Blogurnalism (Blog +Journalism)

Bloggers’ Dream, Newspapers’ Nightmare, Journalists Beware!

UMESH KUMAR ARYA

 

Tomorrow’s newspapers would be glossy, colorful, of good quality with high circulation published by rich people.  But newspaper s would be without soul, Editor would be much subservient to the proprietors and anyone who talks of nationalism would be termed as depraved mentality. - Babu Vishnurao Paradkar in 1925

 

Societies pass through three waves: first wave (agriculture), second wave (Industrial) characterized by mass production, mass communication etc, third wave (information) manifesting demassification, diversity, knowledge-based production - Alvin Toffler2 in 1980

 

Geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays- Arthur C Clark in 19543

 

The world would be divided into economic and political blocs in alliances between nations and large corporations and the rights of the individual would be diminished - George Orwell in 19484

 

Blogurnalism

History is replete with the above communication and communication prophecies which turned out to be true with exacting precision. Still it is a billion dollar question that nobody could guesstimate the rising audience power as an antidote to the swelling media power. Yes, you got that right! we are talking about the craft of web journalism in the avatar of blogurnalism. Web/cyber/online/internet/hypermedia journalism is defined as the reporting of facts produced and distributed via the internet5 . Blogurnalism/audience/participatory/open source/networked/citizen journalism is known as the act of citizens “playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information”(quote reference). It is still a nascent concept in India and it is almost unheard of in non metro cities. 

 

According to Jay Rosen, citizen journalists or bloggers are the ‘people formerly known as audience6 ’. This hybrid word, blogurnalism, is posing a grave threat to the established media’s supremacy and power worldwide. Until now, a few handful of highly intellectual people known as journalists, used to hold lengthy meetings to decided unilaterally on what dish of news should the hapless audience be served. Traditional media had scant regard for audience’s taste. A majority of Americans have more faith in bloggers as purveyors of news than traditional media which they say is out of touch with what the people want7 .An important element of ‘feedback’ in communication process was conspicuous by its absence in traditional journalism by traditional media. Readers’ voice found a solitary confinement in the ‘letters to the editor’ pages whose space in the newspapers has hardly increased in the last few decades and that too is subject to  regulation by media moguls. 

 

Newspapers and TV channels are often seen boasting of their circulation, readership and TRP ratings. But it is very rarely that we come across audience’s needs and wants research and its incorporation into the media content.  In the information age, traditions are collapsing very fast. Few good ones, few bad ones. New technologies like internet are blurring every boundary, be it nations, languages, cultures, workplaces etc. The boundary between the journalists and audience is no exception. Internet has given rise to more participation by people are not normally journalists8 . Blog is born out of wedlock between web and log (diary). It is a liberating crusader for the ordinary citizens who were, until now, desperately scouting for a platform to express their opinion and experiences. Old media didn’t have any provision for that whereas the new media like Internet has plenty of these.

 

Earlier meant to be a tool for sharing experiences between friends, blog has matured enough to spawn innumerable applications today. Its usage spread like a contagious disease.  According to  media’s free press theory, media is free from the govt.’s restrictions and censorship and it is free to publish news. However, practically, the media’s freedom is the newspaper and channel owners’ freedom not the freedom of journalists and public. According to the democratic participation theory, the If we look deeply, democratic participation theory is indicating towards the possibility of a people/audience’s medium. It was a hypothetical concept at the time of framing of the theory in (quote year). Blogurnalism is a small offshoot of Information Technology’s countless applications.

 

The public journalism or Blogurnalism emerged after the 1988 U.S. presidential elections as a countermeasure against the eroding trust in the news media and widespread disillusionment with politics and civic affairs9 . Prof. Jay Rosen of journalism department at New York university and Dan Gillmor, a technology columnist with the San Jose Mercury News were one of its earlier protagonists. Early instances of public journalism focussed on ‘civic journalism’, i.e. journalism for the people (however, it was practiced by professional journalists). It started with coverage of people centered topics like environment, urban facilities, traffic problems etc by the newspapers but this movement died a unnatural deatlh very soon. However, the real turning point in Blogurnalism came in 1999 in the form of creation of Independent Media Center for WTO. The protesters covered a 1 minute coverage which showed the protesters being chased by police. This helped them he protesters being chased by police. This helped them in projecting the public’s point of views in the air.

