JN 229 Entry #10: “Comment is free, facts are sacred: journalistic ethics in a changing mediascape”

The article written by Natalie Fenton and Tamara Witschge questions the idea of how digital media is challenging the role of the journalist in society.

“The functions of inquiry, observation, research, editing and writing have had to adapt to the vast array of information available online, digital video footage, wire photos, amateur pictures taken with camera-enabled cell phones or digital cameras and the blogosphere, as well as the speed of the 24/7cable news” (Fenton 148). The world is an ever changing place. With all the new technology that is created all the time, it constantly affects professions. One major profession is keeps affecting is journalism. As a profession, journalism is meant to be a select group of people who report on issues that occur around the world. However, as new digital media emerges, more people can take journalism into their own hands.

“The codes and conventions of professional journalism are being challenged as they are being restated. Professional journalists are keen to guard the borders of their profession, and demarcate where journalism ends and something else begins” (Fenton 160). That something else is citizen journalism. As I’ve learned about citizen journalism through the course of this semester, I have come to the conclusion that it is a ‘necessary evil’.

“The main difference between professional journalism and other spaces of news as perceived by the journalists lies in the differentiation between facts and opinion” (Fenton 160).

Professional journalism should still be the main base for receiving general news stories. Citizen journalism can add to those stories, with a variety of opinions, firsthand encounters of events and up-to-date stories and images. In today’ society, we cannot go back to just professional journalism. Due to the technology that our society has grown with, people feel that they have a right to participate in news gathering and reporting. However, we cannot wipe out professional journalism completely. All in all, neither aspect of journalism can survive without the other.

JN 229 Entry #9: “Blogging, The Nihilist Impulse"

Blogging has become such a social norm in the last decade that it is now described through the term “blog culture”. The idea is that blogging has its whole own culture and identity that belongs uniquely to the world of internet blogs.

Blogs allow for a wide variety of opinions and voices to be heard. Blogging is defined as “a website containing the writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions etc., and often having images and links to other websites” (dictionary.com). Blogging is becoming a major phenomenon in our society, with the amount of blogs created doubling every few months (BBC News). BBC News did a study of blogs and the type of information that people post. They found that “the blogsphere is highly varied, with blogs coming in many shapes and forms...” (BBC News). Blogs are used as campaign sites, personal diaries, art projects, online magazines, news sites and as a place for community networking. People like that they can subscribe to blogs for free and stay updated with any news posts automatically. BBC News found that “blogs have played a part in highlighting issues that journalists have not covered. They have also proved to be a valuable communication for journalists in repressed countries who have no other publishing means” (BBC News). It is because of blogging that many peoples’ voices and opinions are heard. In the article “The Crisis of Journalism and the Internet”, Robert McChesney explains that “ the internet is to provide the foundation for free speech and a free press” (McChesney 62). The Internet allows for people to openly express their opinions and beliefs and applauds citizen journalism.

However, from reading a great deal of blogs, it is evident that many people just write their opinions on topics. Many people are biased or just don’t know what they are talking about. Many just write about things that interest them, or their specific feelings about a certain event.

JN 229 Entry #8: “News to me: Twitter and the personal networking of news”

Kate Crawford explains in her article News to me: Twitter and the personal networking of news that “the company behind Twitter does not see itself as a news channel, but as something far more dispersed and organic” (Crawford 115). According to Crawford, Twitter reached 44.5 million users in June 2009, which in my opinion is crazy.

As a user of Twitter myself, I am fully aware of what kind of ‘tweets’ are published on a daily basis. As the article states, “’electric technologies’ act as extensions of the human nervous system” (Crawford 115). Upon first reading this statement, I sat back and really thought about what it means. As I have thought about it, I have come to agree with what Twitter has become. I started using Twitter as a social project of sorts for a class last year. However, when the class ended, I kept my account and have continued to use it. I now follow a lot more users and have many following me as well. What I have noticed, is that while some users stick to the generic, “watching a movie” or “hanging out with so and so” tweets, there are some users that use Twitter for news purposes. For instance, many news organizations have Twitter accounts where they will tweet headlines or short story facts that will make followers go read the rest of the story.

