Citizen Journos = 21st Century Pamphleteers?

I'm going to briefly stick with the historical look at citizen journalism. Linking with my previous blog about Albert Kahn, and Danny's comment about portraits and art, our brains started boggling about where else could citizen journalism crop up in history?

I find this a fascinating way to look at events which have happened in the past as, to be frank, I've never considered primary sources (outside of the published newspapers etc.) in this context before, and, I realise I may be alone in thinking this way (!) it's become a little bit like a magic eye picture; you put a slight slant on it, look in a different way and a whole plethora of ideas get revealed...

I agree with Sophie's argument that it is easy to take the idea that any historical documentation could be held up as citizen journalism if you massage the document in a certain manner which makes it fit, but we must not. It is very fitting however, I think, to at least mention another thing in the historical context of public involvement in news; pamphlets!

Obviously, pamphlets are a wide and varied subject in themselves, but imagine, if you will, the world before the internet, before mobiles and facebook (hard, I know) how did people communicate? Word of mouth...newspapers...letters...telegrams...yes. But how did they get their say? Pamphlets?

Nowadays if we had a problem with something, or wanted to complain, we can send an email to 'whom it may concern' or we can write on the 'Have Your Say' part of the BBC website, text television/radio news, even get our own footage from our perspective 'on the ground' aired on National TV if we wanted. What about in the past?

Pamphlets have long been an important tool of political protest and campaigning. Like with a text message or a quick phone call, pamphlets were cheap and easily proliferated to the public. They were operating outside of newspapers and books and were used to broadcast the writer's opinions on an issue, for instance articulating a particular political/social idea.

We, the Three Journos, and anyone else who has a blog are effectively being 21st century pamphleteers. Back in the times of Thomas Paine however, in the American Revolutionary War for example, telecommunications did not exist as they do now.

Where the 21st century pamphleteer has a really rather large advantage is that internet connections, blogging, emails and user-generated commentary on websites come at relatively low cost and easy accessibility to our fingertips (taking the sometimes extortionate line-rental and internet fees out of the equation for the moment). One had to have access to a printing press and a supply of paper before becoming a pamphleteer in times past, which was not quite so accessible.

I think that the comparison is fair however, between those who have access to the internet who blog and those who had access to a printing press who produced pamphlets; we all, at the end of the day, are publishing and broadcasting our missives...

Citizen Journalism - Has it always been ingrained in us?

It was while watching the BBC2 programme 'The Great War in Colour: the Wonderful World of Albert Kahn' earlier this evening it occurred to me that ostensibly citizen journalism has been going on much longer than we currently imagine, but potentially under a different guise...

This programme looked at the really rather beautiful and poignant collection of colour photographs from Albert Kahn's 'The Archive of the Planet'.

Albert Kahn was a millionaire Parisian banker in the first half of the twentieth century. Between 1908 and 1930, Kahn used his fortune to create what is widely acknowledged to be the most important collection of early photographs in the world.

Using the French autochrome system, which had only been marketed since 1907 by its inventors Auguste and Louis Lumière, Kahn embarked upon his mission to effectively to document the world. He hired photographers and dispatched them to more than 50 countries worldwide. They shot more than 72,000 colour pictures and around 100 hours of film.

But what got my journalistic synapses sparking was what they were recording.

They captured everything from religious rituals and cultural practices to momentous political events all over the world. They took the earliest known colour pictures in countries as far apart as Vietnam and Brazil, Mongolia and Norway, Japan and Benin.

Often, they arrived in these countries at crucial moments in their history. They recorded the collapse of both the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires for example, and the advent of new states in Europe and the Middle East. During World War I, Kahn's photographers captured the lives of soldiers behind the front lines at The Battle of Verdun, and they also watched the world's most powerful men when they convened for the post-war negotiations at Versailles.

Journalism? I think so.

If you take Lord Donaldson's famous quote, "The media are the eyes and ears of the general public" and now consider Albert Kahn's collection. By capturing and preserving the images of behind the front lines at Verdun for example, Kahn's team of photographers informed the public (then and now) and helped to reveal the 'real' story of 'real' people and the very real situation.

Albert Kahn was an idealist, but also an internationalist. One of his aims for his soon-to-be vast collection of philanthropic photographs was to be able to create a greater understanding among the world's cultures. (Donaldson would be so proud!)

