Citizen Journalism...
Open-source Reporting...
Citizen-controlled Media...
Crowd-source...
These are some of the new terminologies that are hitting the web for the next online social wave called participatory news networks. Reporters have always had their sources for their stories, now news sites such as NowPublic and Yahoos YouWitnessNews (beta) are encouraging the "average Internet user" to be the roving reporter. 
New tools such as video cameras in mobile phones, YouTube, blogs....Web 2.0 have encouraged the average Internet user to participate on the web. We have a new generation of young people that would rather interact through text messaging than a telephone or reading a newspaper.
There will be many ethical and legal issues arise from this new frontier....most reporters follow a code of ethics and standards....how will the new urban reporter be bound to these same ethics and standards? It is human nature to be drawn to a train wreck and the numbers have proven this with "NowPublic boasting more than 60,000 contributing reporters in more than 140 countries."
Problems in Schools....
An interesting report from latimes.com writes about schools that are having to deal with students "baiting" teachers in the classroom by confronting them and then secretly video taping it. These video tapes are then being posted on various websites such as MySpace and YouTube. Policing this can be a nightmare for educators as many of the postings are done outside the school walls on home computers. Other schools report school fights showing up online quite frequently.
Form of free speech or journalism? No - only another type of cyber bullying.
While online websites promote this new open communication tool it is important to discuss in the classrooms the impact on peoples lives that urban journalism can have. Ethics, legalities and other areas need to be discussed.
It is very easy to upload a file and press the send button from the comfort of your own home.....
No comments:
Post a Comment