Welcome Inorden

The first Nordic Citizen Journalism Venture is up and running. The result of coming together of individuals without any corporate backing, this is arguably the first attempt at a 'Nordic common ground on the Internet' as per Kristine Lowe in New Nordic Citizen Journalism Initiative. I wish Inorden all the luck for the venture.

CJ goes virtual

An interesting piece of news that I came across today is the opening of the virtual office of CNN on Second Life. This is waht I call spanning all worlds. They are going to extensively use Citizen Journalists for coverage. It would be interesting to see the stories that emerge. Read more at CNN Supports Citizen Journalism. In Second Life

From New Media to Old Media

I came across an interesting story of a blogger who went on and established a book publishing company. This is really encouraging and one should look forward to more such news trickling in. Would we see a day when Google (Not exactly media though) or say Orato buys out a mainline newspaper. The company in question is Dzanc Books which was started as a literary blog Emerging Writers Network by Dan Wickett, 'a former quality-control manager for a car-parts maker'.

The Home page of Dzanc says :

Dzanc Books was created in 2006 to advance great writing and champion those writers who don't fit neatly into the marketing niches of for-profit presses.

With a registered community of more than 2000 writers it seems to be headed for exciting times. You could go through the story of their journey till now on Wired.

Citizen Journalism powered Democracy

While I was talking about exciting times ahead when Africa opens up to Citizen Journalism, the citizens in Africa were already into it albeit with a twist. Since the entire Africa consists of fomer colonies of Great Britain, France or Portugal the language of Officialese is not the language of the people. So the written word is still to inspire popular imagination as more often than not it is in an alien tongue. So what is seen is CJ powered radio broadcasts. A good story on this phenomenon has been published by allafrica.com credited to the Inter Press Service (Johannesburg). The writer Linus Atarah reporting in from Helsinki in his story Africa: Citizen Journalism Opening Up Political Space gives a live example of Ghana where Citizens are questioning ministers in live radio broadcasts, something unheard of in Africa.

Media beware here comes the "I Me My" Media

Today I read a good writeup in the Manila Times about the the growing relevance of Citizen Journalism specially in the strife torn areas as evident by the continuous stream of news and information flowing out of Burma from amateurs armed with digital cameras and mobile phones. What is also underlined is the significance of the internet which is 'undergirding' this movement. As the article Digital technology is reinventing journalism by Ike Suarez very well describes, the great enabler for any form of Mass Journalism is Digital Technology. I would love to see a day when the digital footprint on the African Continent becomes more pronounced leading to some uncesored news coverage from there.
The writer has given some very good pointers which I repeat here for the benefit of all.

Quote

1) Digital-enabled and interactive media may be demassified; but when the circumstances are there, they possess a massiveness of reach traditional print and broadcast can never equal;
2) Anyone with an Internet-enabled device is both a recipient and disseminator of news and information;
3) Traditional and Internet-enabled media are never mutually exclusive, but are instead, mutually supporting;
4) Methods tyrants traditionally employ to suppress news and information are no longer potent;
5) Professional journalists still have a value proposition in this new media environment, at least for now.
The value proposition lies in professional journalists integrating into their work and aggregating the content produced by citizen journalists.
It also calls for professionals in the newsrooms of newspapers, magazines, radio and television to embrace citizen journalists as truly their brethren. Not doing so would be an act of psychological denial.

Unquote.

A good analysis of unbridled Citizen Journalism

To edit or not to edit is the question. Came across a very good article in Telecom TV which puts forward a point that Citizen Journalism may be a necessary evil but the quality of the out would always remain indeteminate. While talking about a User Generated Movie review site Filmcrave, the authors Martyn Warwick & Andrew Beutmueller have tried to highlighted the negatives of Citizen Journalism to great effect. A good perspective. Read the full story here.

An attempt to track the ever changing and evolving media scape.