In today's modern world where the World Wide Web (WWW) is at its height of evolution, weblogs are branching out all over the internet like mushrooms after the rain. Therefore,it is not surprising that more blogs are being used by people for citizen journalism or participatory journalism purposes.
Journalists have an important role to play, in terms of conveying news to the mass audience. They are known to be the watchdogs of the media.In this digital age however, the traditional roles of journalists have morphed to suit the needs of people. Hence, the emergence of citizen journalists.
The general public are given the chance to pen down their view points and opinions on a new platform which gives them a voice to be heard. News was now “being produced by regular people who had something to say and show, and not solely by the ‘official’ news organizations” (Gillmor 2006).
Source: (sajadi4.wordpress.com/, 2009)
As defined by Lasica (2007), citizen journalism also known as participatory journalism is the act of people or citizens assuming the role of a journalist in gathering, investigating and dissemination information as truthful as possible through small online publications like weblogs.
Personal tools like cameras, mobile phones and audio recorders can be use in aiding the collection of information by taking photos and recording videos to support the information gathered. (Lasica 2007).
Journalistic tools: Mobile phones, which can be used to take photos to support the information gathered.
Handphones as a tool used by journalists.
Source: (GoogleImages, 2009)
According to Kelly (2009),blogs "offer a virtual space where people can publish any sort of information". Information ignored or considered not important by the mainstream media can be published on these blogs.." This is because, internet sites like weblogs, where information is presented in various modes, combining text with images, videos, sound effects, animation, navigational bars and hyperlinks is very much preferred by the audiences, compared to the normal print media as stated by Walsh (2006, p. 30). Multimodal text, where words are complemented by images and other modes help enhance the readers clarity and understanding towards a topic (Walsh 2006, p. 26-28).
Audience see blogs from a different angle. Blogs is the platform that allows them to be active readers and not passive absorbers of information. This is due to the fact that not all information presented in the mainstream are fully accurate. They are deemed to be too biased towards certain bodies of power like the government. Thus, online blogs provide readers, a two-sided view into a story, a mainstream and an alternative angle of the story which satisfies the needs of the reader's. (Lannon, 2006).
Journalistic blogs provide extra and different information regarding certain news topics which have not been given proper or full coverage by the mainstream media. For instance, the latest G-20 Summit Issue in Malaysia. Malaysia was accused by the recent G-20 Summit Committee of not being a regular tax payer and is blacklisted. The reporting style or approach taken by mainstream media reported the news in a way that portrayed Malaysia as being framed instead of admitting or agreeing with what the commitee had to say. More effort was spend 'diverting the issue' from the audience instead of being truth. This is where blogs become the second place to look for information.
Tony Pua's Blog
Tony Pua Kiam Wee is a Malaysian politician. Pua is a Malaysian Politician from the Democratic Action Party (DAP). In his blog, he always writes about issues concerning politics, economics and philosophy. Tony Pua, whose blog, is one of the most influential and most visited blogs in Malaysia is well recognized for mostly blogging about political and educational issues in the country. According to an article in a newsletter, Pua who practices citizen journalism is known for his blog entries on mostly education issues. For instance, the recent debate of whether the English language should be made mandatory to gain a pass in SPM or not. He has always written and challenged the government to satisfy public needs. Pua (2009).
Screenshot of Tony Pua's blog.
Source: (tonypua.blogspot.com, 2009)
How credible are journal entries online?
Issues of credibility with blogs has always been a prominent issue as citizen journalism becomes famous over time. According to an Online Journalism Review, Journalist or bloggers who write or blog about issues online, are not credible enough to be trusted. Their credibility is often questioned as they are mostly normal citizens and not professionals in a certain field. Anyone can become a journalist today. Anyone can state their opinion or viewpoints online. The issues they write about also might be one-sided due to dissatisfaction with our Malaysian government. Therefore, it is deemed to be biased.
How to solve the issue of credibility?
In order to solve the issue of credibility, Cuban (2007) stated that, bloggers today should include proof of whatever they blog about online. If a specific issue is being touched, prove it by including credible items like an interview or excerpts of the issue online. This enables people to view it as "well-reserached" and not merely opinion based. Chris (2009) states that writing styles should also be professional as that attracts a reader's attention. As Lannon (2006, p. 468) puts it, information credibility and accuracy is an essential element in a useful website. This is to ensure the level of reliability of the website or blog itself.
References
Chris 2009, How to increase credibility of a blog?, viewed 11 June 2009,
<http://www.bloggingwithchris.com/how-to-increase-credibility-of-your-blog/>
Cuban, M 2007, Blogging’s impact on media credibility, viewed 12 June 2009,
<http://blogmaverick.com/2007/07/04/bloggings-impact-on-media-credibility/>
Gillmor, D 2006, 'We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People, O’Reilly, United States, viewed 11 June 2009,
<http://books.google.com.my/books?hl=en&id=Dgfufx9H1BcC&dq=citizen+journalists&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=rdxOIMd-nl&sig=yFNf6NTujvoUlAanK4BrRwgiFTA#PPR20,M1>.
Kelly, B 2009, Virtual Space for All: The Opportunities and Challenges provided by the Social Web 2.0, viewed 12 June 2009,
<http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/2009/04/21/virtual-space-for-all-the-opportunities-and-challenges-provided-by-the-social-web-20/>
Lannon, JM 2006, 'Technical Communication', 10th Edition, Pearson Education, USA
Lasica, JD 2007, 'What is Participatory Journalism?', USC Online Journalism Review, viewed on 12 June 2009
<http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060217106.php>
Pua 2009, Philosophy Politics Economics, viewed 11 June 2009,
<http://tonypua.blogspot.com/>
Walsh, M 2006, 'Textual Shifts: Examining The Reading Process with Print, Visual and Multimodal Texts', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, p. 24-37
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