The modern audience due to the technological revolution now prefer to get news and other information on-the-go instead of sticking to the tradition prime time news bulletin. This demand has altered traditional media production.
Traditional media are communication channels and expressions that existed before the advent of New media. They include cable television, radio, movie and music studios, newspapers, magazines, books and most print publications. Hitherto, the people working with any form of media were required to undergo training to acquire some skills in order to be called journalists and media practitioners, and to be deemed qualified by the status quo to work in any media institution. The journalistic practice had very strict rules and codes of conduct that reporters were supposed to live and work by, and as such news reporting was reserved for a privileged few.
However, over the years media production seems to be changing gradually. Dan Gilmore, a media futurist, predicts that by 2021 citizens will produce 50% of the news peer-to-peer, and not through the use of traditional media. The question to consider is this: who are these citizens, how are they going to create news without the traditional training and expertise, what medium or media are these individuals using, and how soon will this transformation occur?
According to Dr Boateng, citizen journalism is the democratization of the manufacture of news information by making the once dormant audience an integral part of the news making process. It is also the participation of the audience (who were up till then passive and dormant according to the hypodermic needle theory) in the formulation and dissemination of news information. Citizen journalism is simply when private individuals are able to achieve the job of professional reporters. The citizen journalist is therefore a member of the public who plays active roles in collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news information
Citizen journalists employ the use of ‘social media’. According to Shapshak (2009:4), ‘social media is about individuals sharing content…for example blogs carrying articles, insights and news from amateur and professional writers alike…’. Social media is also content often created by ordinary people using highly-accessible publishing and writing technologies that is intended to facilitate communications and influence interactions with peers and with public audiences typically via the internet and mobile communications networks.
In his article Blurring the lines between Professional and Citizen Journalism (2013), Peter Townson talks about the fine line between the trained journalist and the citizen journalist using the social media;
The use of social media by citizen journalists interferes with the use of traditional media. Steve Measures in his book The Rise Of Citizen Journalism (2013) stated that ‘pretty much everyone now has the means to report what is going on in the world around them. Even the most basic phone has a camera, and it is simple to post images, video and text to social media sites at the click of a button”. Consequently citizen journalists – ordinary people doing the job of reporters – are everywhere.The world has never been as informed as it is today, nor has there ever been such ready and easy access to the news. Switching on the television or radio or flicking through a newspaper is no longer the primary methods by which consumers get their news. Instead, hands are drawn to picking up the telephone, switching on a laptop or checking a tablet, all of which provide access to social media, without a doubt the most significant advance in the recent history of the media….. However, one of the most significant difficulties posed by the rise in social media is the blurring of the lines between professional journalists, citizen journalists and media activists…. There is still a difference between the ‘news’ which appears on your Twitter feed every day, and the news being reported by major organizations around the world, and that boils down to the value added by professional journalism. Journalism is not a mere reflection of a situation or a transmission of information. Journalism requires a level of analysis and expertise that is impossible to encapsulate in 140 characters of a Tweet or a Facebook status update. That is not to say that there is not a link between the two, indeed the connection between journalism and social media is one which will continue to strengthen and develop in the long term. But it does not mean that journalism, the profession of gathering, analyzing and explaining information, will not continue. In other words, while the winds of change are certainly sweeping through the profession, the rise of social media does not symbolize the death of traditional journalism.
Although it may seem that citizen journalists interfere with the work of professional journalists, there are several significant benefits that citizen reportage has. On some occasions- particularly in straitened times- journalists can’t be everywhere at once and often arrive after the news event has actually happened. In many cases, such as during the Arab Spring, journalists can be banned or censored by regimes and individuals that don’t want certain stories to be reported. In such scenarios citizen journalists with camera phones can be the sole source of first hand information. Much of this then feeds into the traditional media, and then broadcast media houses and national newspapers run stories based on these reports filed by the citizen journalists.
In Africa, the lack of adequate local newspapers and the lack of opportunity to participate in major national media has spurred community activists to launch alternative sites and blogs. Many of these aim to extensively discuss issues of a political, cultural, social and economic nature using the Freedom of Information and Speech acts to unearth key facts about how countries are governed.
The traditional media however seems to be rising up to the challenge. CNN for instance has adopted tweet news and the use of Facebook to keep their followers updated. SuperSports is using Skype to interact with its audience. In Ghana, various media houses such as GBC, TV3, Metro TV, Joy FM, and the Graphic Communications Group have all incorporated the use of social media into their use of traditional media.
For instance the TV3, GTV, Viasat 1and Metro newsrooms all have websites, Facebook and Twitter pages where they provide their audiences with news updates. They also post videos of news items on their Youtube channels.
Graphic Communications Group recently employed journalists who had enough experience in blogging and social media; the idea is to get these experts to concentrate on their website and social media news update pages in order to expand their audience base.
Most of the traditional media houses have also adopted the use of social media to encourage interaction with their audience. Instead of the traditional phone-in segments, they ask their audience to visit their social media pages to take part in on-air discussions and competitions.
The advent of social media has introduced an epoch where citizens are given the opportunity to collect and disseminate information on both the ground and national levels. Although this development interferes with the dissemination of information by traditional media, several of the traditional media houses have found ways to integrate the use of new media with the ‘old’ media so as to appeal to their audiences, as well as to maintain their standards. They have equally employed the use of social media such as Youtube and Facebook in order to compete fairly with citizen reporters, and to satisfy the information needs of their different audiences.
References
Kelly, J. (2009) Red Kayaks and Hidden Goals: the rise, challenges and values of citizen journalism. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the study of Journalism.
Measures, C. (2013). social media today. http://socialmediatoday.com/chris-measures/1430031/rise-citizen-journalism. [Accessed 22/10/13]
townson, p. (2013). dc4mf. http://www.dc4mf.org/en/content/blurring-lines-between-professional-and-citizen-journalism-0. [Accessed 22/10/13]
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