Posts Tagged: week 9

1. Traditional journalism companies and even companies in general that have connectional ties with citizen journalists, I don’t believe can afford to not acknowledge the persistent contemporary pervasiveness of citizen journalism and therefore need to recognize their benefits instead of trying to compete. Big players like CNN and BBC, therefore should maintain their citizen journalism portions of their site, such as CNN’s iReport. In the article we read for Monday, “Social news, citizen journalism and democracy” by Luke Goode, it stated that (1) alterity is always relative and (2) the political economy of citizen journalism is in flux with large-scale commerce and advertising dollars (and in some cases traditional media corporations) and therefore are encroaching steadily into this area. Therefore, I think it would hurt mainstream sites, such as CNN and BBC, if they did not include the citizen journalism portion of their site because it draws in viewers and dollars. Therefore, instead of focusing on ways to beat alterity, more mainstream news companies should be observing and learning how to incorporate citizen journalism into their sites. I also think its more beneficial for citizen journalists to post their material on these mainstream sites, not only for recognition reasons, but also for credibility. Therefore, this situation is more of a win-win than the other alternatives.

2. Today we covered the topics mentioned in my second question. From class, I learned that political websites are more of what is called “infoenterpropagainment” which is a whole mixture of things. Essentially, in my notes it was described as meaning, “politicians and media blend political information with aspects of propaganda, including media or political bias, and present it to the audience in a way that entertains.” Therefore, I feel that even though the web may present itself as a more personal, transparent experience while connecting with a political figure on their page, it really is just another platform stage in which to get across their political agendas, whether that be their support for the next election or the next bill they wish to sign. Although, in some ways, the Internet has made it easier for the population to become closer in a public forum when discussing political ideas, as well as the feedback loop to change into three way interaction. It has also helped voters determine political figure’s personal character and personal life more so than ever before. I realized this after watching how McCain, during his presidential election, was inconsistent in his personal marketing strategy when it transitioned from preliminary nominations to the national election. If it weren’t for the Internet to store this information within the same portal, YouTube, than I would have never known both of these videos, that promoted very different messages, had ever existed.Therefore, I will have to say that the Internet is great at documenting tool for political information and multimedia because it not only stores information, but allows available access to the information at anytime. This allows people to make more of an unbiased judgment about certain political parties and political figures because they have an unlimited amount of resources, regardless of branding, at their fingertips.

3.  In response to my third question about crowdsourcing inducing innovation in the political realm, in which I believe I touched a little bit on this in my second response, crowdsourcing allows for three way interaction between political parties and the population in regards to political agendas and the like. In class we have briefly discussed how Iceland is currently in reform after their economic collapse and how they are currently building and using a similar procedure to gain governmental support for parties and political agendas. Traditional political feedback would usually consist of a supporter or constituent handwriting mail or telephone calling a political figure, which would then usually be responded by that figure’s team, rather than the figure themselves. It was rare to have a political figure address you personally. However, on the Internet, in public discussion forums on their websites, it is now capable for political figures to address the needs and concerns of their constituents more easily. Although Iceland is just now currently experimenting with this, I hope that the process works fairly well between the governmental body and the people because if so, then a new form of direct democracy may occur and may possibly catch on by other larger nations. Although it may cause problems and has the possibility of becoming another fifth estate political watchdog, it is still an alternative to representational democracy, and therefore it may actually be more beneficial with the people. However, with this said, it is always easier in smaller groups (aka smaller nations) to agree than it is for larger numbers of people. Therefore, it could be successful in Iceland, while completely unsuccessful in the United States.

With all of this citizen written and reposted journalism, is there any way to for a reader to tell which stories are professionally written and true and which aren’t?

Is there a fear, or problem with people receiving incorrect information via meta-journalism? Has there been a case where it has happened on a big scale?

In Obama’s political campaign he utilized Social Media outlets to the best of his capabilities and it was considered a groundbreaking technique. Is this just new to The United States, or has this never been done anywhere before?

1. What are different concepts of citizen journalism? How does it affect mainstream media and the way we use the Internet?

2. What are some of the ways that interactivity can change the ways politics operate? Will political candidates be more “in-touch” with constituents as we continue to live more and more of our lives in an online sphere? Or will it only add to an already existing disconnect with the digital divide?

3. How have other countries used the social networking tools that Obama used in his 2008 campaign? Have they seen the same amount of success?

1. As some traditional news media sites allow spots for citizen journalists to post their stories, how would changing this around to where citizen journalists had their own portal site for their stories (alterity) impact the citizen journalism movement? Would it be more helpful for content gatherers, both for traditional news gatherers as well as information seekers, to post in a specific web portal their stories or would it be more harmful to have it set up this way? And, if more harmful, in what ways? Or should traditional news sites maintain the mesh of citizen journalism and traditional journalism thats set in place by some news outlets (such as CNN’s iReport)?

2. In the second article, “Interactivity and Branding, Public Political Communication as a Marketing Tool”, I found it interesting that the researchers labeled the politicians and political parties as brands when it comes to marketing themselves on the web. Considering last week we discussed how news organizations may need to begin leaning themselves more and more to this idea of branding their stories  in order to induce a possibly needed “pay wall”, I was wondering if this same relationship is involved on political sites. If a politician’s website brands itself differently in attempt to accommodate supporters, how do they do so that differentiates them away from other sites that may contain political stories involving them? And if politicians attempt to brand themselves through more of a perceived brand characteristics involving style and behavior, how do they do so that sets it apart from what others could read about from other sites? Do these sites possibly offer more of a transparent view involving the politician as opposed to traditional news sites?

3. In the third article, “Shadow Governments: An Icelandic Experiment in Participatory Governance and Social Change” it discussed the ways in which crowdsourcing induces innovation in some circumstances involving governance. How does this differentiate from traditional political feedback? And how does this new way of providing feedback through sites such as the Shadow Parliament and Nation Builder site, change governmental views on direct democracy? Is it possible that more sites like these will be popping up in the biggest of the world’s developed, leading nations and change the ways in which democracy works? Or will these sites in other nations still be considered more of a “watchdog”  or another political “estate” over the political realm?