Saturday, January 17, 2009

citizen journalism

My virtuality class is having me do some research on technologies that are either up and coming into the marketplace or are beginning to take a strong hold on the community. In my research I have discovered some interesting things about social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Earlier yesterday US Airways A320 Airbus leaving from JFK crash landed into the Hudson river...a few minutes later there was a posting on twitter by Janis Krums accompanied by an iphone photo that said "There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy"

A few minutes later, there was a video posted on Youtube of the crash landing, and of the 3 minutes it took to get all the passengers safely off the plane. The article of which I am referring asks if the old media is being scooped by social media. I think that is a good question--Are Twitter, facebook, and Youtube a new source of information in this age of citizen journalism?

so then, as a result, I joined Twitter to see what it was about. It seems to be a way to allow people to let friends know what they are currently up to. Some people "tweet" regularly...every few hours...and some not so regularly...but it leaves an interesting trail documenting someone's day to day feelings and occurrences.

I think this idea of citizen journalism is interesting. With expansive technology that makes first hand accounts more easily recordable and more abundant, accounts of news reports are a lot different. Are they more human? Do we feel more touched by these tragedies now that some dude on the ferry is able to tell us exactly what he is feeling--"crazy"? What does this mean for journalism.

I read that Joe the Plumber is now on a citizen journalistic mission to Israel to report the current war in Gaza...will people care more about his reports?

No comments: