User:Thomas Dragoni/Citizen journalism

Effects on traditional journalism[edit]
Journalism has been affected significantly due to citizen journalism. This is because citizen journalism allows people to post as much content as they want, whenever they want. In order to stay competitive, traditional news sources are forcing their journalist to compete. This means that journalist now have to write, edit and add pictures into their content and they must do so at a rapid pace, as it is perceived by news companies that it's essential for journalist to produce content at the same rate that citizens can post content on the internet. This is hard though, as many news companies are facing budget cuts and cannot afford to pay journalists the proper amount for the amount of work they do. Despite the uncertainties of a job in journalism and rising tuition costs there has been a 35% increase in journalism majors throughout the past few years according to Astra Taylor in her book The People's Platform.

Current Instances of Citizen Journalism

'''Citizen Journalism has become a recent topic of discussion regarding it's efficacy in documenting the downfall of popular cryptocurrency exchange FTX and it's founder Sam Bankman-Fried. This recent instance of popular media relying on citizen journalism marks the ever-expanding development of the pseudo-reporting strategy. There is a measurable decrease in interest for traditional news sources as more become disinterested by apparent bias and political influence. Another example of citizen journalism proving to be a viable source of information communication was in the recent coverage of the war in Ukraine. Utilizing popular video-sharing platforms, namely You-Tube, citizen journalists provide viewers with current updates regarding developments on the frontline as well as covering larger factors contributing the developing story. '''

Possible future[edit]
Citizen journalism increased during the last decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, associated with the creation of the internet which introduced new ways in communicating and engaging news. In 2004 Leonard Witt wrote in the National Civic Review, "the voices of a range of citizens are being heard loud and clear on the Internet, mostly through Weblogs." Due to this shift in technology, individuals were able to access more news than previously and at a much faster rate. This larger quantity also made it so there was a larger variety of sources which people were able to consume media and news.

'''Citizen journalism has proven itself to be an effective form of current event coverage and can possibly signify a shift in modern media. Citizen journalism has been expanding in different varieties of modern media which include, international news, more democratic journalism, mainstream media, and the importance for mass media outlets. Citizen journalism is now one of the main contributors of mainstream news and consistently feeding in information that even traditional journalist can't grasp their hands on. This could eventually lead to citizen journalism to become one of the main sources for news everywhere as the internet and constant information being provided by citizen journalist are key factors contributing to citizen journalism increasing.'''