Empowered citizens – Framing

Citizen journalists let the world see the horrible damage done by an earthquake in China and the terrible violence inflicted on Iranian citizens by their own government. Operations like Wikileaks exposed military policy in the U.S. and put pressure on the government to explain the current Afghanistan policy. Overall, technology allowed ordinary people to show things that powerful institutions did not want shown.

1.)  Most current citizen journalists are focused on national policy right now. What role can citizen journalists play exposing corruption on a local level in the U.S?

2.) After natural disasters in some countries, footage shot by citizen journalists is sometimes used to spur fundraising. Can citizen journalists aid funding for non-profits generally? Even non-profits focused on low profile issues that don’t gather national or international attention?

3.) Can citizen journalists ever be fully incorporated into traditional news organizations? Is that a way to offset balance sheets?