What is citizen journalism?
Some have called it networked journalism, open source journalism, and citizen media. Communication has changed greatly with the advent of the Internet. The Internet has enabled citizens to contribute to journalism,without professional training. Mark Glasser, a longtime freelance journalist who frequently writes on new media issues, gets to the heart of it:
"The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as YouTube."
(Wikipedia: “Citizen Journalism”, 2007)
STOMP
STOMP (Straits Times Online Mobile Print) is a recent initiative by The Straits Times inviting the Singapore community to provide news by the people, for the people. It integrates content and activities in the three platforms of print, online and mobile. These three platforms will enable STOMP to interact and engage with Singaporeans in exciting new ways. STOMP promises to deliver content which is interactive and which will help develop new communities of Singaporeans bonded together by shared interests. It encourages audience participation through free access to the website, and as for SMS (Short Messaging Service) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), the normal telco charges apply to users.
Does STOMP (Straits Times Online Mobile Print) fit into what is classified by Lasica, J.D. (2003) as a medium for citizen journalism? Of the four types of citizen journalism cited in Wikipedia, STOMP would most closely be categorized under ‘audience participation’. The following are a couple of examples of audience participation found in STOMP: -
E.g. #1 - Photos or video footage captured from personal mobile cameras
STOMP’s ‘Singapore Seen’ features snapshots of newsworthy images captured in Singapore. More than likely, most of these photos are taken using mobile camera-phones and conveniently sent to STOMP via MMS.
Currently, three of the most talked about pictures / reports (as judged by the number of comments) are “Daily school band practice torturing neighbors”, “What (butt) cheek! Exposure is disgusting, and “Noisy students at library tell others to shut up”.
E.g. #2 - Personal blogs
Six celebrity bloggers pen their thoughts on a topic of choice every Monday. STOMP users even get to interact live with these stars via the comments section beneath their blogs.
STOMP – The ideal form of citizen journalism for Singapore?
In my opinion, STOMP is a fun and innovative channel that introduces the concept of citizen journalism to Singapore; and Singaporeans are still learning to get used to this relatively new form of media. However, presently, many of the contributions (e.g. “’J-pop’ babes walking down the street”) appear to deal with rather superficial matters. The issues that are reported or photos that are captured reflect a certain immaturity of these contributors. These report headlines tend to create sensationalism rather than offer much benefit to other readers (e.g. the exposed butt cheeks and UFO-like sightings in Sentosa. As suggested by Gillmore (2004), “the downsides are plain, including the consequences of erroneous information and potential invasions of privacy” (p.56).
For citizen journalism to thrive in Singapore, it has to evolve into serving a greater purpose. Like Gillmore states, “the positive uses are also evident” (p.56). Of the ten topics featured in ‘Singapore Seen’, only three could be deemed as beneficial for the community. They are the reports of the freak car accident, the mysterious massive traffic jam, and the “helmet-less” construction worker. Reports like these inform, remind and warn readers about the importance of practicing safety.
Like I’d already mentioned, what STOMP is doing now is a great start. But continue like that for long and we could probably end up with an online version of the New Paper, filled with gossip, scandal and sensational stories for the ‘kay-pohs’ out there to remain in the know.
STOMP ought to begin introducing elements in its site that educate its users to report on things that matter. Unfortunately (or fortunately), for the moment, the feature I find most didactic to me is ‘English As It Is Broken”. Yay. Tanks to STOMP, now my England can be velly powderful orlaydy.
References
Gillmor, D. (2004, July). We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. Retrieved March 28, 2007 from http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html
Citizen Journalism. (2007, March 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 29, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism
www.stomp.com.sg
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Friday, March 30, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
QotW8: Taboo or not Taboo
Mention the word “politics” and it could cause a stir. While some people are passionate about it, to some it’s taboo, and maybe for others, it unleashes a pent up dam.
What is Democracy?
To answer the question on whether blogs allow for greater democracy in Singapore, let us first look into the meaning of democracy. According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, democracy is defined as “government by the people; especially rule of the majority”.
Singapore, a democratic society…?
Singapore claims to be a “democratic society”, (as least it says so in our national pledge). Are we really? Are we, as earlier defined, a “government by the people”? Well, there is a significant segment of Singaporeans who don’t seem to think so, and we tend to find more blogs that present disdain toward the Singapore government than there are those for it.
