The Emerging Journalism -"By the People" Image credit : MIT

 In the digital era, where cameras have become a house hold thing , many people are now capable of covering breaking news. So the way we are watching news is changing day by day. We can experience it in elections, natural disasters, human disasters. Almost any event happens in todays world has a chance of getting  up. Now a days when we search for some burning issues on Google it shows latest news from pouplar news agencies like BBC and some unknown sites together. With social sites like twitter,orkut,facebook dissemination of breaking news was so fast that with in moments news blast out. This all paved way for the "Citizen Journalism" where news are not only "for the people" but also "by the people".

The term citizen journalism refers to a wide range of activities in which everyday people contribute information or commentary about news events. Over the years, citizen journalism has benefited from the development of various technologies, including the printing press—which provided a medium for the pamphleteers of the 17th and 18th centuries—the telegraph, tape recorders, and television, each of which offered new opportunities for people to participate in sharing news and commentary. With the birth of digital technologies, people now have unprecedented access to the tools of production and dissemination. Citizen journalism encompasses content ranging from user-submitted reviews on a Web site about movies to wiki-based news. Some sites only run stories written by users, while many traditional news outlets now accept comments and even news stories from readers. The notion of citizen journalism implies a difference, however, between simply offering one’s musings on a topic and developing a balanced story that will be genuinely useful to readers.

Last year Google has come up with youtube direct to take citizen journalism more steps further . With it users can directly upload videos to websites and many popular news websites have added this feature to their websites. The instances where Citizen Journalists or rather Guerrilla reporting had made an impact are in good number. Now the good and bad times of History which were once reported(tampered to suit their needs? ) by big news giants and media barons are now being reported by the people who are part of the historical happenings- by this, the reader can know what it really is to be there. Citizen Journalism epitomizes the belief that the experiences of people personally involved with an issue present a different—and often more complete—picture of events than can be derived from the perspective of an outsider.Some instances are just briefed below :

In mid-2009, when thousands of Iranians took to the streets amid allegations of fraud in the June presidential election, the images of the protests that reached the rest of the world were not from the well established media like BBC, Statesmen, Time  but were almost exclusively those captured by ordinary citizens on cell phones and digital cameras and disseminated over the Internet, circumventing the government’s information clampdown.

While the recent earthquake in Haiti knocked out almost all of the country’s radio stations, Haitians remained able to communicate with each other and with the outside world — and prominent radio personalities could still reach their audiences — over Twitter and other social-media services.

And Cameran Ashraf of AccessNow, an organization born of the Iranian protests that, among other things, helps Iranians read and contribute to dissident websites without leaving any digital tracks, pointed out that even as the Iranian government shut down news outlets, arrested journalists and tried to filter Facebook and Twitter, it stopped short of cutting off Iranians’ Internet access entirely. Ashraf believes that, in a country like Iran, where 30 percent of people have Internet access, local economies are already so dependent on the Web that shutting it down would have been “adding fuel to the fire of an already tense situation.”

Foko Club of Madagascar , has a short but extraordinary history. Foko Club began as a way for Malagasy high-school students to learn English, and one of their projects was an English-language blog. But that quickly evolved into a site where the students reported on their local communities using audio and video as well as text. In early 2009, when protests against the government led to deadly clashes with police and, ultimately, the ouster of the country’s president, the teenage members of Foko Club were there with their cameras, despite Rakotomalala’s attempts to dissuade them. Adults and even some experienced journalists joined the club, which rapidly became the most reliable source of information about the unfolding events, both inside and outside the country.

Is it all Good?

The quality of citizen journalism project reflects the contributions of those who choose to participate, and such projects can be havens for triviality or unreliable content. At the same time, many users are inclined to trust material they find online, particularly if it is called “news.” In this way, citizen journalism projects have the potential to implicitly validate content that might be inaccurate, offensive, or otherwise lack credibility. There are instances where on twitter rumors errupted saying "Jhonny Depp" has died etc. So it can't all be relevant . So the reader  should understand that however well-intentioned a citizen journalist might be, reading the news with a skeptical eye is a good practice.

From ratings of books or lawnmowers to op-ed columns and amateur video of political rallies, online content increasingly comes from untrained people. Citizen journalism reflects a movement away from highly produced content to information that is local and more individually pertinent, and mechanisms will need to be implemented to manage this growing body of content. Citizen journalism tools will increasingly be applied to niche audiences, such as coverage of a conference or other professional development event, sharing the experiences of those at the meeting with other attendees and those unable to attend. It may also become an important part of any discipline, to share information among colleagues in a profession or as a recruiting tool to attract students by providing an insider’s perspective on what it’s like to work in that field.

So you are also a part of the Future Media ---

Reporting From Guntakal , India  - Signing Off - Dilip Kumar