Posts Tagged: professional

It’s an ongoing battle between citizen journalists and professional journalists.

The definition of a citizen journalist from Goode’s article is essentially the same as a professional journalist. Both know how to blog, gather news, both share video and photos, and modify and monitor other news sources. What’s the big difference? According to citizens, nothing. Ask a professional, and it’s the fact that they have training, a degree, and a respect for the profession.

There’s definitely a rift between citizens and professionals. However, with the popularity and convenience of citizen journalism, it’s becoming harder for professional journalists to shut them out of the ranks. Citizens journalists are key in gathering news information. Think of the potential.

If a downtown shooting occurs, a brave citizen with a video phone can capture the footage right then and there, and  if they have 3G network or instant Internet access, the video can be on the web and accessible to millions in seconds. A news team has to be notified of the event (most likely by the citizen) gather the equipment and travel to the shooting to gather information. By that time, the event is over, the action is gone. The  news team has to get the footage from the citizen.

It’s not fun for the professional. Especially when the professional has worked for years in the field, has a degree, and professional training, only to be usurped by an ordinary citizen with a camera phone.

Defeat.

While professional journalists aren’t loving citizen journalists, politician’s don’t seem to mind them. In fact, coupled with social media, citizens journalists are a helpful tool for politics. Think of how Obama used social media in the last campaign. He set the precedent for future campaigns, so now every politician is going to have to employ social media. If people are posting videos and photos, and information, as long as it’s positive for their image, politicians are going to accept it.

However, there’s still an editing process that has to take place. Online editors are going to have a much harder time filtering through information simply because there’s more input from citizen journalists. Should editors then be traditional journalists or citizens?

The truth of it is, journalists don’t need a degree. We might hate it, but we don’t need one. If someone can do what we do without a degree, we might resent them for it, but we can’t hold onto that forever. As long as an editor has the ability to clearly look at material and decide what is newsworthy or not, and edit material correctly and fairly, then they’re in a good place. Throw some field experience in and it’s even better.

There’s no way to avoid the merging of citizens and journalists. I think journalists will always be labeled as journalists, and that tradition will hold sway over audiences, but citizens are also gathering news. They’ve got a long way to go before they become as credible as traditional journalists.

Benkler

1. How much peer-to-peer sharing is okay? In terms of what should be open source and available for free to users?

After the reading, I have determined that it is quite difficult to determine how much peer-to-peer sharing is okay. I have an interesting opinion about this I think. I try to buy movies and music if I want it and avoid getting copies from friends. However, I feel that a lot of people in culture today think that movies, music, etc. are overly priced and that we are being shafted when it comes to how much we are paying for it. I think this is one of the main reasons why peer-to-peer sharing has become such a problem in the recent years. People simply do not want to pay $20-25 dollars for a movie, when they could get it for free. The whole concept of pirating media brings up an entirely new topic to deal with.

I do not, however, think that everything should be open source and available for free to all users. If this were the case, then there would be no prestige in creating work, because then everyone could have it. It is exactly the same reason as to why music artists got so upset over the Napster case. They created those songs, and wanted to reap the benefits from them. Open source software is a cool thing though. I love it when I can get a program for free and not have to buy it. So there is definitely a conflicting case to be made about what media should be free.

2. What can motivate us, as designers, to produce information, knowing that other people are going to use it? Should we be okay with wanting to inspire other people from our work?

After thinking about this question again, I do not think that it is really relevant. We, as designers, should be honored for other people to like our work enough to want to be inspired from it and use it. After all, this is one of the reasons why we create work. We want it to inspire creativity in other people.

Shirky

3. Is everyone really capable of “publishing” in today’s culture? How can we truly define publishing and the art of being a professional?

After the reading, I have determined that with the way that media is turning these days in our culture, it truly does seem that everyone can publish. After all, it seems that some people are getting jobs because of their blogging capabilities. The example mentioned in the book about the lost phone, was very representative of this. Evan simply published a website about the lost phone, and people reacted to it immediately. It just goes to show that anything you put on the web is “published” and made available for anyone to see. We are all capable of publishing work, we don’t necessarily have to be a professional in the field. With the changing media, the definition of publishing and being a professional has changed drastically. You no longer have to be a professional in our field to publish something. I am sure that the media will continue to change and these ideas will change along with it.

In response to Taylor’s question of “Has the growth of mass media use led to the depletion of “close-knit” or “strong” affiliation relationships? I feel that mass media has hurt some relationships in our culture today. Think about it, how many young relationships fail because one person gets mad that some other person is posting stuff on their boyfriend/girlfriend’s Facebook wall? A lot of this also has to deal with trust. I feel like as a culture, we are trusting people less and less.