 

Ohmy News in South Korea became popular and commercially successful with the motto, “Every Citizen is a Reporter”, the remarkable point in this media organisation is that its 40 reporters and editors covered only 20% of its content while 80% comes from the other freelance contributors who are mostly ordinary citizens10 .  In the dotcom era, the online editions of newspapers were mere extension of offline content and “me too” trend was followed. The blogging websites took a nice cue out of this phenomenon and it was widely embraced by the activists. Like any other professional body, Online News Association is an organisation of 800 online citizen journalists. Public’s disenchantment with the “larger than life” media organisations has come to fore now with the advent of numerous blogging sites and writing opportunities.

 

Most Internet users agree that on-line sources are often less biased and more informative than the official media11 . Even more surprising is the gradual unfolding of people’s honest and unadulterated feedback on media’s image and performance. Credibility is the most prized possession of media and it is being lost very fast. On the contrary, Blogurnalists credibility is surging. The traditional 5 W’s model of news – who, what, when, where and why is under close public scrutiny. An additional ‘why’ has also been added to match the relevance and importance of news for the citizens. Some Indian newspapers like Dainik Jagran are publishing ads in their newspapers to encourage the citizens to report any incident which is left uncovered by their reporters. Besides, citizens are paid and named for the news story.

 

To be omnipresent, factually accurate and unbiased is not only the journalists’ exclusive set of birth rights. According to California First Amendment Coalition (www.cfac.org) local police stations and high patrol would not issue press credentials to the reporters as all kinds of people are blogging and taking pictures and publishing them thus removing the boundary between the citizen and journalist12 .There is a journalist in every common man.

 

In recent times, bloggers have broken too many stories of national interest that mainstream media either overlooked, or decided against reporting, not be considered legitimate news gatherers and reporters13 . As already stated, these  are trusted more than mainstream media. Otherwise also, popularity of Blogurnalism websites like www.orkut.com, www.myspace.com, www.about.com, www.expatica.com, www.chat.yahoo.com , www.blogger.com, www.bloglines.com are already sent the mainstream media scurrying for cover. According to a rough estimate, there are 7 crores blogs and 1.5 lacs are added daily.

 

Types – Blogurnalism can be performed in many ways. In fact, possibility with the technology is only limited by our lack of creativity and imagination. However, J.D. Lasica14  classifies it in the following types.

1.  Audience participation – This includes user comments attached to the news stories, personal blogs, photos or video footage captured from personal mobile cameras, or local news written by residents of a community.

2.  Indepednent news and information websites e.g. consumer reports.

3.  Full fledged participatory news sites

4.  Collaborative and contributory media sites like www.slashdot.com

5.  Other kind of ‘thin media’ (mailing lists, e-mail newsletters etc)

6.  Personal broadcasting sites (video broadcast sites such as Kenradio.

 

The above list is very comprehensive and covers ever possible application prevalent today. The author would like to add another point of “news aggregation, editing and distribution”. With RSS (really simple syndication or rich site summary) readers, it is now possible for bloggers to receive live news feeds from newspapers’ websites on to our desktop and edit them again to distribute this news bulletin to all our friends residing in our address books. Moreover, these news can be in text, audio and video as well.

 

These news can be can straightaway published on the blog or personal website without hassle. Audio blogging and Vlogging (video blogging) in www.youtube.com is the killer application  of blogurnalism. However many more creative applications are still to come. A Paris based media watchdog called “Reporters Without Borders” have published a “Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents”to help citizens evade censorhip and publish freely in the non liberal regimes like Iran, China and North Korea.

Examples- Following are some amazing examples of the blogurnalism.

1.  People are downloading free podcasting (audio files on internet) softwares like www.customreader.com and listening to all the podcasts (audio), be it news, archived bulletin of news etc.

2.  Content of Internet is dominated by English language. Hindi premi people are now publishing their own blogs in Hindi by using transliteration (tying the Hindi word in English).

3.  After an intense online and offline protest by blogging community, Yahoo had to apologize to an blogger in Kerala because it plagiarised a half a dozen cookery notes verbatim from curry leaves which is a website run by a housewife.

4.  people are uploading secret videos from sensitive ocations and uploading them on to youtube.com. The polity has been left fretting.

5.  The eye witnesses in the famous serial bomb blasts in July 2006 immediately turned themselves ‘on’ as Blogurnalists and took snaps and videos of the very first visuals. This coupled with “true truth” found its way on to the blogs. As usual, the govt. panicked and all major blogging websites including www.blogger.com were snapped for a week.