The battle continues…
In Singapore, the mainstream media is strictly controlled by the government, and one political party — the People’s Action Party (PAP) — has had complete control of all centers of government. And recently, Minister of Communication and Arts, Balaji Sadasiva, announced that blogs and podcasts would be shut down if they ran overt political content in the runup to the May 6 election (bbc.co.uk, 2006).
Immediately, the move was denounced by the free expression rights group Reporters Without Borders. “Once again the Singapore authorities are showing their determination to prevent the holding of a genuinely democratic debate on the Internet,” the group said in a statement. And the Internet crackdown was aimed squarely at two new media platforms — blogs and podcasts — that have been embraced by opposition parties such as the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) to get around censorship in other media (Reporters Without Borders For Press Freedom, 2006).
Silence of the lambs
There seems to be an unspoken fear that if anyone is caught bad-mouthing the Singapore government, they would get arrested by the authorities and thrown straight to jail – like sheep awaiting slaughter.
Braveheart
“Hear ye! Hear ye! - Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble”. This is the headline that screams from Aaron Ng’s blog. He is just one of the many other bloggers who seem to have escaped the plague of “the fear”.
Aaron is a citizen blogger, and is currently a final year undergraduate in CNM Programme, National University of Singapore. The URL http://aaron-ng.info/blog is apparently Aaron’s new site as he addressed “followers” of his previous blog, and introduced this domain to them in his new first entry on 6th April 2006. His URL is not ranked in Technorati, but there are 763 links to it.
In his most recent entry on 23rd March 2007 – “Conflicting Signals from Government”, Aaron questions the government’s new censorship policy - ‘ceremonial censorship’, implying that the government is giving out mixed signals through contradicting responses.
Some readers of Aaron’s blogs may feel that he is not concerned about appearing brutally frank or even insensitive at times. It seems as if he doesn’t really care about making his viewers feel uncomfortable - he would rather be taken at face value.
So, do blogs allow for greater democracy in Singapore?
It may not seem like blogs are making significant enough impact to how the government is running now, but I can confidently say that yes, blogs have grown from making ripples to making waves in getting voices that used to be unheard, heard.
To conclude, I quote an extract from Thornton’s (2002),“Does Internet Create Democracy” :
“Democracy has become the dominant ideology of modern political life. Yet the gaps between ideology and practice are now so glaring that serious observers feel increasingly bound to ask “Are we able to believe even in the possibility of a role for mass communication in the furtherance of democratic ideals?” (Blumler and Gurevitch)”.
And once again, my answer is yes.
References
Ng, A.(2007, March). Conflicting signals from government. Hear ye! Hear ye! - Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble. Retrieved March 23 2007 from http://aaron-ng.info/blog/conflicting-signal-from-government.html
democracy. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law. Retrieved March 23, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy
(2006). Government steps up online censorship in run-up to elections. Reporters without borders for press freedom, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16935
(2006). Singapore attacked over blog gag. BBC News. Retrieved March 23, 2007 fromhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4882746.stm
Thornton, A. (2002, October). Does Internet Create Democracy. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc
Blumler, J and Gurevitch, M. "The Crisis of Civic Communication". The Crisis of Public Communication. London: Routledge: 1.
What is Democracy?
To answer the question on whether blogs allow for greater democracy in Singapore, let us first look into the meaning of democracy. According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, democracy is defined as “government by the people; especially rule of the majority”.
Singapore, a democratic society…?
Singapore claims to be a “democratic society”, (as least it says so in our national pledge). Are we really? Are we, as earlier defined, a “government by the people”? Well, there is a significant segment of Singaporeans who don’t seem to think so, and we tend to find more blogs that present disdain toward the Singapore government than there are those for it.
The battle continues…
In Singapore, the mainstream media is strictly controlled by the government, and one political party — the People’s Action Party (PAP) — has had complete control of all centers of government. And recently, Minister of Communication and Arts, Balaji Sadasiva, announced that blogs and podcasts would be shut down if they ran overt political content in the runup to the May 6 election (bbc.co.uk, 2006).
