Hello, back in unit one,
we mentioned the role of citizen journalism in today's digital media.
In this video, we're going to look at citizen journalism more
closely at the two main types of citizen journalists and
talk about the ways that ordinary citizens can get involved.
Citizen journalism refers to the way that ordinary members of the public,
not professional journalists, collect and distribute information via the Internet.
By doing this, citizen journalists can give ordinary people a voice.
There are two main ways that the general public can become citizen journalists.
One, working on their own, and two, working with news organizations.
Let's look at these two types in more detail.
The first type of citizen journalism
is where citizen journalists work on their own.
Not affected by traditional media.
Citizen journalists are not adding to articles that already exist.
They are creating something by themselves.
There are two main ways that people can do this.
One, through social media or two, by creating a blog or website.
Many people have a social media account such Facebook or Twitter.
By publishing photographs and opinions and
sharing stories, the public can help to report what is going on in the world.
During the Arab Spring in Egypt in 2011, protesters used
social media to coordinate their demonstrations against the government.
When a person feels strongly about an issue, they might create their own blog or
website, to share their opinions with other people.
This is an opportunity for someone to write more or
to continue with the same topic over a period of time.
With a website, a citizen journalist can use different types of media
to communicate their message.
Some citizen journalists work with existing news organizations.
There are three main ways to do this.
Commenting on articles, crowdsourcing and live blogging.
Commenting on articles refers to the comment
that readers make on an online news article.
You can give your opinion on the topic or comment on the article itself.
Other readers can reply to your comment as well as the original article.
Crowdsourcing means using a crowd, a lot of people to work on a project.
In journalism, it means asking the general
public to provide additional information to complete a story.
Journalists usually do this when a task is very big and needs many people.
For example, if a very long document, too long for
one person to read is made public, a newspaper might ask its readers
to each read a part, to check the facts or look for details.
Live blogging occurs when something happening live such as a concert,
a political meeting, a sport match or a severe weather event like a snow storm.
If we take the example of a snow storm,
online newspapers will ask the readers to send in stories
of how the snow is affecting them, along with photographs of the snow.
Readers might also talk about travel delays or places being closed.
So, in this video,
we looked at the role of citizen journalists in the digital media.
We saw that there are two types of citizen journalism.
Working on your own, using social media, blogs, and websites.
And working with news organizations, by commenting on articles,
crowdsourcing, and live blogging.
Next, we'll look at ethics in the digital age.