What concerns
may news organisations have with the emergence of citizen journalism?
Journalism is
becoming more and more redundant with the emergence of user-generated content.
61% of adults now get their news online, making the web the third most popular
news platform.
News organisations
are responding to this by incorporating multiple media platforms, such as
websites, phone apps, etc. They
are now integrating social features on their sites for a more engaging
experience for the audience.
37% of internet users
have contributed to the creation/commentary of news. (2009)
How have news
organisations responded to the rise of citizen journalism?
‘… when major events occur, the public can offer us as much new
information as we are able to broadcast to them. From now on, news coverage is
a partnership.’
- Richard Sambrook,
Professor of Journalism and ex-BBC journalist.
For example, ‘The New
York Times’ is one of the few sites currently onboard as a launch partner for
twitter’s new ‘@anywhere platform.’
(an easy-to-deploy
solution for bringing the Twitter communication platform to your site.) This
makes it easier for people to follow site authors.
They are also integrating ‘citizen
journalism’ networks. For example, the CNN ‘IReport.’ This is a public
journalism initiative to enable people from across the world to report stories.
The BBC’s Global news director has
demanded that all BBC journalists must use social media.
Jürgen Habermas
A German sociologist
and philosopher, best known for his theory on the ‘concepts of communicative
rationality’ and the ‘public sphere.’
‘The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere’ is Habermas'
examination of a kind of publicity that originated in the eighteenth century,
but still has modern relevance. It begins by attempting to define what Habermas
calls the ‘bourgeois public sphere.’ He
defines the public sphere as the sphere of private people who join together to
form a "public." He traces the history of the division between public
and private in language and philosophy.
The Public Sphere is being part of a society where
people can discuss and share opinions on the greater good, specifically
politics related. The bourgeois society ‘cultivated and upheld these criteria.’
However the media has destroyed this by having a larger focus on consumerism
than politics. Media became the medium for advertising rather than the public’s
source of news à reduces the
access to the public sphere.
Before the
bourgeois public sphere came representative publicity. It involved the king or
lord representing himself before an audience; the King was the only public
person, and all others were spectators. The public and private realms were not
separated.
Economic
developments were vital in the evolution of the public sphere. Habermas
emphasizes the role of capitalist modes of production, and of the long-distance
trade in news and commodities in this evolution. The most important feature of
the public sphere as it existed in the eighteenth century was the public use of
reason in rational-critical debate. This checked domination by the state, or
the illegitimate use of power. Rational-critical debate occurred within the
bourgeois reading public, in response to literature, and in institutions such
as salons and coffee-houses. Habermas sees the public sphere as developing out
of the private institution of the family, and from what he calls the
"literary public sphere", where discussion of art and literature became
possible for the first time. The public sphere was by definition inclusive, but
entry depended on one's education and qualification as a property owner.
Habermas emphasizes the role of the public sphere as a way for civil society to
articulate its interests.
The
development of the fully political public sphere occurred first in Britain in
the eighteenth century. The public sphere became institutionalized within the
European bourgeois constitutional states of the nineteenth century, where
public consensus was enshrined as a way of checking domination. The fully
developed public sphere was therefore dependent on many social conditions,
which eventually shifted.
Habermas argues that the self-interpretation of the
public sphere took shape in the concept of "public opinion", which he
considers in the light of the work of Kant, Marx, Hegel, Mill and Tocqueville.
The bourgeois public sphere eventually eroded because of economic and
structural changes. The boundaries between state and society blurred, leading
to what Habermas calls the refeudalisation of society. State and society became
involved in each other's spheres; the private sphere collapsed into itself. The
key feature of the public sphere - rational-critical debate - was replaced by
leisure, and private people no longer existed as a public of property owners.
Habermas argues that the world of the mass media is cheap and powerful. He says
that it attempts to manipulate and create a public where none exists, and to
manufacture consensus. This is particularly evident in modern politics, with
the rise of new disciplines such as advertising and public relations. These,
and large non- governmental organizations, replace the old institutions of the
public sphere. The public sphere takes on a feudal aspect again, as politicians
and organizations represent themselves before the voters. Public opinion is now
manipulative, and, more rarely, still critical. We still need a strong public
sphere to check domination by the state and non-governmental organizations.
Habermas holds out some hope that power and domination may not be permanent
features.