Immediately, the move was denounced by the free expression rights group Reporters Without Borders. “Once again the Singapore authorities are showing their determination to prevent the holding of a genuinely democratic debate on the Internet,” the group said in a statement. And the Internet crackdown was aimed squarely at two new media platforms — blogs and podcasts — that have been embraced by opposition parties such as the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) to get around censorship in other media (Reporters Without Borders For Press Freedom, 2006).
Silence of the lambs
There seems to be an unspoken fear that if anyone is caught bad-mouthing the Singapore government, they would get arrested by the authorities and thrown straight to jail – like sheep awaiting slaughter.
Braveheart
“Hear ye! Hear ye! - Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble”. This is the headline that screams from Aaron Ng’s blog. He is just one of the many other bloggers who seem to have escaped the plague of “the fear”.
Aaron is a citizen blogger, and is currently a final year undergraduate in CNM Programme, National University of Singapore. The URL http://aaron-ng.info/blog is apparently Aaron’s new site as he addressed “followers” of his previous blog, and introduced this domain to them in his new first entry on 6th April 2006. His URL is not ranked in Technorati, but there are 763 links to it.
In his most recent entry on 23rd March 2007 – “Conflicting Signals from Government”, Aaron questions the government’s new censorship policy - ‘ceremonial censorship’, implying that the government is giving out mixed signals through contradicting responses.
Some readers of Aaron’s blogs may feel that he is not concerned about appearing brutally frank or even insensitive at times. It seems as if he doesn’t really care about making his viewers feel uncomfortable - he would rather be taken at face value.
So, do blogs allow for greater democracy in Singapore?
It may not seem like blogs are making significant enough impact to how the government is running now, but I can confidently say that yes, blogs have grown from making ripples to making waves in getting voices that used to be unheard, heard.
To conclude, I quote an extract from Thornton’s (2002),“Does Internet Create Democracy” :
“Democracy has become the dominant ideology of modern political life. Yet the gaps between ideology and practice are now so glaring that serious observers feel increasingly bound to ask “Are we able to believe even in the possibility of a role for mass communication in the furtherance of democratic ideals?” (Blumler and Gurevitch)”.
And once again, my answer is yes.
References
Ng, A.(2007, March). Conflicting signals from government. Hear ye! Hear ye! - Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble. Retrieved March 23 2007 from http://aaron-ng.info/blog/conflicting-signal-from-government.html
democracy. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law. Retrieved March 23, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy
(2006). Government steps up online censorship in run-up to elections. Reporters without borders for press freedom, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16935
(2006). Singapore attacked over blog gag. BBC News. Retrieved March 23, 2007 fromhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4882746.stm
Thornton, A. (2002, October). Does Internet Create Democracy. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc
Blumler, J and Gurevitch, M. "The Crisis of Civic Communication". The Crisis of Public Communication. London: Routledge: 1.
Friday, March 9, 2007
QotW6: Privacy, Surveillance, Sousveillance
How many times have we given our mailing address, telephone numbers, and even credit card numbers online, without really thinking twice about who may gain access to our information, tamper with it, and ultimately rob us of the millions in our treasury. Well, for me, your Average Andrea (who often books movie tickets online), despite bring very far from smelling my millionth dollar, have wondered if my precious couple of hundreds are at risk of slipping through my fingers (with just a push of the 'ENTER' button).
Fortunately for many of us, we haven't had our money cheated from us. But what about our email inbox that is loaded with spam? How and where do you reckon that came from? Undoubtedly, at some point in time we unknowingly surrendered our email to some wrong website (Sullivan, 2006). Furthermore, Sullivan adds "...the one simple act of surrendering a telephone number to a store clerk can set in motion a cascade of silent events, as that data point is acquired, analyzed, categorized, stored and sold over and over again. Future attacks on privacy may come from anywhere, from anyone with money to purchase that surrendered phone number."
Apart from the instances where we may be required to submit important personal data, such as in making online purchases, there are various other avenues of self-exposure in cyberspace like blogs, social network sites, forums, chatrooms, etc.
Rosen (2004) highlights that "the Internet has vastly increased the opportunities for individuals to subject themselves to the demands of the personality market, resulting in ever increasing confusion and anxiety about how much of ourselves to reveal to strangers." He adds that the logic of Eric Fromm's (1955) "marketed self" into a virtual world where the easiest way to attract the attention and winning the trust of strangers is to establish an emotional connection with them by projecting a consistent, memorable, and trustworthy image (Rosen, 2004).
