Is Citizen Journalism Killing Professional Journalism?
At first glance, citizen journalism and social media might look threatening to professional journalism, but actually, they compliment each other
It goes without saying that social media has monumentally changed the world of journalism, in ways that no one could have comprehended before its colossal rise.
As you can imagine, its rise has produced an overwhelming growth of citizen journalism — the reporting of news events by members of the public using the Internet to spread the information.
Consequently, bearing in mind that the digital age we live in will continue to evolve, citizen journalism could be seen by some as a threat to professional and traditional journalism.
Social media has already completely altered the concept of breaking news; breaking news now often comes from social media before traditional means, with people being the first to report on, for example, a terror attack, via their social media pages, which is most likely where a professional journalist will then be made known of the news.
Journalists don’t even decide what the biggest story of the day is anymore, rather, society does, and the news that goes viral is often produced by social media users themselves.
Professional journalists are, in a way, always at risk of being out-scooped by citizen journalists, and being pipped to the post by them when it comes to getting a story or piece of content (like a video) out there first. With the power of social media on citizen journalists’ side, news produced by them is likely to spread faster, so if a professional journalist sits on their story for too long, it may no longer be new news!
Though Citizen journalism has some downsides, such as the possibility that what’s being talked about might not be 100% factual, it does come in handy in certain situations. Imagine you receive a text from a loved one saying that they’re hiding and think they might be caught up in an attack, for example. You’re going to want to be able to go straight to social media to find out what’s happening and if anyone else is talking about it, rather than wait until the next morning to read the newspaper, aren’t you?
As the Manchester bombings took place, people who were in attendance of the Ariana Grande concert took to Twitter to express what was happening as the events unfolded.
At first, some people thought the bomb was actually a balloon popping.
Others tweeted about what was happening, and some tweeted to let their followers know that they were safe.
This is a real example of citizen journalism; people taking to social media to report on breaking news as it was happening before anyone else knew about it. And this shows just how powerful social media is as a tool for reporting on breaking news.
Though professional journalists do report on news as quickly as possible, they often initially source the news from citizen journalists who have reported it via social media. In fact, 51.8% of journalists, according to Cision, use social media to find and build stories.
Citizen journalism via social media could therefore be seen as the rawest form of journalism — it provides eyewitness and first-hand accounts, is the fastest channel for breaking news, and gives real-time information, which is what the public wants.
So is citizen journalism killing professional journalism?
While some might believe that social media is replacing journalism and subsequently killing off professional and traditional journalism, others (including me) believe that citizen journalism can and does support professional journalism, not kill it.
In ways, social media has introduced a new layer to the world of journalism; interaction and communication with audiences, which professional journalists can seriously benefit from. Other advantages of this new dimension include the ability to partake in wider newsgathering, reach out to sources directly, build personal relationships and increase engagement with audiences, just to name a few.
“Instead of rivalling social media, news outlets are leveraging off the platform to reach a wider audience online.” — Nur Adilah Ramli, theSundaily
So not only does social media as a whole help professional journalists in ways, but citizen journalism itself comes with a lot of benefits that professional journalists can take advantage of too. What’s particularly advantageous is that the immediacy and speed of reporting means that news that could not be predicted is able to be sourced straight away.
Considering these benefits, I personally believe that the two forms of journalism can work together in acting as message diffusing systems. By this I mean citizen journalists can provide the immediate news that professional journalists can curate into stories and spread far and wide, or professional journalists can provide the news stories which social media can create a buzz around and spread far and wide.
In this sense citizen journalism and social media aids, accentuates and compliments professional journalism, and vice versa.
So, no, I don’t believe that citizen journalism is killing professional journalism. There’s no denying that citizen journalism is real and happening, but, it is not a hindrance to professional or traditional journalism and rather a help, and in fact I think it plays a critical role. The two forms of journalism can work together in informing the world effectively.
“New technology enables normal people to do reporting. But new technology also improves the monitoring quality of journalism as well.” — Sarah Hartley, the Guardian