From my experience, Twitter acts as both a social media and a news centre. People can catch up with friends and their favourite celebrities, but at the same time, users can read the latest headlines and hear what is going on around the world. One of my favourite users is actually “@LBcancellations”, which is Laurier Brantford University’s Twitter account for cancelled classes. It has become very convenient to follow this user, as sometimes my Laurier email, mylearningspace and/or the campus website will not open on my computer. On these days, it has become really easy to just check twitter to see if a class of mine has been cancelled. Many people will even change their settings so that users such as “@LBcancellations’” tweets are sent straight to their phone.

As a social media site and as a news centre, I believe that Twitter can be very beneficial. While using a social media site, which is something that the new generation of kids has become addicted to, people can read the news as well.

JN 229 Entry # 7: “Social Network Theory” and “Gatekeeping”

In the article “The Many Faced ‘You’ of Social Media” by Sharon Meraz, I was very intrigued by the sections titled “Social Network Theory” and “Gatekeeping”. This section got me thinking about the question, “to what extent do social media networks share similar characteristics to the larger superstructure environment of the World Wide Network” (Meraz 126).

Meraz goes on to explain that “several studies have shown that patterns of link structure within networks on the World Wide Web network exhibit a power law distribution” (Meraz 126). Areas such as growth of websites and website traffic have been found to exhibit power law characteristics (Meraz 126). That is saying that every aspect of a website, from how it grows to who finds the site has to do with a larger power at hand. However, there is little to no work to date that exists to explain power law dynamics within social media news communities (Meraz 126). Meraz states that “if these sites are subject to strong power law effects, it would mean that select users get more success at achieving popular stories than the majority of users within the network” (Meraz 127).

What is gatekeeping?

Meraz goes on to explain gatekeeping and how it affects social media news stating, “in their most extreme form, social media news aggregator sites are creating a new form of gatekeeping that is bottom-up as opposed to top-down” (Meraz 127). Gatekeeping is the term used to describe the news selection process. It has been defined as “the process by which the vast array of potential news messages are winnowed, shaped and prodded into these few that are actually transmitted by the news media” (Meraz 127). There are five factors that act as impact variables on the news selection process: 1) ideological factors, 2) extramedia factors, 3) organizational factors, 4) media professional routines and 5) individuality. Further studies are taking place to examine how hyperlinks and the World Wide Web are affected by gatekeeping.

JN 229 Entry #6: “The Crisis of Journalism and the Internet”

    Upon reading this article, my first question was what exactly is the crisis of journalism and the Internet? Robert McChesney describes it by stating, "The corruption of journalism, the decline of investigative reporting, the degeneration of political reporting and international journalism, the absurd horserace coverage of campaigns, the collapse of local journalism, the increasing prevalence of celebrity and scandal are now roundly acknowledged by all but the owners of large media firms and their hired guns" (McChesney 54).

Now, upon reading this one may ask, as I did, how did this crisis start? McChesney states, "The real concern is what accounts for the present crisis. In much of conventional parlance, the crisis is due primarily to the Internet providing competition to the dominant commercial news media and draining resources from the traditional journalism" (McChesney 55).

Okay, so we're back to one of the ideas that we've been discovering for the duration of this class: the internet as a negative contributor to the journalistic world. I've been thinking about this concept for a very long time and I have yet to come to my own conclusion. So far, I am able to see and understand both sides of the argument.

From a professional point of view, I can see how the internet is having a negative impact on journalism. Like citizen journalism, the internet has made it incredibly easy for just about anybody to post things online. More and more people are tuning into the internet when they want to know what is going on in the world. Similarly, more and more news organizations are producing news online. This is affecting journalism as less and less people read newspapers and magazines. The newspaper industry is decreasing in size due to this new internet craze.

However, from a personal point of view, I love the internet. I admit to tuning in to the internet on a regular basis to hear the news. As a university student living away from home, I don't get a newspaper delivered to my house and I find that I don't have time to sit down and watch the news. My schedule is so busy that it has become easier to just go on the internet to check things out if I want to know what's going on in the world.

    I can see the negative and the positive effects that the internet has had on journalism. Personally I love the internet, but as a student who wants to work in print journalism, I am aware that the internet is slowly taking away those jobs, making my future less definite.

JN 229 Entry #5: “New media and internet activism: from the ‘Battle of Seattle’ to blogging”

    According to Richard Kahn and Douglas Kellner, "since the 1990s, there have been growing discussions of internet activism and how new media have been used effectively by a variety of political movements" (Kahn and Kellner 87). Activists turned to using the internet to broadcast opinions and get word out: "Activists began employing the internet to foster affiliations and stage events against the excesses of neo-liberalism and transitional corporate capitalism" (Kahn and Kellner 87).

    Kahn and Kellner considered that the internet as a global structure is creating a base for "an unparalleled worldwide anti-war/pro-peace and social justice movement during a time of terrorism, war, and intense political struggle" (Kahn and Kellner 88). The internet is a space where people can access any and all information that is recorded/documented on it. This can have a huge positive or negative impact. Until we know more about it, I think it is hard to decipher what sort of impact the internet has on activism.

 

    Blogging: Virtually Democratic

The new internet eco-system has erupted around blogging. First, I would like to question where the word blog came from. What exactly does it mean? According to dictionary.com, a blog is a "website containing the writer's or group of writers' own experiences, observations, opinions etc, and often having images and links to other websites" (dictionary.com). The word blog is a play on web log. Bloggers today have "demonstrated themselves as technoactivists favouring not only democratic self-expression and networking, but also global media critique and journalistic socio-political intervention" (Kahn and Kellner 91). Bloggers state their mind in numerous posts in hopes that others will take the time to read and analyse what they are saying.

    Blogs are successful because they are easy to create and maintain. Even people who are not good with technology find blogging to be simple and fun. Bloggers have the ability to express their opinions to the masses. I personally like blogging. Even if I'm just writing a bunch of nonsense, it's fun to get things out there and know that other people can read it. Whether you're an internet activist or just a blogger for fun, I think having the ability to blog is a good thing.

JN 229 Entry #4: News Quality Differences in Online Newspaper and Citizen Journalism Sites

    Citizen journalism. What is it? How does it affect professional journalists? How does it affect society as a whole? These are issues I've been exploring in many of my classes this semester.

    From reading the article, "News Quality Differences in Online Newspaper and Citizen Journalism Sites" by Serena Carpenter, I have been able to form my own opinion on the concept of citizen journalism. Carpenter defines citizen journalism as "an individual who intends to publish information meant to benefit a community" (Carpenter 69). In today's society, more and more people are taking journalism into their own hands, believing that they can report on issues the same ways in which professional journalists do.

    I openly question this belief. There is a reason they are called 'professional' journalists. They have studied what it means to be a journalist, how to report fairly and accurately, and have learned the tools of the trade. Professional journalists have ethics codes in place and general rules and guidelines that they must follow in order to present the news issues in the most accurate way to society's citizens. How can a citizen walk off the street and report on some of the very vast issues that we face in our society today? An everyday citizen does not have the same training as a professional journalist. Personal opinions and beliefs would greatly hinder the overall information being reported by citizens. As journalists, we are trained to be as unbiased as possible and to report truthfully and accurately.

    The idea of citizen journalists is a concerning one. Well it is great for people to be able to report on issues to their friends and families, citizen journalism is not the way to go. We still need professional journalists in our society. Too many uninformed people reporting on issues will just cause chaos and disorder. Issues will be reported on improperly and it will have a negative impact on our society as a whole.