Citizen journalism and UGC (user-generated content)

1) examples: Rodney King, 1991
                      Asian Tsunami, 2004
                      Mumbai bombings, 2008

theory (audience reception etc.)

Hypodermic needle 
UGC
Opinion leaders

benefits to institutions:

Share news quicker to audience
Target a wider audience

benefits to audience:

News is quicker to receive
Share news with each other quicker
Allows them to interact  

wider issues and debates

News isn't being regulated
Journalists are losing jobs
Less people buying the newspaper
Professional journalism/information is decreasing 

2) Citizen journalism is when members of the public record things that they see with the use of technology such as phones and then upload it onto the internet.

3) The first example of this was in 1991 where Rodney King was beaten up by the police. Someone had bought a video camera and was testing it out where he saw Rodney King get beaten up and recorded it. Later he went and gave the video to be published in the newspapers.

4) Some of the formats that are there to offer are chat-rooms, message boards, q and a and comments for articles.

5) Professionally shot footage is more likely to be shown on TV as it is shot by a team working together to get the news story whereas first hand footage is shot by someone using their phone for example and the footage isn't as clear and can be shaky at times. It is usually on social media websites and sometimes on YouTube channels such as Vice.

6) A gatekeeper is someone who regulates content and makes it appropriate for the audience to see.

7) The role of gatekeepers has changed as the news is now being published online people are exposed to a lot more and there is no one regulation what is being showed to the public. There are some gatekeepers on the internet and on social media websites but not enough to remove all content published which is changing the role that they have.

8) There will be a loss of jobs and that there will be small staff which are monitoring the citizen journalism as the news that is received is free, there will be no need to pay anyone to go out and get the news let alone going out to record it and then take time to regulate it then publish it as citizen journalism and the internet makes it easier for the news to get published.

9) I think that the news that is being delivered isn't having that professionalism to it and the stories can be misleading or have information which isn't correct because no one is regulating what people are posting online. With this being the case journalists will be losing out on jobs because the institutions don't have paywalls and news is now being provided for free because it is a public good which no one wants to pay for. This will cause a decrease in the lack of professional journalism being delivered to the audience and i feel that this is likely to cause a decrease in the quality of information being delivered to the audience.