Blogically Thinking

Observations and Learnings from J-Lab's Jan Schaffer

Let’s Count the Ways…

Posted by Jan Schaffer

Friday, January 23, 2009

The first U.S. forays in citizen media began in earnest only in 2004. Now, as 2008 comes to a close, we need to stop referring to citizen journalism as a monolithic phenomenon and pay closer attention to the many ways it’s evolving.

While we’re at it, let’s stop fretting about whether citizen media makers, as I like to call them, are good enough to be called “journalists.”

Many just hope to let people in their communities know what’s going on, so let’s not require them to be members of a tribe they don’t much want to belong to.

This year, you can really unpack a wide variety of citizen media niches. They all add value in different ways. There is:

  • The increase in micro-local news sites founded by people trying to fill a news void in their communities. This is where J-Lab does most of its work. Baristanet.com is well known, but take a look at NewCastleNOW.org in Chappaqua, N.Y. It’s just a year old. Or JDLand.com, the 2008 Knight-Batten Citizen Media Award winner.
  • The creation of local or citywide sites founded by former journalists. These include MinnPost.com in the Twin Cities, the St. Louis Beacon and NewHavenIndependent.org in Connecticut.
  • Attempts by conventional media to attract user-generated content. Take a look at CNN’s iReport.com, MSNBC.com’s First Person, the Chicago Tribune’s TribLocal.com.
  • The rise of national and international sites, such as NowPublic.com, that solicit and publish citizen photos, video and some articles from around the world. Some have attracted venture capital.
  • The participation of smart people as bloggers in sites like HuffingtonPost.com.
  • The aggregation and curation of Third World bloggers to counter non-existent media or government-controlled media. Look at GlobalVoicesOnline.org and its Rising Voices mico-funding arm.
  • And the emerging use of mobile phones and text messaging to report on crisis hotspots. Mobile pioneer Ushahidi.com was a winner of this year’s Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism.

What are the definitions of “news” in these various models? What are the differences in ethical sensibilities? What are the clues to the future of journalism? With the launch of this blog, J-Lab hopes to weigh in, now and then, to share what it’s been learning.

Publishd on 01/23 at 12:00 PM

Comments

i really agree with this: “stop referring to citizen journalism as a monolithic phenomenon.” in fact, i’d argue that it’s the opposite of “monolithic.”

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 01/23 at 02:57 PM

Jan says “Attempts by conventional media to attract user-generated content.” Perhaps I’m reading this into it but does that imply that these attempts aren’t as successful as hoped? Can traditional media and citizen media coexist? If we build it will they come?

Posted by Nick Lundskow on 01/28 at 11:23 PM

As long as we’re discussing semantics, how come no one ever objects to the word “citizen,” which really bothers me? Are we excluding noncitizens from the conversation? I don’t have an answer—“public journalist” has other connotations; “user journalist” sounds druggy or simply too impersonal—but I’d love to find something less exclusive (or, alternatively, less divisive—many legacy journalists are also citizens). How about “audience journalist”?

Posted by Barbara Selvin on 01/29 at 03:33 PM

Thank you Ms. Schaffer, for all your work. I foresee lots of use for it.
As for Barbara Selvin’s comment, use of the word “citizen” in this sort of context goes back a long way in our country’s history. We were created by men and women who called each other citizen.
I don’t have a problem with non-citizens commenting, except when they come from a disaster of a country and then want us to change to meet their wants the ones that have failed for many, many years.
The world is NOT one country (pray God it never will be) and those who do not recognize this, will either try to enslave it or bring it to ruin. 
The countries that don’t want interference in their life style have a right to their thinking. (Well, at least up to the point of wanting to drop The Bomb on us.)

Posted by Cat Moves on 01/29 at 04:23 PM

Hmmm. Did I mention that the use of “citizen” is potentially divisive?

Posted by Barbara Selvin on 01/29 at 04:35 PM

Thanks for the Ushahidi link.  That is a really useful tool. Abrazos.

Posted by James Breiner on 01/30 at 10:23 AM

This blog is must reading for my J-students at Hunter College/CUNY.

Posted by Gregg Morris on 02/03 at 07:54 PM

I agree wholeheartedly. “Citizen journalism” has been useful as a catchphrase, but seems lacking. We don;t use the word “citizen teachers”. We call people for what they do.

Time to get into the reality of what it means to record and interpret the world around. a really powerful ecosystem is developing.

Posted by Jay Dedman on 02/10 at 01:14 PM

How about adding another category: Non-traditional news media’s efforts to attract user-generated content?

The new (launched Jan. 12) world news organization GlobalPost (http://www.globalpost.com) highlights the work of hundreds of bloggers from 41 countries on the home page, the region pages, the country pages and on the bloggers’ own pages.

I worked with GlobalPost to find and recruit some of the most compelling bloggers from around the world to have their current post appear on GlobalPost. We point back to the bloggers’ sites for comments and archives.

GlobalPost gives top-notch bloggers who, in many cases had been writing in relative obscurity, a chance to speak to a global audience. It’s an impressive effort to give GlobalPost’s readers a real ground-level understanding of the bloggers’ countries. Check it out: http://globalpost.com

— John Wilpers

Posted by John Wilpers on 02/10 at 04:34 PM

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