There are thousand and one definitions for that,when we consider them all basically,we can define it as the public is actively taking part in the process of gathering and distributing information.
Without leaving the process of handling news only to the giants of media,public is willing to comment,and add the things that they know about certain news to ensure that the news is accurate and up to date.
Do take note that the citizen journalists are the people like you and me,but they are paying attention to what is happening around the world or around the society.
You might be thinking when the citizen journalism began or what is its history??
Actually,"Citizen Journalism" is a result of the development of new technology.According to the experts of sociology Citizen Journalism is the child of digital democratization of media.
Though the word sounds difficult,the idea behind is simple,when people have the wide access to powerful and inexpensive tools of new media,their involvement in the media also increased.
For example,Blogging websites, social networking websites can be a good plat form to anyone who wants to become a citizen journalists.
But why suddenly "citizen Journalism" became so popular???
During the natural disasters like "Tsunami",or unexpected accidents like "Plane crashes",even bombing incidents,some people were able to film them or take pictures with their camera phones and later on these videos and pictures became an important sources and evidences for big media companies.So they began to encourage the citizen journalists.
This picture is taken by a tourist during the Tsunami 2005,in Khao Lak,Indonesia.
In June 2009,when president Mahmoud Ahmajeed came to power by conducting a fraudulent election in Iran,public protested.Government attacked the protesters.Then the people used Face book,Twitter and Blogs to report the world what is happening in Iran.
In the year 2007,when the Minneapolis Bridge collapsed a lot of ordinary people managed to catch good quality photographs and videos of the incident and publish them.(http://e-strategyblog.com)
That is why CNN is maintaining a website specially dedicated for citizen journalists who are interest to share their news .Now there are award programmes for the photos,videos and the news that have reported by citizen journalists.Currently CNN-IBN is doing that,they are trying to appreciate the citizen journalists who took the initiative to fight against corruption and injustice.
But there are some negative things even in citizen journalism.
Citizen journalists are breaking the news that the professional organizations will refuse to do.
professional organizations of media are monitored by some authority and they have rules and regulations but these citizen journalists do not have that. So we do not know to which extent that the citizen journalists are responsible for their news, At the same time anyone can log into Internet and report any kind of news,this can be dangerous.
A professional journalist is not hiding is identity,when he reports a news,he is responsible for that but a citizen journalist can hide their identity we do not know who are they. Professional journalists are educated on what they doing,they have been trained well. Citizen journalists may lack it.
And some critics say that we cannot categorize blogger as citizen journalist since most of them are not reporting news,they are expressing their personal views on some selected subject.
As professional journalists are bound by the rules,since the citizen journalists have more freedom to express themselves,they can do a good job to fight against social injustice.
Now they have formed an "International Debates and Citizen Journalism Institute" To train citizen journalist to write in an effective styles and to provide them a basic education of journalism.It is located in Turkey. But ,the cost to attend a course in this institute will be USD 1900.
Both parties,i mean citizen journalists and professional journalists cannot stand all alone since they need each others' support and contribution.
So I think if they can work hand in hand,it will be more use full to the society and it will mark another revolution in new media.
( The pictures have been taken from the following websites,www.idebate.org/institute,http://e-strategyblog.com, and journalism.about.com)
My questions to you all are,
1.Do you think that Professional Journalists can be trust than Citizen journalists?
2. Do you think that even though there is an "International Debating and Citizen Journalism Institute" are citizen journalists will be keen to join it?
3. Do you agree that Professional Media organizations need Citizen Journalists contribution?
4. If you have given a choice do you like to become a "citizen journalist" or a "professional journalist" and why?
