Citizen Journalism VS Traditional Journalism

How does citizen Journalism affect traditional Journalism?

Citizen Journalism

The collection, dissemination, and analysis of news and information by the general public, by the use of mobile phones, digital cameras, blogs, etc

Why do I have to waste three years of my life in university if I could just be a journalist without even getting proper training? This is what came to mind when I came across the term citizen Journalism.

Citizen Journalism is a threat to traditional Journalism and it should be discontinued mainly because we don’t know how factual the content produced is, so it gets more difficult for the public to decide what to believe. With traditional journalism, it is safe to assume that the information is factual, Checked and re-checked for accuracy, Stories were edited in an inverted pyramid, giving the masses all the news that is relevant, fair and objective so as for citizen Journalism it is difficult to produce news with all the mentioned elements because they were never trained to be able to detect what is news worthy, relevant or fair.

Although citizen generated content is becoming increasingly popular through the use of social media and new media technologies such as mobile phones, it has been apparent that the information delivered and uploaded by citizens is misleading and therefore may lead to propaganda. Citizens upload their side of the argument, however not the side of the opposition. The real question is whether or not the information being uploaded is in fact the truth and not just another way to gain attention.

Traditional journalism is facing a very tough time at the moment due to citizen Journalism, with social media being used as a means of broadcasting news updates. Newspapers are slowly becoming less important to buy as the internet has it all, Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Online news is also available to access freely. Each provides information about recent news and events. The public can easily find out what is going on in the news through these sources. Even journalists are using social networking sites to provide news updates. Journalism is entering a new era of technology and modernised communication habits. If traditional journalism wants to keep within the standards, then it needs to follow the trends and enter into the social networking phase, with a focus to stay strong and keep going. This is the now and it needs to strive to keep up-to-date with it as best it can. Journalists need to maintain a level of journalism that is cohesive to what is being used now, and that just so happens to be social media and in particular twitter.

The fine line between Citizen Journalism and Traditional journalism will always be obvious to the public. They are both two very different types of journalism and always will be. However the two are merging together even now to create a deeper meaning and truth to news stories. This merging of the two will continue and they will both adopt aspects such as news and pictures from each other in order to give stories more depth and value.