Citizen Journalism

Citizen Journalism. What exactly is it?

It is essentially individuals who report information, and this can take on many forms, such as podcast, blogging, and vlogging. It can include text, pictures, audio and videos. One characteristic of citizen journalism is that it occurs mainly online. This is because the connectivity of the Internet gave the common people the power to reach the global masses, which only the large corporations could do in the past. I think that it is a powerful tool because we are able to share information between people who are similar as ourselves and people who share the same interests.

    

 I think that one extremely interactive way of citizen journalism is through forums. People can discuss anything, and sometimes you do not even have to be a member of the forum, you can post anonymously. So, if I wanted to bring attention to a piece of news, I use a tantalizing header, and tell my story. People who are interested will read and comment.

Another form of citizen journalism which I think is taking the world by storm is Vlogging. This is because people talk about what is happening to them at the moment and it is easy to do. You can simply film yourself with your camera phone, upload it to Youtube, and WALLAH, you are posting information of yourself and the issues around you. If people are interested, they can subscribe to you and this increases the hits on the video. It is extremely interactive because viewers can comment, or even post reply videos to your video!

Here are some of my favorite people on Youtube:

Dee Kosh

BeautyCrush

MakeUpGeek