//How does Citizen Journalism work?
Citizen Journalism can have may characteristics, they are flexible in hierarchy and structure, responsive and adaptive to world events, cultural trends, self moderated and produced content.
Heirachy and structure in Citizen journalism sites differs from traditional news media, there is often no gate keepers, or publishers to hinder or give bias to news stories, and it can be done purely out of self interest as is often the case. As Sambrook (2005) commented on the citizen journalism happening in the wake of the london bombings. "Our audiences had become involved in telling this story as they never had before." The use of camera phone technology and mobile phones has created a partnership between users and the media. The reward users seek to gain from citizen journalism are recognition or status, not monetary or profit driven… unlike other news corporations.
Responsive and Adaptively evolving content is one of the key characteristics of Citizen Journalism and news based community sites. Through the sheer number of users engaging with a topic or event and the subsequent updating, deleting and adding of information allows a site like Wikipedia to cover a topic as it unfolds in real time with far better results than conventional media outlets. For example this video here shows a time-lapse of the wikipedia page created the morning of the Virginia tech massacre, it shows how many times the page was updated and edited over that certain period of time. It is this flexibility and sheer responsiveness in which the users posted information from a myriad of sources that gives citizen journalism such and edge over the mainstream outlets. Dan Gillmores states in his book 'We the Media' "there was a cliche that the journalists write the first draft of history, now i think these people are writing the first draft of history at some level, and thats an important shift."
These communities rely on peer evaluation and moderation in order for user driven content sites to maintain order and accuracy. Sites like Wikipedia are an example of this were those from within the community may specialise in certain topics and fields, can post comment edit and rewrite the entries posted by others, this exchange is meant to maintain the accuracy of entries, wikipedias credibility is always being questioned because of this. Other sites like Youtube rely on users opinions and voting to rate the content posted by others, so that at a quick glance users can see whether a video posted is worth viewing. Shirky as quoted in Bruns (2008) :
"the order of things in broadcast is “filter, then publish.” The order in communities is “publish, then filter.” … Writers submit their stories in advance, to be edited or rejected before the public ever sees them. Participants in a community, by contrast, say what they have to say, and the good is sorted from the mediocre after the fact."
References:
Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: Perpetual Collaboration in Evaluating the News New York pg. 69 to 100
R Sambrook, 2005. Citizen Journalism and the BBC. Nieman Reports pg 13 to 16.
Wikipedia, the free encylopedia. Wikimedia Foundation 2008 en.wikipedia.org
Gillmor D, 2006. We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People. availiable on google books
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
//How does open source work?
//How is open source different from commercial production?
References:
Bruns, A. (2008) "Wikipedia: Representations of Knowledge." Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, ch. 5.
www.Mozilla.org 'Home of the Mozilla Project' 2008
The users on Wikipedia define opensource as: "a development methodology, which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge). Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations."
Mozilla Firefox is a free open source internet browser, it is being developed by both the users and the company. The company relies on donations and user contribution to continue updating and bringing out new software. I have been a Firefox convert for some years now - and whilst at first skeptical, I now never pass up the opporitunity to put a good word in for the FireFox browser.
The Mozilla web page described the initiative; "Mozilla is a global community, a public benefit organization and a technology for developers and users alike. We're motivated by a mission to promote openness and opportunity on the Internet, rather than business concerns, like profits or the price of stock. Yet Mozilla products still compete in a proprietary market, advancing technology in a revolutionary new way. Mozilla's Firefox Web browser has over 150 million users and is created by an international movement of thousands."
Mozilla does not rely on advertising or other major expenses to put its product out into the public, word of mouth on the internet is a powerful marketing tool and they use it to its fullest. However recently Microsoft has been criticising the Netscape software FireFox is based on, casting doubt and uncertainty as to win back Internet Explorer users (Internet Explorer being the 'anti chi' of Firefox). Bruns (2008) states "Whatever the current balance, however, the relationship between heterarchical communities of produsers and corporate hierarchies of producers is likely to remain fraught unless both sides begin to understand very clearly what advantages the other has to offer."
References:
Bruns, A. (2008) "Wikipedia: Representations of Knowledge." Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, ch. 5.
www.Mozilla.org 'Home of the Mozilla Project' 2008
//Art 2.0
The internet has undoubtedly had a significant impact on the art world, the availability of applications and information that aides today’s artists is astounding. The rise of Web 2.0 has not only created a handy platform for a generation of artists to exchange both works and opinions, but it has created a new dimension of art to explore. Weintraub (1997) claimed that the internet broadened the horizons of art as a new medium, as it challenged the way audiences interact with a piece. “In traditional art, one looks at the interrelationship of form and content; in multimedia art the interface usually cues you to the content of the piece. On the Web, interface does not act as a façade or a portal to the content, but may directly determine the structure and character of a piece.”
An example of a website that embodies the community driven realm of art on the internet is that of popular user generated media sharing site ‘Deviantart.com.’ The sites integration and use of media can be seen by how they incorporate images, text, video and music to reach their target audience. The site is driven primarily by the users and the content that they create and then post on the website. This model differs from the traditional means for artists to share work and ideas, which were traditionally magazines, manifestos or gallery exhibitions or meetings. These were the only place where artists could display and discuss their work and audiences alike could exchange opinions on both the works and underlying concepts. The constant updating of content and the flexible nature of Deviant art means it never gets old or outdated and it costs the users nothing!
Another art based community site that is that of 'Etsy.com', Etsy is much like Ebay, except it specialises in exclusively hand made products. The website boasts over a hundred thousand sellers and moved twelve million dollars worth of goods. The purpose of Etsy is an online revival of the arts and crafts movement which originated in the late 19th century. The internet has given the artists who use Etsy the ability to reach customers from over 80 countries and earn a living producing handmade arts and crafts.
The possibilities of the internet, are limited only by the imagination of the artist so speculating on the direction it shall take in the future is mere guess work. But the benefits of the technology presently are unmistakable, the low cost and cheap maintenance makes exhibiting works and the constant updates to sites economically feasible for artists. The advancements made in broadband technology have allowed high definition quality reproductions available to a much larger number of users than traditionally possible. The distribution and exposure for artists is both free and made available to every user with a pc worldwide. The internet has also given a vehicle to a number of communities that support a variety of movements and genres; this would not have been possible without the current technologies available. Most importantly the internet allows for an intellectual and emotional exchange amongst artists and audience alike, the interaction users experience by navigating the site becomes part of the work.
References:
Deviant Art, (2006), www.deviantart.com (accessed 22nd April 2008)
Dunkley, W. (2004) Creating Space: Web Art Practices.,
Etsy Your Place to buy and sell all things handmade, (2008) http://www.etsy.com (accessed 23rd April 2008)
Miller K. (2007) An EBay for the Arts and Crafts set; An online marketplace for handmade goods has carved itself a cozy little niche Business Week.
Weintraub A. (1997) Art on the Web, the Web as art Association for Computing Machinery. Communications of the ACM.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
the Facebook 12 Step Program
They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have an addiction, I - and as far as I see it, everybody else on the planet has an addiction to Facebook. You could be fooled into thinking that the class I am in is actually Facebook addict’s anonymous. Currently I can see 7 people logged into some sort of social networking website, 3 of which are on mobile phones, and all are engaged in some sort of endless conversation with those around them. I sadly enough am doing all 3 of these. But out of a class of 16, 10 of which could easily stand up and say "I have an addiction" this leaves 6 people that don’t have some sort of ADD. That’s 3 quarters of the population addicted to social networking, worse than any form of narcotics.
http://socialnetworkingrehab.blogspot.com/ a site that deals with recovering twitter addicts…
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