QotW9: Citizen Journalists = HEROES!

Knowledge is the only way to explore the world without having to go to every places in it. That is the reason why news exists, to give people information of what is actually happening within their own societies and even across the countries.

But after awhile, people get bored with the top-down model of information sharing through the news, where they are always being told, and not getting the chance of sharing information to others. They started to realize that they need conversation more than pronouncement given by the news (Gillmor, 2004). Moreover, people think that the media has not distributes full-transparent-news to people. Therefore, people want to contribute and participate in giving news which is not covered yet by the traditional media – the top-down information distribution.

The Birth of Citizen Journalism

In the late 90s, the Internet fulfilled people's needs by giving the easiness of contributing news to others. As the audience, citizens start to be actively participate in the creation and dissemination of news, with or without the help of mainstream news media. Therefore, the citizen journalism has born into the world of news sharing. Citizen journalism is described as the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information ("Citizen Journalism", 2007). By engaging in citizen journalism, ordinary people, just like us, can be heroes by reporting news which has not been captured by the “real” journalists. The good thing about citizen journalism is that we are not limited by the newsroom horizon. Therefore, news reporters are everywhere in the society.

The advance of technology has supported citizen journalism, especially in the last two years. Citizens are now equipped with easy-to-use Web publishing tools, always on connections (wireless connections), and increasingly powerful digital and mobile devices. These things allow citizens as grassroots reporter to capture moments not only in-text, but with photos, audio-video, commentary and analysis, fact checking and watchdogging, and filtering and editing the ever-growing mass of information online (Bowman, 2005).

Pecquerie (2005) mentioned four categories of citizen journalism, such as:
- The citizen journalist who owns a digital camera or a camera phone and sends shootings to a news organisation during a major event (tsunami, London bombing…) or a local car accident
- The citizen journalist who wants to cover its local or virtual community and produce targeted content
- The citizen journalist who is a militant and campaigns for political reasons. How Eason Jordan was fired from CNN by infuriated bloggers in January 2005, was a good example of biased citizen journalism
- The citizen journalist who is eager to participate to a « conversation » with professional journalists and bloggers. « News is just the beginning » says Jeff Jarvis and, in some cases, it is true.

However, by the existence of these four categories, traditional news media have to deal with these new citizen journalists. Therefore, they use citizen journalists to gain information that they could not capture, and edit the information before it appears in the news column.
Pecquerie (2005) argued that by letting traditional news media edited the news, it means that citizen journalism is only part of the news reporting, but the true essence of citizen journalism is dead.

What about STOMP?

I explored www.stomp.sg yesterday, and I really think that this is the forum where people can talk about anything, from news to fun stuff. I don't see much politics talk in the forum, because I think that is quite a vulnerable topic to be talked about. But other than that, I like the truth that stomp.sg is a free-editing forum, so people can share their true thoughts. I found an interesting forum called “Camwhores”. This is the forum where people can post their photo snap (panveillance, i might say) and share funny and interesting story of the pictures. Other interesting forum that makes stomp.sg different from other forums are the forum where people can make confessions. In the past, who on earth will make a confession through a media where millions of people can actually read it? But on stomp.sg, people really “confess” their feelings through the forum. Two thumbs up for making people speak more!

Another thing is that stomp.sg is designed perfectly in “Singapore manner”. We can barely see that singlish is everywhere on the website. It's great that they make it so local, that every Singaporean would feel “at home” when they visit this website. Despite the fact that stomp.sg use singlish, you might want to explore the website more to find that “Speak Good English Movement” is on the list of “Friends of STOMP”. What do you think?

References
Bowman, S., Willis, C. (2005). Nieman Reports: The Future Is Here, But Do News Media Companies See It?. Retrieved March 29, 2007, from Hypergene Media Blog Web site: http://www.hypergene.net/blog/comments.php?id=327_0_1_0_C

“Citizen Journalism” (March 28, 2006) From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Retrieved March 28, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism

Gillmor, D. “We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People” (July, 2004). Retrieved March 28, 2007 from http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tip

Pecquerie, B. (2005). From citizen journalism myth to citizen journalism realities. Retrieved March 29, 2007, from The Editors Weblog Web site: http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/2005/12/from_citizen_journalism_myth_to_citizen.php

STOMP (2006) From Singapore Press Holdings, Retrieved March 28, 2007 from
http://www.stomp.com.sg/

QotW7: Twit... Twit... Twittero!

Online community is described as a group of people that may or may not primarily or initially communicate or interact via the Internet (“Virtual Community”, 2007). It is a place where people can do as much actions they can do in the real world by using words on screen. You can share your thoughts through blogs, personal web page, or even through chat rooms. Conducting commerce is always possible in the Internet, eBay, for example. People can find friends from different part of the world, play games together, exchange information, or even fall in love with each other! The best question to picture an online community is: “Is there anything impossible in online community?”, rather than, “Is there anything else possible in online community?” Everything can be done through the Internet! It's just that in online community, you minus the physical presence in the interaction.

