still do that, but I would think they would also present some kind of material to go along with that. Again, as in the last question, I don’t know about media using the term “citizen journalist”. If someone who provides content wants to think of themselves as a “citizen journalist” and call themselves that, let them claim that.
There was a fifth question, but I’ve asked Stephanie for an explanation of what the question is going for. I may update this post at some point if I have an answer for that question.
Stephanie asked me for the interview because, in her words, “you represent the next generation of journalists, where these approaches are much-more integrated with your work than say my generation (journalism was very different when I was first in uni in the late 80s, early 90s)”.
Thanks Stephanie! Also, this was an email exchange interview.
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In preparing this story on couriermail.com.au, BlackBerry seizure an ‘abuse of police powers’, I asked my followers on Twitter if anyone knew the law regarding what can or can not be photographed in Australia. I received a lot of feedback and links, and am posting them here in case they prove useful to others. Let it be known I am not a lawyer, nor an expert in the laws governing this topic. This is just a collection of interesting links, perhaps useful, but by no means comprehensive.
Corrections and additions welcome! Add them to the comments.
The story got off the ground thanks to Ben Grubb breaking it first on Tech Wired Australia. Particular thanks for providing some of these links go to Shaun Garrity, Rowen Atkinson, and elbisivni, twice! :)
First a quick list of links, then some extra content.
One of the best resources was the NSW Photographer’s Rights page at http://www.4020.net/words/photorights.php, where in a very extensive post on photographer’s rights, as well as general privacy and copyright issues, these legal points were raised.
“Unauthorised” photography in Australia has in fact been authorised since the 1937 High Court decision in Victoria Park Racing v. Taylor (1937) 58 CLR 479 (at p.496). This was reaffirmed recently in ABC v Lenah (2001) HCA 63, where the Court ruled that despite the passage of decades since Victoria Park, any concept of a “Tort of invasion of privacy” still does not exist in Australia.
As Justice Dowd put it with blunt clarity in R v Sotheren (2001) NSWSC 204:
“A person, in our society, does not have a right not to be photographed.”
In the comments at Tech Wired Australia, Tom McLoughlin pointed to Sydney Alternative Media, where he discusses in depth and provides correspondence in relation to a specific case where he helped with legal representation.
This response from Stephen Blanks, secretary of NSW Council for Civil Liberties, came after the story had already been published on couriermail.com.au, but it’s important to keep in mind that “police have or can be given special powers under anti-terrorism legislation”.
My emphasis added below.
Normally, members of the public have a right to take photographs and film incidents observable from public places and the police have no legal power or moral responsibility to prevent or restrict what they record, provided that the police are not hindered in their activities. Once images are recorded, the police have no power to delete or confiscate them without a court order, even if they think they contain damaging or useful evidence.
However, police have or can be given special powers under anti-terrorism legislation. It takes special knowledge on the part of any member of the public who may be the subject of a demand by police to not film them and to hand over the recording device to be able to work out if the police are legitimately using their special powers.
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties has received a steady stream of complaints from members of the public over the last few years about police demanding that photographs not be taken, including tourists photographing the Sydney Opera House and Bondi Beach.
Stephen Blanks, Secretary NSW Council for Civil Liberties
Other related news links:
Photographers bemused by police warning – ABC Jan 2006
Tourists told to delete APEC photos – ABC Sep 2007
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In case there is anyone out there who thinks they don’t have the time to listen to Jay Rosen for six minutes and eight seconds, below is a transcript of the video of Jay Rosen moderating the SABEW conference workshop, Using Social Networking in Business Reporting.
To watch the video, go to acidlabs, where you can also see a video of Jay Rosen defining citizen journalism. I would embed, but for some reason embedded video has been breaking my page recently.