I argue that even when technology like mobile phone cameras, digital cameras or video cameras were a mere microchip in a rather 'H.G. Wells-ian' eye, citizen journalism was here all the time.

Kahn used his collection to inform people, and his material reveals so much in pictures that our concept of the first world war for example could be greatly hindered if we did not have this evidence.

Arguably no, the pictures were not emblazoned in the newspapers for example, but they were displayed and proliferated in the manner of Kahn's notion of creating a better understanding within different cultures. Remembering that a publication simply means something that is communicated to a third party in some form, in my opinion Kahn was publishing and therefore, without realising it, he and his team of photographers were, in our terms; citizen journalists.

Now, being the subject of a BBC documentary, the pictures and historical analysis are being broadcast. I watched this programme and it informed me of a whole different side of World War 1 for example. It delved into and explained details which were encapsulated and revealed through Kahn's photographs.

Would it not be appropriate to compare this to the 'at the front line', foreign correspondent reporting what we now see in Iraq, Afghanistan or in previous wars?

I will leave you to decide.

By Natalie

Some thoughts on Citizen Journalism...

So, when did Citizen Journalism take off as a phenomenon? Personally, the first event I associate Citizen Journalism with is 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre. Shaky videos taken by people who just happened to in the area when first attack occurred were used on a number of major news networks. Who could forget the images of the first plane crashing into the North Tower?

If we count this as the first example of citizen journalism in the Multimedia age, what has come since? The reports of another terrorist attack, the July 7^th London bombings, used large amounts of footage taken by people who had been inside the trains, or spoke to them on the phone, in their coverage of the event. Footage of the Indian Ocean Tsunami hitting the shore on December 26^th 2004, again involved a lot of footage from citizens. On a smaller scale, last Novembers East London warehouse fire news involved citizen journalists. Many news outlets, both Television and Print, used videos and photos taken by members of the public. For example, the above photo was used by the Daily Telegraph and was taken by one of its readers.

Arguably, the involvement of citizens as journalists in ‘disaster’ situations as described above is helpful to journalists to an extent. People in the area when such an event happens have the ability to record videos or take photos as soon as it happens. A journalist on the other hand has to be told an event is happening and get to it before they can report on it. Therefore, the fact that citizens are sending images and videos into News Channels is helpful to journalists. Especially to those at rolling 24 hour news channels which need to have images and videos on screen as soon as possible.

But is this all good? What if citizen journalists were to try and get involved in other areas of reporting the news? It would not be convenient to be beaten by a member of the public to a hospital after a story has broken there, or being behind a citizen in the pecking order when interviewing a headmaster at a failing school…. These concepts may seem farfetched now but who would have thought people would have their pictures in the news regularly ten years ago?

The Hindrances of citizen journalism to full time journalists needs to be explored further, and will be over the coming weeks...

Citizen journalism taking over the world!

As journalists in training it is perhaps fitting that we look into citizen journalism in relation to us. Do we really want any old tom, dick or harry to outdo us in one foul swoop of their groovy little video phone and a little bit of chance? They get the scoop. they get the headlines. And us little journalists are just left out in the cold with our camera in one hand, rain sodden script in the other and jack shit to trump live footage of the incident. Why do we bother?


Sophie

(A photo of london bombings taken by an office worker)

What is Citizen Journalism?

Citizen journalism is becoming a huge part of the essential information gathering for our news. It's also known as public and participatory journalism. But, before we get in to the nitty-gritty of what is citizen journalism, let's examine how our broadcast news worked before the advent of public participation.

Before the creation of affordable video-cameras, picture and video-enabled mobile phones, and digital camera etc. the news was gathered and distributed by the corporations such as the BBC, ITN and Sky.

News crews, particularly for television, were never feasibly at the scene when something newsworthy happened, unless they were very lucky and were there by chance. It is because of this that there was always a delay between the actual event and the transmission of pictures on the news. Crews had to be sent out from the studio, get to the action, shoot it and then send it back to be edited and ultimately broadcast; a rather lengthy, time-consuming procedure.

This does still happen of course, but now the public are far more involved.

It is fair to say that when any news event happens, someone is going to be an onlooker.

This is what citizen journalism is all about, the onlooker becoming the informer, and this is what we will be discussing...

For now, just to give you a taste of what we're talking about, please click the following link to see a piece of footage which was made by a citizen journalist and used as an integral part of a BBC report on the 7/7 london bombings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuhBdHc8Nqs

SOPHIE