Being part of Friendster, a social networking site, I voluntarily expose myself (or rather a part of myself) to friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. There are twenty-seven people in my 'Pending Friend Requests' list; and the reason why they are still in the 'pending' list is because either (1) I don't know them personally, (2) I don't recognize them, or (3) I don't believe their identity is authentic. For instance, I don't buy the idea that Leslie Kwok, the oh-so-dreamy former national swimmer, wants to be my 'friend'. Sure, post a group photo with him in it and use "lesliek" in your email address. I am still not going to fall for it. In fact I think it would be more likely for me to 'accept' William Hung as my 'friend', since he is also on that pending list.
Unfortunately, as much as I try to protect myself from the snares of the "virtual citizens", by limiting my profile exposure to what Friendster calls '2nd Degree Friends', I still have 27,257 'friends' (who ironically are yet unknown to me) that have easy access to information about me through this site.
Privacy discourages information sharing between individuals (Wikipedia, 2007). And privacy is precisely the reason why I haven't participated in any other social networking sites, or caught on to the trend of blogging. (Although I do wait in anticipation to see if this course, COM 125, can make me a convert.)
REFERENCES
Fromm, E. (1955). The Sane Society. Reinhart. p141-42
Privacy. (2007, March 7). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:54, March 9, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Privacy&oldid=113354124
Rosen, J. (2004). The Naked Crowd. Retrieved March 9, 2007, from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm
Sullivan, B. (2006). Privacy Lost: Does Anybody Care? Retrieved March 9, 2007, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/
See the Friendster.com website
Fortunately for many of us, we haven't had our money cheated from us. But what about our email inbox that is loaded with spam? How and where do you reckon that came from? Undoubtedly, at some point in time we unknowingly surrendered our email to some wrong website (Sullivan, 2006). Furthermore, Sullivan adds "...the one simple act of surrendering a telephone number to a store clerk can set in motion a cascade of silent events, as that data point is acquired, analyzed, categorized, stored and sold over and over again. Future attacks on privacy may come from anywhere, from anyone with money to purchase that surrendered phone number."
Apart from the instances where we may be required to submit important personal data, such as in making online purchases, there are various other avenues of self-exposure in cyberspace like blogs, social network sites, forums, chatrooms, etc.
Rosen (2004) highlights that "the Internet has vastly increased the opportunities for individuals to subject themselves to the demands of the personality market, resulting in ever increasing confusion and anxiety about how much of ourselves to reveal to strangers." He adds that the logic of Eric Fromm's (1955) "marketed self" into a virtual world where the easiest way to attract the attention and winning the trust of strangers is to establish an emotional connection with them by projecting a consistent, memorable, and trustworthy image (Rosen, 2004).
Being part of Friendster, a social networking site, I voluntarily expose myself (or rather a part of myself) to friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. There are twenty-seven people in my 'Pending Friend Requests' list; and the reason why they are still in the 'pending' list is because either (1) I don't know them personally, (2) I don't recognize them, or (3) I don't believe their identity is authentic. For instance, I don't buy the idea that Leslie Kwok, the oh-so-dreamy former national swimmer, wants to be my 'friend'. Sure, post a group photo with him in it and use "lesliek" in your email address. I am still not going to fall for it. In fact I think it would be more likely for me to 'accept' William Hung as my 'friend', since he is also on that pending list.
Unfortunately, as much as I try to protect myself from the snares of the "virtual citizens", by limiting my profile exposure to what Friendster calls '2nd Degree Friends', I still have 27,257 'friends' (who ironically are yet unknown to me) that have easy access to information about me through this site.
Privacy discourages information sharing between individuals (Wikipedia, 2007). And privacy is precisely the reason why I haven't participated in any other social networking sites, or caught on to the trend of blogging. (Although I do wait in anticipation to see if this course, COM 125, can make me a convert.)
REFERENCES
Fromm, E. (1955). The Sane Society. Reinhart. p141-42
Privacy. (2007, March 7). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:54, March 9, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Privacy&oldid=113354124
Rosen, J. (2004). The Naked Crowd. Retrieved March 9, 2007, from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm
Sullivan, B. (2006). Privacy Lost: Does Anybody Care? Retrieved March 9, 2007, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/
See the Friendster.com website
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