Source: The Australian, August 3, 2009
A global study into 60 citizen journalism projects in 33 countries found citizen journalism flourished under governments which could be characterized as "soft authoritarianism" regimes such as in Malaysia and South Korea. Professor Michael Bromley from the University of Queensland School of Journalism and Communication told The Australian that citizen journalism flourishes "where there is room to comment and to intervene and to participate but there are strict rules: for example, the media is controlled by the state. That creates a need for it." In repressive countries, such as Burma, there were fewer examples. Citizen journalists, Bromley said, "come out of a history that includes social activism. Bloggers and tweeters [users of micro-blogging site Twitter] can be citizen journalists but it's not just that independent personal view. It's about investigating, going to primary sources, offering your opinion. Often the blogger is the primary source."
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The Weekly Spin, August 4, 2009
Citizen Journalism Flourishes in Dark Corners
Comments
Re: Citizen journalism flourishes in dark corners
When reading Crikey early last year I read the term public trust journalist I have been pushing the idea ever since. I believe whit the WWW and access to computers across the world the bought and paid for media no longer has total control of the peoples freedoms to express. Now all we need to do is use it to our advantage. Edward James
re:
Journalism consistently features in surveys of what jobs graduates would most like to have. You'll probably need luck and persistence, but you'll need a reasonable dose of those in doing the job too. And you can do a lot to help good luck along. I don't think it's harder than getting a job as a teacher or engineer. If you want to be a big name and front the TV news or hit the broadsheet cover pages, it's going to take more work. But you'll probably have to start at the same place. Check this site pptse.net for more tips and advice about journalism.