Twitter, citizen journalism and news production stages

Citizen journalism, participatory journalism or user-generated content it is defined as “the act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information” (Bowman and Willis 2003:9). So, Twitter could be a tool for citizen journalism?, why?

First step is to define stages in the news production process (Domingo, et al. 2008):

  1. Access/Observation: The initial information-gathering stage at which source material for a story is generated, such as eyewitness accounts and audio-visual contributions.
  2. Selection/Filtering: The “gatekeeping” stage when decisions are made about what should be reported or published.
  3. Processing/Editing: The stage at which a story is created, including the writing and editing of an item for publication.
  4. Distribution: The stage at which a story is disseminated or made available for reading and, potentially, discussion.
  5. Interpretation: The stage at which a story that has been produced and published is opened up to comment and discussion.

Domingo’s proposal talked about “citizen media”, “citizens blogs”, “citizen stories”, “content hierarchy”, “social networking”, “collective interviews”, “comments”, “forums”, “journalists blogs” and “pools” locating Twitter in the phase of information distribution, but the following article attempts to demonstrate content located on Twitter can be considered widely, reaching more phases in the process defined by Domingo. Continue reading

Changes in journalism: the role of gatekeeping

Journalism is a continuous journey, in fact in English is quite evident: “The english words” journalism “and” journey “are cousins.” With this magnificent sentence begins the book Participatory Journalism: Gates Open at Guarding Online Newspapers published this year by Singer, Hermida, Sun and others to demonstrate this idea, the idea of continuous evolution of this profession.

Seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act indepently and be accountable; these four points are the leading in the Code of Ethics of journalists proposed by the Society of Professional Journalists in 1996.

Meanwhile Jane Singer in her article “The political j-blogger” listed the following as key points of journalism:

  • non-partisanship.
  • gatekeeper role.
  • independence.
  • accountability.

Non-partisanship, independence and accountability (explain where the information is obtained) are beyond doubt, but for some time the role of gatekeeper is questioned, or at least minimized, as Alfred Hermida suggests the following sentence:

Social media technologies like Twitter are part of a range of Internet technologies enabling the disintermediation of news and undermining the gatekeeping function of journalists. - Hermida, A. (2010): “Twittering the news: The emergence of ambient journalism”

The gatekeeper function is to select the information that is considered newsworthy to the audience with the objetctivo to work later on it and end up publishing if it were the case.

The internet has challenged virtually all aspects of this journalistic gatekeepingconcept. Online, almost anyone can send news and views around theworld, and sometimes it seems as if almost everyone does. In a media environment with unlimited sources of information, the concept of discretegates through which such information passes is obliterated; if there are nogates, there is no need for anyone to tend them (Williams y Delli Carpini, 2000) – read in (Singer 2005)

In fact once the information passed through the press and was in the newsroom where it was selected, if a citizen had a story to tell, he or she send it to one or more newspapers, but that changed in Spain has a date and place: Universidad de Navarra , October 30, 2008.That day, ETA detonated a car bomb with 40 kilos of explosives injuring 17 people, students began to use Tuenti instead radio or other traditional media to share and disseminate that information, and a sector of the population reported to the social network.

“They were broadcasting on Tuenti. Their fears, experiences, questions or messages of peace. Almost everything was being posted via Tuenti.” - Noguera,2010

That day, witness of this attack opened a new stage in the processing of information leaving the press aside.

 ”They have not called radio stations, neither published photos on services citizen journalism neither major newspapers or countless blogs” (Lopez and Rodriguez, 2008) read in Noguera,2010

At that terrible moment we can say there was a change, at least in Spain, and the gatekeeping function was, at least in this case, away from the press, something began to change, that day in Spain many people began to keep a mental model of news and events around them, something called ambient journalism by Hermida inspired on the concept of Hargreaves “ambient news” explained in his book ‘Journalism: Truth or Dare? ”published in 2003 .

In the Spanish case was Tuenti, but Twitter Iran, ultimately the emergence of these awareness systems are allowing many people begin to learn regardless of the gatekeeping function that the journalism had.

The way of reading news is on the line, applications such paper.li  showing us a website that might seem any online newspaper offers a page of headlines (and the corresponding sections) or information obtained from Twitter or Facebook, not media. This would be a very interesting example that eliminates the gatekeeping role of journalists, the gatekeeping in this case is performed by the application following the preferences of each user.

New book: Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers

Jane B. Singer, Alfred Hermida, David Domingo, Ari Heinonen, Ari Heinonen, Thorsten Quandt, Zvi Reich and Marina Vujnovic have published a book called “Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers” edited by Wiley-Blackwell available at:

This book is maybe driven by the most important people around research in social media and journalism. Right now I have read a few pages, but the first sentence it is a great “The English word “journalism” and “journey” are cousins”.

“Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers offers fascinating insights into how journalists in Western democracies are thinking about, and dealing with, the inclusion of content produced and published by the public.

Recent years have seen a dramatic change in the relationship between online media and the ‘audience’, and user–generated content is a common feature of news websites. Control over the contents of the media space, once held by traditional news outlets, today is shared by bloggers and other social media participants.

Such an environment requires a significant conceptual and practical shift for journalists, who face a rapid and radical decline in their power to oversee the flow of information. The ability to productively incorporate user contributions within traditional media spaces is becoming a vital skill.

This book is based on a collaborative research project by a team of journalism scholars from Europe, North America and Israel.” - http://participatoryjournalism.org/

Maybe you want to see some slides about this before buying anything … why not?:

Here are the slides from my @ keynote on the promise and practice of participatory journalism http://bit.ly/r9Qrtb
@Hermida
Alfred Hermida

Sorry, but my kindle right now it is burning, I am going back to continue my reading.

Lippman-Dewey Debate from the social networks’ role perspective

The debate on the role of journalism in society started between the journalist Walter Lippmann and the philosopher John Dewey is still valid nearly 100 years later (Hermida, 2011).

To maintain the validity of the debate it is necessary to extrapolate some concepts, as Lippmann and Dewey weren’t based on new technologies, actually we need to update their language to our time.

Keep in mind when reading the texts of Lippmann and Dewey if we read “train” we can understand “plane,” where they said “typewriter” we can read “computer” and where they said “radio” we could understand “wireless” (Marres , 2005), this relationship is what makes their speech even more contextualized in our discussion. Given the similarity of terms due to the temporary update we can see how this debate continues in media and social networks like Twitter, blogs, etc.

All along the 20′s, society had become very complex and the role of the press as a social elite founded two ways, as proposed by Lipmann, a social leader and the one proposed by Dewey, a social professor.

Lippmann thought from the perspective of society, it was too complex for the audience to understand and construct an opinion. Journalists have the responsibility of evaluating the policies and present conclusions to the public well informed. In this perspective, the audience becomes a spectator watching. Continue reading