Will Evolving Forms of Journalism Be an Improvement?
Unit 3, Issue 10 discusses whether evolving forms of Journalism will be an improvement or not. Mark Deuze, Axel Burns, and Christoph Neuberger conducted case studies that analyzed various online new's websites in Austrailia, Germany, and the United States. Their case studies concluded that the evolving forms of Journalism overall, were a great benefit to society. In opposition to the new forms of Journalism, David Simon, who gave a great speech in front of congress, closely examines the future of journalism and concludes that high-end journalism is a dying breed in America, and it could not be saved by the Internet and/ or citizen journalists (p.204). A major shift has been taking place in the past decade, and it is taking traditional journalism and metamorphisizing it into participatory journalism. Not only has this participatory journalism been created, it has also been taken quite positively from citizens across the world, and is on a steady rise! Burns, Neuberger, and Deuze offer case studies of three newspapers on different continents that have adopted different approaches to participatory news. Participatory news has formed an interesting hybrid of the top-down process of traditional journalism, and the botom-up process of ordinary citizen involvement (p. 205). Overall, it can be said that professional journalists had a rought time adapting to these changes because citizen journalists were now writing news stories, which clashed with the established, traditional journalistic norms of society (p. 205). However the question still remains, should citizen journalists be informing the public on an equal platform of trained and paid journalists? Journalism is a full time job that requires full commitment and consisten attention. Although citizens have the right to express and write their opinion, which is sometimes very helpful, will it degrade the quality of journalism and misinform the public? And on the other side of the debate, is the public willing to pay for their news in the age of free access to information provided by the internet?
As the public has steadily declined their trust in news, and this particular decade is one of self-expression and digital media culture, the climate of our world has become one of perfection for an evolving form of journalism. Deuze, Bruns, and Neuberger have decided to explore the various evolving forms of journalism and confrim their prediction that a new form of journalismm would embrace a cross-media functionality, which would include publishing news across multiple media platforms, and provide an interactive relationship with audiences that might not have ever entered the public sphere (p. 207). Their predictions mostly correct, excpet for a few subjective exceptions that were different for each form of news journal that was studied. For example, each model proved successful in specific contexts that they were adressing, but on the whole, they each had their strengths and weakness; their strengths being extremely more substantial than their weakness. Because each form of journalism was a hybrid of cultural convergence from top-down professionals and bottom-up citizens, it furthered the agenda of the news industry, while providing citizens with news that most importantly THEY thought mattered. "In each instance a professional media organization (top-down) partners with or deliberately taps into the emerging participatory media culture online (bottom-up) in order to produce some kind of co-creative, commons-based news platform" (p. 208). The author's approached this study by using a conceptual approach that used similar hybrid forms of journalism. Most of the hybrid forms combined elements of participatory journalism with the traditional framework of news media. "In every case, the approach to participatory journalism is a hybrid between institutional or commercial support and community engagement" (p. 209). Each hybrid form of journalism targeted a specific age group and demographic, and some used the internet, while others used cell phones, newspapers, or magazines to deliver their news to the public. The German site Opinio skipped subjects such as economy or politics, and focused on everyday living topics and leisure-time activities. The target group for this news was between 30 and 39 years old. The Austrailian non-profit news and current events site covers politics and economics that mainstream news or non-mainstream news might not cover. Although the submission of an article is subject to whether the editors of the website like the article or not, it provides a place to gain new information that you previously might not have been able to obtain from a traditional newspaper. Even though there were flaws to each hybrid form of journalism, the important part that I gleaned from this standpoint was that these new forms of journalism provided outlets where people could find the information that they wanted! These forms of journalism were easily accessible and not only could they increase the closeness of a community, but they also gave a formerly average citizens a direct voice regarding how they felt on issues.
Although new hybrid forms of journalism are becoming increasingly popular for citizens across the world, many people do not realize the hidden dangers of the evolving forms of journalism. Simon argues that high-end journalism is dying in America, and unless a new economic model is achieved, it will not be reborn on the web, or anywhere else (p.219). Even though the internet is highly accesible, and cost-free, it does nto deliver "first generation reporting" (p. 219). Instead, these internet news sources glean information from mainstream news publications, and reword the information that they had previously gleaned as their own news on their website. As this continues to happen, readers become more reliant on these online news resources, which reinforces the refusal to pay for traditional journalism news. I mean, why pay for it when you can get it for free? Before reading this article, I often asked the same question, but there is more to the issue of free journalism than meets the eye. For example, do you ever run into bloggers or citizen journalists in city hall, courthouse hallways, or at the bars and union halls where police officers gather? The answer is no you do not! Journalists are paid for a reason. They are paid to deliver primary information, and deliver it in a thoughtful and methodical way. Citizen journalists do not nearly put all of this time and effort into a story for free, and they most certainly do not higher professional photographers and pay for their own flight to Washington D.C or Fallujah etc... Although I do strongly believe that new hybrid forms of journalism are providing benefit to society, I also believe that traditional journalism needs to stay! In addition, traditional journalism needs to be put back in the hands of family-owned news papers versus corporate owned. The benefits of family-owned newspapers are plentiful! Most importantly, it provides an essential trust between journalism and the communities that they serve. Over the past decade there has been a shift from family-run news papers to corporate owned news papers. The result was increased profit for traditional journalism, but also a lack of trust from the communities that they served. For example, news reporters in Baltimore, Maryland diminished from 500 to 140, and the news that the locals wanted to hear about were not being produced because of the corporations unfamiliarity with Baltimore at a local level. The corporations did not care what was happening at a local level, and as a result, citizen journalism started to take hold and steadily rise in this last decade. Traditional journalists need to accept that hybrid forms of journalism are a social norm in this society now, but the public also needs to be aware that traditional journalism is going to provide legitimate, primary information that a blogger or oridinary citizen might not be able to provide.
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