Digital Democracy

What is Citizen Journalism?

Citizen Journalism is when members of the public sell news stories, this is mainly done through social networking. Nowadays, anyone can witness an event and then report on it, this began to be used after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 when witnesses posted videos, photographs and accounts of what happened on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Emily Bell, the editor in chief of Guardian Unlimited, described it as being "almost second nature for citizens caught up in news events to record it on increasingly handy digital equipment". This describes events such as the 7/7 bombings in London and the Tsunami of boxing day 2004, in which news stories were made out of videos, photographs and eye-witness accounts of what happened in these kind of disasters.

What vision of the future did the "Googlezon" video present?

The Googlezon video presented a view of the future that involved Google and Amazon forming to become an internet based company called "Googlezon". This theory of the future presents the idea of a Google Grid which would control all the media for one person, the Google Grid would know everything regarding each person's emails, websites used, social networking activities. This would allow Googlezon to know what one person's interests are from their website history, emails, blog conversations etc. Googlezon would use this to give that one customer news on what they were interested in. By 2014, Googlezon is shown to have monopolised the media market, overtaking Microsoft and putting the fourth estate out of business.

What are the advantages and disadvantages for consumers regarding the visions of the future?

The main advantage for the consumer is that there is a constant flow of news coming through about the things that each consumer is personally interested in, there will be no need to look through a newspaper for an interesting story, it will be directed straight to you via the internet. Another advantage is that it is easily accessible, by 2014 almost the whole country will have a connection to the internet and will find it much easier to access the media via their Personal Computer and therefore won't need to go to the local shop and spend extra money on a newspaper.

The disadvantages for the consumer is that they will have hardly any privacy in what they do on the web, Googlezon would know what they do, what their interests are and would almost be controlling them. Also the news stories on the internet would be extremely bias due to citizen journalism. Despite there already being political leanings and bias' in the media today, by 2014 it will be massive, the reporters will be out of business because Googlezon would have replaced the fourth estate and therefore the news will have only been reported on by regular citizens who are incapable of writing a good, professional article, only a biased, opinionated article.

What issues are there for newspapers and journalists?

The main issue regarding the newspapers and journalists is that they will be put out of business, the Googlezon video showed the fourth estate being extinguished due to Googlezon. This also means that journalists won't be able to work either, Googlezon won't need any paparazzi, any journalists etc. because the news stories will consist entirely of citizen journalism.