TRANSCRIPT OF JAY ROSEN MODERATING THE SABEW WORKSHOP, USING SOCIAL NETWORKING IN BUSINESS REPORTING
SABEW
45th Annual Conference
April 27-29, Sheraton Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD
USING SOCIAL NETWORKING IN BUSINESS REPORTING
Jay Rosen, New York University and author of PressThink blog
It’s not about the technology … The whole art of doing any kind of social network reporting is in organizing people
This is one of the most important things about the internet. This is one of the things that’s changing the world most profoundly today – is the falling costs for people with the same interests, or people of like mind, to find each other, share information, pool their knowledge, collaborate, and publish.
I’m going to say it again. The falling cost for like minded people to find each other, share information, collaborate and publish back to the rest of the world, is a major factor changing government, politics, media, social life – at the same time.
USING SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS TO IMPROVE THE REPORTING OF A BEAT REPORTER
We’re trying to figure out how we can use Gillmore’s insights, and the tools that we have now – like blogging, social networking tools – to actually improve the reporting that a beat reporter does on their
the potential is there to mobilize thousands of people on a single story
beat, and we’re several months into that project, and I can tell you some of what we’ve learned from it.
LESSON ONE: SLOW & DIFFICULT WORK, NO BREAKTHROUGHS TO REPORT
Our first lesson is that this is slow and difficult work, and that we don’t have any breakthroughs so far. That it’s a lot easier to understand the concept ‘My readers know more than I do’, than it is to work out a regimen in which that knowledge can actually flow in and start influencing the articles, and scoops, and series and so forth. So it’s slow and difficult work. We don’t have breakthroughs to report yet.
LESSON TWO: THERE IS NO FORMULA
Secondly there is, and I know this is frustrating, no formula for doing it yet. Because we can’t easily point to somebody who uses social network reporting to complete their beat every day.
LESSON THREE: ECONOMIC REALITY LIMITS TIME TO DEVOTE TO SOMETHING NEW
Third, one of the things we’ve learned is, in the current economic climate in most newsrooms, especially in newspapers, reporters are under a great deal of pressure. They not only have to produce on deadline, they have to produce more than they used to. And, despite their enthusiasm for this project when they signed up for it in November, the economic realities of the newsroom are such that many of them have almost no time to devote to something new.
And this is very much getting in the way because the immediate pay-offs in terms of scoops, meeting your production quotas or breaking big stories so that you can explain to your bosses why you’re putting time into your network are not really there, so this has become very frustrating for some of our people and it’s very much a sign of the times and a sign of the economic climate out there.
LESSON FOUR: IT’S NOT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY
My fourth lesson is by far the most important lesson that I’ve learned in this work.
It’s not about the technology. It’s not about what tools you use. It’s not about which blogging software you adopt. It’s not at all about whether you should use Facebook or Twitter or some of the other technologies that are out there. The whole art of doing any kind of social network reporting is in organizing people, and how people are engaged to help journalists, rather than the tools and technologies we have for reaching those people. And it’s hard to overestimate how important this is and how easy it is to forget it.
LESSON FIVE: THE TEN PER CENT RULE
The fifth important lesson is sometimes called, among those who study user-generated content, the ten per cent rule. The ten per cent rule is that if 100 people sign up for your network, if 100 people sign up for your citizen journalism project, about 10 of them will actually contribute anything in terms of content. Whether it’s a blog post, whether it’s comments in a thread, whether it’s tips sent in by email, about ten per cent will actively contribute. And one of those ten will become an extremely committed contributor, what is sometimes called super-contributors in online organizing.
THE CHALLENGE: GIVING YOUR AUDIENCE SOMETHING TO DO
And so the real challenge is not getting people to sign up or participate, it’s figuring out how to give them stuff they can do that actually makes its way into your report, so they can see the results of what they do. And if you can do that, people will participate.
THE POTENTIAL: MOBILIZING THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ON A SINGLE STORY
And so if you want to know why am I here talking to you about this, it’s because the potential is there to mobilize thousands of people on a single story.
WWW.TALKINGPOINTSMEMO.COM – a model internet news site
The model of an internet news organization is this one, because it is completely involved in filtering, processing, editing this huge inflow from readers, packaging it as news stories and blog posts, sending it back out which in turn stimulates more inflow from the readers.
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