Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s citizen journalism

If you comment on my blog or on anyone’s else, you have just graduated from the school of citizen journalism. Congratulations! Your certificate will be in your email inbox shortly.

The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. Commenting on blogs or websites has enabled you to become one of them, a journalist in your own right as a citizen. According to Jay Rosen (2006), citizen journalists are “the people formerly known as the audience,” who were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one another— and who today are not in a situation like that at all. … The people formerly known as the audience are simply the public made realer, less fictional, more able, less predictable.

Why pay when you can get if free? All because of Web 2.0 technology that this monster has evolved. Dan Gillmor (2006), founder of the Centre for Citizen Media, argues in Axel Bruns (2008) that journalism has become more of a conversation or seminar because of Web 2.0, “The lines will blur between producers and consumers, changing the role of both ways we’re only beginning to grasp now. The communication network itself will become a medium for everyone’s voice.”

Axel Bruns (2008, 74) states that communities themselves act communally and continuously, as filters of information on citizen journalism sites. They do not care to publish a story, but instead through the granular collaborative process of highlighting and subsequently building up those stories and threads of discussion which are seen to be the most interest to the community.

The difference between a real journalist and a citizen is that there is a diversity of opinion. Journalists have to follow strict instructions from their editors to write and produce in a certain way. Through being a citizen journalist the world is your oyster. You can say what you want to say on your personal blog and other citizens get to respond about the particular issue and is shown on the blog rather than been hidden by the editors.

Professional journalists are having a whinge because people like myself do not have a journalism degree, but are classified as a citizen journalist. James Farmer, a professional journalist states in his article, Citizen journalism sucks that “As a bit of a reality check, when was the last time you encountered a “citizen doctor”, valued a report by a “citizen researcher”, took off in a plane flown by a “citizen pilot” or saw justice meted out by “citizen policeman”? The funny thing with this article is that people have commented on this article, producing more citizen journalist into the world.

Produsage Junkies

Demolishing the boundaries between producers and consumers has enabled users to become producers creating the term produsers. This collaboration is building and extending further improvement for content, creating a networked participatory environment. Axel Bruns (2008) explains that frequently in a hybrid role of produser where usage is necessarily also productive, produsers engage not in a traditional form of content production, but are instead involved in produsage.

 

So who owns and controls the vast communal information and knowledge resources which have already been created by produser communities, and are further extended in a continuous process? How do such content repositories relate to the realm of copyrighted content, and how reliant are they on appropriating incorporating, remising and mashing up materials which they have no permission to us (Bruns, 2008, 5). The concept of produsage is intended as a means of connecting such development in the cultural, social, commercial, intellectual, economic, and societal realms.

 

The concept of Web 2.0 was introduced by Tim O’Reilly. Web 2.0 is a second generation of web development, a new form of communication and information sharing. This two flow of information is a move from personal websites to blogs and blogsites aggregation from publishing to participation. The commonplace assumptions associated with traditional concepts of producers, products, and production, develop a systematic understanding of the process, principles, and participants of produsage (Bruns, 2008, 5).

 

Take for example Wikipedia, a collaboration produced encyclopedia. This site allows anyone to provide information and knowledge about a particular subject. A person does not have to be a professional in the field—rather they contribute their creative work, affecting the networked produsage. Produsage can also relate to what Jenkins (2008) describes as a participatory, convergence culture being: “this is what happens when consumers take media into their own hands. … Within convergence culture everyone’s a participant-although participants may have different degrees of status and influence.”

 

In addition with the virus that is Web 2.0, produsage is a major driver for popular cultural and technology change. In this day and age everyone knows what a blog is, how to upload videos on YouTube and how to create a Wikipedia. It is not brain surgery, it is part of an internet junkie routine of the day.   Therefore we are producing tiny amounts of creative information to the concept of produsage. ‘You’ and ‘me’ participate in collaboration content creation environments.

 

Congratulations you have just been voted “Person of the Year” for your collaboration in the produsage environment. Put it on your resume because you deserve it. All your efforts participating on produsage has earned you this prestigious award.

 

Trendwatching suggests that an entire new generation has emerged. Welcome ‘Generation C.’ To be allowed in this exclusive generation a few rules should have been followed (Bruns, 2008, 4):

• must have attitude and aptitude, that is, by the interest and ability to participate in the online communities of produsage.
• must have even the tiniest amount of creative talent

 

Anyone and everyone can be a produsage junkie, if we are participating or not we have all contributed to the convergence of produsage. This is just the start of the virus.