Globalisation, new technology and citizen journalism✅
Globalisation, new technology and citizen journalism
The news market is now very competitive, and globalisation means there are a mass of news providers from across the globe to choose from.
New technology like satellite phones and cameras, email, smartphones and Internet websites means news is instantly available from practically anywhere in the world 24 hours per day.
The mainstream news media can rely on the attention of audiences, as they might once have done with the major evening news bulletins or the daily newspapers, as people are now tweeting, texting and surfing the web for news that interests them.
In the global market, news providers need to compete to survive. It is therefore crucial for media companies to be right up-to-date, and to tailor their media offering and the way news is presented to their market, if audiences and readers are to be attracted and retained.
New media technology has at the same time transformed the news business by creating greater opportunities for citizen journalism. New media, like videos shot on mobile phones and uploaded to YouTube, Twitter tweets or Facebook posts, mean ordinary folk, rather than professional journalists and media companies, are more involved in directly collecting, reporting and spreading news stories and information, with minimal costs.
Such grassroots alternative sources of news and information can help to overcome or bypass suppression of stories, or biased or inadequate news reports, in established media.
Bivens suggests citizen journalism through mobile phone picture and video recording at the scene of news events, publishing original news reports and commentary via publicly accessible blogs, and online criticism of mainstream news output are transforming traditional journalism.
She points out these have increasingly been used to expose offensive, illegal or corrupt activities by politicians, celebrities, the police and armed forces, and public and private institutions which are worthy of public condemnation, but which may not have been otherwise covered by the traditional media. Citizen journalism has therefore made their activités far more accountable to the public.
When news-related videos are uploaded to websites like YouTube or individual blogs, very large global audiences can be attracted.
By posting and sharing, news stories can go viral - be seen by millions in a very short time - and this can make it increasingly difficult for mainstream media organisions not to cover news stories they might once have chosen to ignore.
Increasingly, the reports, blogs, videos and photographs of citizen journalists are being included in mainstream media, as seen in the reports of the uprising in the Arab world and the reports of the riots in the UK in 2011.
New technology therefore gives citizen journalists greater opportunities to shape mainstream news agendas. Citizen journalism also suits the mainstream media organisations’ own needs, as they can obtain news items and supporting video at little cost to themselves, compared to sending out their own reporters and news cameras.