Week 9: Response

We never really settled on a clear definition of citizen journalism in class, and if metajournalism is actually a type of journalism. Citizen journalism implies the sense that the masses now have the opportunity to be a journalist (which they theoretically do) or that many many people are now journaling. But if ‘citizen journalism’ is defined literally, the great majority of citizens are not citizen journalists, because the majority of citizens are not going out and finding sources for a story or writing a story before any professional news organization picks up o on the scent. It is still a relative few (and mostly groups, not individuals), that produce alternative news sources.

The growing trend, however, is interactive with and sharing the news. I would agree that more and more of the majority are tweeting, Facebooking, linking, and sharing news stories with one another through the Internet and technology. CNN has a section of their website called “iReport,” where users can upload their own pictures of news events. But even if these citizens go beyond the routine sharing of stories to post their own picture of an event to a website, they are not reporting their story; the news has already been reported, and they are contributing additional information that builds on what has already been investigated, written, and established.

So while the majority have the opportunity to become citizen journalists, that is, non-professionals who decide to start scooping and reporting stories themselves, only some in the minority choose to become citizen journalists and the rest of us are just becoming more active citizens by using the technological version of word-of-mouth.

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In my observation, since the 2008 election more politicians have learned from Obama’s successes and have tried to better brand themselves, but the same media that they can leverage to build their reputation and popularity can unravel them like wildfire.

Living in South Carolina’s capital city and residing and working right next to the state capital building, I was highly entertained by South Carolina’s political shenanigans for the past few years, especially recently. The 2010 governor primary election was a particularly heated race, and Nikki Haley rose to the forefront of the republican ticket. She used social media, she kept her persona consistent, her team did many things right.

But a simple blog post and tweet attempted to unravel her entire campaign when a reporter posted that he and Nikki had an affair in 2007. This is recently after the current governor Mark Sanford’s near impeachment for using state funds to fly to his Argentinian lover. Gotta love South Carolina. News spreads so so fast through the same mediums candidates/politicians use to build their credibility. But fortunately for Haley’s case, the issue passed over pretty quickly when another political spectacle caught on fire over her’s (a youtube video of a SC senator calling Haley a ‘raghead’ while he stood outside a night club caught people’s attention next).

Is the Internet forever, or is it fleeting? Does the Internet provide transparency, or does it fodder spectacle and tabloid stories? These are all things politicians need to be aware of as they construct their online presence.