6.  The naxalites are publishing their version of story on their blog www.naxalrevolution.blogspot.com and the custodians of democracy in Home Ministry of India are countering naxalite ideology and propaganda by publishing their version at www.naxalwatch.blogspot.com . The cyber battle is going on.

7.  Many aayurveda experts published the remedy of infamous “dengue fever” from papaya’s leaves which was claimed to increase the platelets counts exponentially.

8.  According to a survey, in Indian blogs, technology content is the most widely accessed followed by news and education15 .

9.  Bloggers in America were accredited on the lines of journalists and they were praised for a lively contribution to the Presidential election in 2004.

10.            Bloggers post 9/11 have gone in an overdrive and they highlighted numerous political and journalistic scandals

11.            Australian researchers say that blog help the students think and write more critically as it motivates a person to express who would not engage in debate16 .

12.            Nandigram SEZ episode, Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo murder reinvestigation cases were extensively chased by Indian bloggers and supported by traditional media. In all the cases, justice smiled.

13.            Some bloggers have taken to scrutinize the works of journalists for accuracy and impartiality.

14.            Bloggers have contributed a new phenomenon called “hyperlocal” journalism as online new sites invite contributions from local residents of their subscription aras, who often report on topics that conventional newspapers tend to ignore17 .

15.            E-zines (electronic magazines) have caught up with the groups of students of journalism, environmental sciences, NGOs etc who publish articles online free of cost contributed by its different members.

16.            www.blogger.com gives its US members the facility to call a particular phone number and directly podcast on blogs by recording their voice from any where. Just imagine the productivity arising out of this feature.

17.            Teachers have started podcasting their lectures on their blogs. The absentee students can listen to and read the lecturer at their own convenience.

18.            The Blogurnalists demonstrated astute professionalism when the Tsunami struck southern India in 2004. They published the horrific first hand account of disaster and posted the details (including photographs) of survivors and dead in order to help their relatives abroad about victims’ whereabouts. HAM radio operators and Blogurnalists’ contribution widely acknowledged in the media.

19.            Blogurnalism has emerged as a potent tool in disaster management and crisis communication. The number of blogs posted and their coverage in media increases dramatically after every disaster.

 

Benefits – Blogurnalists tend to be on a vantage position vis a vis the non bloggers in the following ways.

1.  Blogging can be a good learning experience for the fledgling media students or any aspirant writer. It is the only medium through which real plurality of views in the civil domain of society can bloom.

2.  It gives voice to the voiceless, power to the powerless, face to the faceless, sound to the deaf, courage to the meek, uplift to the downtrodden, expression to the repressed and courage to the fearful.

3.  It increases the intellect and collective wisdom of civil society to assert.

4.  It can be a good instant reference material on ever possible topic concerned with the public importance.

5.  It ensures complete virtual interactivity with the instant feedback which helps to improve the journalistic performance.

6.  It provides platform  to every Blogurnalist and carves out his individual virtual identity in the cyberspace which is all time searchable and is always ‘on’.

7.  Same interest groups can plan a collective and collaborative agenda while sitting at the remote locations.

8.  Blogurnalists are paid also for their work e.g. adsense software of google publishes ads on blogs and it pays as per click on the ads.

9.  Above all, it gives them self satisfaction to air or offload wisdom  on the sites. Sharing experiences also forms an important emotional outlet.

10. ‘Top down’ approach is fast losing steam and balance is shifted towards ‘bottom up’ approach in which hitherto marginalised community asserts itself by equally good assignments as compared to professionals.

 

Conclusion - No doubt, Blogurnalism is not a error free zone. Many a times, its strength have been misused by unscrupulous Blogurnalists. There is no check on quality control, trustworthiness and credibility of the posted information. But its benefits certainly outweigh the doubts.  The very first use of the technology is misuse. The deviant Blogurnalists would no longer command respect of the audience unlike their professional counterparts who are supported by big media corporations. The relationship of Blogurnalists and professional journalists is inversely proportional. Positive change in one tends to negatively affect the other. As all the guesstimates and prophecies regarding the disappearance of print media after the advent of cable TV and internet proved wrong and penetration of all media has increased exponentially, similarly conventional journalism doesn’t need to frightened at the explosion of blogurnalism. Both of them would not only survive but supplement and surge ahead in the times of come.

 

 

Writer is senior lecturer in deppt. advertising managment and public relations, G.J. University, Hisar

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