New Media and Citizen Journalism
New
media has brought immense change to the way journalism takes place today.
Journalism is an activity or in other words it is profession of writing for
variety of media such as writing for newspaper, magazines or broadcasting news
on TV and Radio, journalism is a form of writing that informs people about
things that really happened. Journalists
serve vital role in a society by informing the public about the events
happening around the globe. Professional
journalist has some common requirements, for instance, journalist should be
curious, adventurous and talkative while working under strict deadlines.
However,
the era of New Media has opened the doors for “Citizen Journalism”, this term refers
to any kind of news gathering, reporting, writing, publication of articles and
posting photographs or video of newsworthy events and topics over internet or by
means of electronic media that is done by the members of general public
(non-professional) instead of professional news agencies.
On
11th May 2013, the elections were held in Pakistan which were rigged
in-terms of voting and were later on exposed off by the citizen journalists. While
rigging was taking place, it was suddenly noticed by the citizen journalism and
videos and photos were captured and recorded respectively of the incident and
therefore were immediately reported, posted and shared on social networking
sites on that day which enlightened the whole nation and these news became
viral among the people and made the front page in the printing media as well as
the major breaking news among the media news channels all around Pakistan.
Likewise, this helped the people to know about the reality and this was all due
to the act of citizen journalism.
Moreover,
citizen journalism uncovered a lot of events for instance “The Oscar Grant
Shooting”, “U.K Riots, “Egyptian Protests”,”2010 Moscow Metro Bombings” etc.
New
Media helps to share the news on the fly. People can share their opinions,
views and can discuss the hot topics, can spread the current affairs quickly
and effectively as well as discuss further steps related to the situation. In
21st century New Media is an effective source of information sharing
because even the most basic phone has a camera and it is simple to post images,
videos and text to social media sites at the click of a button. People love to
share information by using New Media technologies because it is user-friendly,
easy to learn and use.
Modern
gadgets provide facility to share anything via YouTube, Twitter, Facebook,
Online communities, websites and electronic forums.
In
future, Citizen Journalism will become more popular because multiple platforms
such as CNN- iReport and Global Reporter shall contribute in the emergence of
citizen journalism and New Media shall continue helping people in telling their
stories effectively.
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