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...
2 comments:
One could arguably say that one advantage a citizen journalist would have now, over one from the era of Tom Paine...like..er...Paine... for example, is that they have a lot more freedom in what they can say.
If my memory serves me correctly Paine ended up fleeing to France because his 'citizen journalist' views were seen as anti establishment by some of the higher etchings of society. Nowadays people have more freedom to write what they want, say for example on the BBC Have your say online boards as noted above.
However these are still subject to some forms of moderation... not from a government but BBC moderators. To be able to post you have to abide to a certain code.
One are it could be possible there is very little freedom in terms of citizen journalism is in the news almost every single day. If a religious extremist were to produce their views at citizen journalism i have no doubts that the government would try to find a way of shutting it down.... so to conclude just like back when Paine was writing only SOME views will be allowed to be broadcast by citizen journalists.
IT is true that there are many similarites between blogs and pamphlets... you are right if either over step(ed) the mark, the government would clamp down on the creators.
However with blogs the threshold of what they can get away with is higher, what with both freedom of expression and the fact that is is virtually impossible to monitor the internet and so it takes longer to come to the attention of the authories.
The major distinction between these two are the sheer distribution; there are millions of blogs accessible to millions of people but is that in a sense their very weakness??? there are too many for us to really care to read the ramblings of every tom, dick and Harry's blog....with the pamphlet, even if they usually were the mad ramblings of individuals, their limited circulation made it easier for people to scan an eye over - let me ask you this (with the exception perhaps of Charlotte who is the cyber queen) How many of you have ever looked at some random persons (i.e not someone who works for an organisation or who is a professional) blog just for pleasure?? Nope thought not.
SOPHIE
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