citizen journalism

Power to the people

Clark Kent, Citizen journalist was the first on the scene to post the story of the Hudson River plane crash using a Twitter account via his mobile phone and this was also the case for the attacks in Mumbai. The video shows the story how Janis Krums, the citizen journalist of the Hudson plane crash is an example of how people use new technology unforeseen by the original developers.

Twitter was developed for:

"Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?" (Twitter, 2009)

It also appears now that journals from major news outlets are also tapping into the Twitter feed to get early warnings of significant events:

"On Wednesday evening, I was travelling home from a night out, glanced at my phone and saw one of the people I follow on Twitter talking about Apple's new statement on Steve Jobs' health. That meant I could get straight to work on filing a radio piece." (Cellan-Jones, 2009)

The ethical issues of the rights of the individual balanced with the need to file a story and the public's right to know has been made harder to control with the "mobility of data" (Concept 5, 2009). With all the user content uploading to sites like Flickr, Twitter and personal blogs it's become an even more important question of rights? After events like 9/11, who has the rights to publish images like "The Falling Man" (9/11 The Falling Man, 2009)?

Would you like to see images of people you know in this situation. I wouldn't.

Reference:
Twitter. (2009). Retrieved April 6, 2009, from http://twitter.com/

Cellan-Jones, R. (2009). Twitter and a classic picture. Retrieved April 6, 2009, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/01/twitter_and_a_classic_picture.html

Concept 5. (2009). Retrieved April 6, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=%2Fbin%2Fcommon%2Fcourse.pl%3Fcourse_id%3D_14736_1%26sc%3D%252fwebapps%252fdiscussionboard%252fdo%252fmessage%253faction%253dlist_messages%2526conf_id%253d_23724_1%2526forum_id%253d_47938_1%2526message_id%253d_558527_1%2526thread_id%253d552622%2526nav%253ddiscussion_board%2526course_id%253d_14736_1

9/11 The Falling Man. (2009). Retrieved April 6, 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXnA9FjvLSU

Blogs, what are they good for?

Absolutely nothing, say it again!

According to a post on the Uni Blackboard by Russell Show Parent Post, well almost.

My response was:

Hide Parent Post

Author: Russell Airey
Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2009 11:04:49 PM WST
Subject: In response to Peters question

This is an attempt to answer the question of why im so against blogging/why i wouldnt continue to blog/etc etc.

Peter raised the question (in a round about way) and a few other students have too so ive created a new thread so i dont hijack someone elses.

here goes...


Telling the world about my life and feelings and thoughts does not interest me in the slightest.



I'd sooner do that with people I'm close to and who I love and care about and who love and care about me.



I have no need to preach to the world
what it is that makes me an individual in order to gain some sort of
inflated sense of self worth. And I don't feel the need to snoop on
others to get in on the latest gossip and exploits.



To say I have nothing to do with
blogs is a little incorrect. I in fact frequent sites such as
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/ which provide a very clear and practical
purpose. Aside from that, I have nothing to do with any sort of "social
networking" site and beyond this course, never will.



I find sites such as myspace and
facebook unhealthy and parasitic. They encroach on privacy and foster a
welcoming environment for stalkers, bully's and many other types of low
life scum to pray on nieve and unsuspecting people.



Not to mention an extremely efficient means of spreading spam, chain letters, and spyware to the masses...



On a more technical note, they are
the classic examples of how NOT to develop websites. Take myspace for
example. Everytime you visit a page, a song and video and whatever
other rich media content has been added is loaded straight away.



The use of such sites as grown
exponentially so fast, that it has exceeded the use of bandwidth used
by illegal downloading! (gah can't find the source on that >.<)



Having been a network admin for a
number of different organisations, the single biggest issue I faced was
network congestion and bandwidth usage which was largely a result of
constant social network use. Surprisingly, illegal downloading was not
a problem (it did consume a lot of bandwidth, but its rate of increase
was minimal and could easily be catered for). When you have a dozen
teenagers on a single connection each with half a dozen
myspace/facebook pages open, simultaneously refreshing all pages and
from time to time proclaiming: "someone left me a comment!!" its not
hard to see why lol.



I guess that alone is not a great
reason to dislike social networks, but if you wanted a full
explanation, id be here till next week explaining.



Im expecting to kick up a stink about this now, but there it is!

"In principle I agree with you on the personal blogs, I don't give a damn about other peoples lives in which I have no contact with BUT, I do like blogs as an information service such as http://twipphoto.com/ and other educational sites. My experience with my own blog for NET11 has been one of self awareness and for this it's worked incredibility well. Putting my thoughts into typed words certainly encourages me to think about the process more than just my nebular brain waves. I haven't decided if I will continue blogging once I've finished this unit but there is a good possibility I will, even if it's only for a therapeutic reasons. I'm not sure if I care if others don't even read it, it's just for personal self reflection." (Gardner, 2009)

Like Russell, I too was very skeptical about the vale of personal blogs, see "First Thoughts". Now my views have changed—I have very much enjoyed NET11 and have equally enjoyed blogging. Putting my thoughts into words has help cement the ideas I've been studying and has become more of a personal journey than anything else. I still don't see myself following other peoples personal blogs—my life is as full as I can cope with just now and I just don't need to read sagas or another Greek tragedy. I feel personal blogs are a bit like this blog, just a method of recording one's thoughts, a pseudo dairy but in this case live for anyone to read—even if I don't care if others read it or not!

The blogs I like the most are the aggregate sites or blog filters like the Adobe news, it give me access to a whole heap of blogs in a particular field I'm interested in and perhaps would not of otherwise find through my own searches. It's a very convenient method to surf the web.

The fact is, blog sites are, as they say, only limited by your imagination, they are an incredible tool for people to showcase their creative side and gives the blogger a voice in a crowded world. It can be a fantastic ego booster, therapeutic, an outlet for a hidden genius or for just plain fun.

Have a go!


Reference:
Gardner, L. (2009, April 2). In response to Peters question. Message posted to Discussion board electronic mailing list, archived at http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=%2Fbin%2Fcommon%2Fcourse.pl%3Fcourse_id%3D_14736_1%26sc%3D%252fwebapps%252fdiscussionboard%252fdo%252fmessage%253faction%253dlist_messages%2526conf_id%253d_23724_1%2526forum_id%253d_47944_1%2526message_id%253d_585326_1%2526thread_id%253d567152%2526nav%253ddiscussion_board%2526course_id%253d_14736_1


What a bugger of an address!