Citizen Journalism and the Future of Journalism, Katrine Holm Sorensen

The debate about citizen
journalism is a discussion of technological Darwinism: those who evolve, survive. Although this is a rather simplistic assumption, I believe in many ways the citizen journalism movement could only have become successful if the public reacted to something that was missing in the traditional discourse.

I agree with Ariana Huffington when she says that consumers have gone "from couch potato to self-expression.", and I think the many new forums for dialogue should be acknowledged as an alternative to the sender-reciever model. Especially in a political era of spin and PR-management that has jaded the voters, online media and journalism could become an effective tool to engage in genuine dialogue between the governing and the governed. Furthermore, with the rise of citizen journalists, the number of voices to engage in debate, scrutiny and critisism has multiplied radically giving a more diverse and realistic image of society. Perhaps one could take this line of thought a step further and say online media offer us a chance to reconnect with democracy?

Ariana Huffington is very realistic in her argument that traditional, conservative media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch may have lost touch with the needs and demands of the modern consumer. If 80 percent of the consumers want free news, wouldn't it be a business suicide to create an online newspaper that demands payment?

I do, however, appreciate the panic of the journalists and print newspapers: how will we as a society retain serious, critical voices if we will not pay for their services? Naturally, there will be a place for respected institutions such as New York Times in the online future, but they will only flourish under the management of innovative online editiors.

Trust is a major concern for the future of journalism because of the dwindling sources of objective, reliable information. Although citizen journalism creates a more fair, democratic discourse, it is generally a more subjective debate with information that has questionable origins. A point well made by my esteemed colleague Jayme Hagen is that the consumers have to take the time to critically sift through all the available as opposed to just read one or two major newspapers. In a sense we all have to become journalists to rely on citizen journalism: fact checking and a critical approach to opinions will become crucial abilities to pilot though the chaotic cacophony of citizen journalism.

Note: image originates from Swift Economics.