While Ohmynews is changing the way news is produced in Korea, and Dan Gilmour is changing the way news for the San Francisco Bay Area of the US with Bayoshpere – here in the UK citizen journalism isn’t really taking hold.
The thought was prompted by a conversation with a journalist from the Media Guardian. He was wondering why citizen journalism was catching-on elsewhere in the world but not here.
Yes, I’ve previously posted about the amazing response from the public when it comes to reporting the London bombing. Although, since the initial coverage there have been a number of articles questioning the role of citizen-journalism. Mark Glaser at the Online Journalism Review covers a number of angles – including the account of a victim who says:
"The victims were being triaged at the station entrance by Tube staff and as I could see little more I could do so I got out of the way and left," he wrote. "As I stepped out people with camera phones vied to try and take pictures of the worst victims. In crisis some people are cruel."
And this people’s paparazzi concerned John Naughton at the Guardian who wrote of ‘ghoulish voyeurism’. Although, when recent arrests were made, ITN and the Daily Mail bought-up material shot by bystanders for an exclusive on the arrest of two men in West London. ITN's enthusiasm can be seen by the wide range of contributions and contribution methods they invite.
The enthusiasm of the big-media in Britain for citizen driven content could be one reason as to why dedicated citizen journalism sites have failed to materialise. And the public are turning to the mainstream media for their coverage. After the 7th July the BBC Web site saw a surge in traffic, and it was inundated with eyewitness accounts - 20,000 e-mails, 1,000 photos and 20 videos. With the mainstream adopting citizen-journalism on this scale, is there any need?
The success of Ohmynews reflects concerns about press freedom in Asia – citizen-journalism provides a viewpoint which may be considered more impartial and challenging. So in this case citizen-journalism provides a new perspective.
Dan Gilmour’s Bayoshpere, offers the chance for people in the area to contribute but it has a focus: “It is a site of, by and for the people of the San Francisco Bay Area, with special attention to the region’s primary economic engine, technology.” In this instance, citizen-journalism is providing coverage for a common interest group with a shared geographical location – silicon valley.
The BBC is even in on the act when it comes to bringing together groups with a a common interest – it’s campaigning site iCan was recently relanched as the BBC Action Network – as covered on BBC News Online.
If you look for examples of people in a defined geographical area in the UK there are many examples of parish council sites - type "Village News" into Google and you get - http://www.pembury.org.uk/, And some of these sites have been brought together with UK villages online.
So, you could argue that people are pretty well served in the UK, with media which is perceived to be independent, and gives a good geographical spread. What citizen-journalims needs to thrive is: dissatisfaction with big media; shared community - geographical or interest based. Perhaps the opening for citizen-journalism is in the area of groups who perceive they’re not well served already – would Muslims think they were well served by the mainstream media in the country at the moment?
Matt
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