But is physical presence a big deal? I don't think so. Fernback (1995) wrote that people start to experience their life through dehumanizing technology rather than through human contact and intimacy. Therefore, the absence of physical presence is ignorable. If you re-read the last 3 weeks' readings from Kollock (1995), he stated that there are three main reasons why people engaged in online community: anticipated reciprocity, increased recognition, and sense of efficacy. As we can see, people are not looking for ANOTHER physical presence in online community. Why do you think they will look for something that has occurred in the real life? They are looking for something new in online community, something that is not exist in their real life. If physical appearance (in the real life) can somehow create judgment without even knowing the person well, they can simply omit this relationship myth and express their true self without any worries in online community. Smith (1992) said in his writing that communion, a sense of community, is also a motivation for people to engage in online community.

According to the definition of online community, I consider Twitter as one of them. Even though it does not really give you the picture of a second life (We will discuss about it in the next paragraph), but you can still share and communicate, create a community through twitter. Now that we can see our “COM 125 students' community” on twitter. It connects you with each other in the community (in this case, a friend list) even though you are apart. For example, that day during COM 300 class at computer lab, we could communicate each other in an extremely silent classroom, and Kevin could also join the interaction even though he was in the teacher's room :)

As I have mentioned before, Twitter is a bit different from other online community. Unlike friendster where you can put your details in the “about me” section, you cannot find the details of the person you are talking to in twitter. All you can see is the comment posted by people in your friend list. In twitter, the comments do not come all at once. You might get a very quick response if you are on MSN chat, but you will have to wait slightly longer for a new comment to be posted on Twitter. Somehow you will have to refresh the page to see new comments. One thing that I don't really like about twitter is the “rhetoric” question above the comment bar, asking “What are you doing?” I did not really answer the question when I posted my comment (Instead, I would love to call it a “message”). Try to imagine if people just barely answer the question. They would not get the conversation going on! One people might say, “I'm doing my blog assignment”, another one would say, “I am watching TV”, and others would say, “I'm doing this and that....” How are they going to start talking to each other if everyone only tell what are they doing right now? Thank God none of us do that, and we have a good flow of conversation going on Twitter. Mobile phone services can be used to receive updates from Twitter, but I guess none of us in Singapore use this service, because it costs a lot. Overall, Twitter is a new way of having FUN in online community. I really think that I will keep twittering after I have done the assignment.

Apart from the assignment question about Twitter, do we really need an online community? If we are engaging in online community, what about our real life? I will put Sparks '(2004) theory displacement hypotheses as my argument, that the more time you spent on your second life, the less time you spent on your real life. So, are you willing to “trade” your real life with your second life?

I will use my own life as an example. I spent A LOT (probably too much) of my time in my second life. You name it, MSN, Yahoo messenger, Friendster, Multiply, IMVU, Blogger, and (not forgetting) Twitter. Sometimes I feel like I am lack of the real interaction with people! Everyday I go to school, have my real life goes on during the school hours, then I spend the rest of my time online. Is it “healthy”? I would say, yes it is. For me, I am still normal as long as I still have my real life goes on, so do people out there who spend their time more in online community rather than in their real life. However, I still go out with my “visible” friends every weekend! In my opinion, it's not about choosing one option at a time, it's about balancing both sides well. Don't you think it's even more fascinating if you have two lives, rather than just one? Therefore, a question by The Manicheans (Wellman,1996) whether the Internet will create wonderful new forms of community or will destroy community altogether is perfectly answered. Online community DOES create a really WONDERFUL new forms of community. Do I hear a good amen for that? :)

References

Fernback,J. & Thompson,B. (1995) Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? Retrieved on March 16, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html

Smith, M. (1992). Voices from the WELL: The Logic of the Virtual Commons. UCLA Department of Sociology.

Sparks, G.G. (2004). Media Effects Research. Canada: Thomson Wadsworth.

Wellman,B. & Gulia,M. (1996). Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone:
Virtual Communities as Communities. Retrieved on March 16, 2007, from http://www.acm.org/~ccp/references/wellman/wellman.html

Wikipedia (2007). “Virtual Community”. Retrieved on March 16, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_communities

QotW6: Bonus Mission #1

I love when people get caught in the act for something that they should not do. That's why I often use my phone camera to capture people's embarrassing acts.



Above is one of the embarrassing acts that I and my friend caught in my dad's office. This poor guy is one of my dad's employee, and he was asleep during the office hour! He even snored very loud... :) I know that this guy will be in trouble if i show this video to my dad. That's why I just keep it as my own documentation (and thank God that my dad doesn't even know that youtube.com exists!)

A friend of mine caught another silly action when we were on the train.



In his study, Sullivan (2006) defined privacy as "to be left alone". In the era where phones are attached with built-in camera, people can no longer be "left alone". Now you can feel the danger of doing whatever things you feel like doing in front of public. There are people out there (including me :) ) who would love to caught our silly and stupid actions on their camera. In addition, there is a medium called youtube.com (I'm sure all people in the world know about this, except my dad :p) where you can upload the video to be seen by all the users!

However, this technology advance of built-in camera might also bring benefit to certain circumstances. Our classmate, Yepp, has posted a video as his bonus mission, showing two guys who did not park their vehicles at the right place, and another guy caught their face and their vehicles' number on the video. In this case, I can say that people can use the technology advance as a surveillance. Somehow it might be useful in case you see any crime act going on when you're on your way to school, or anything else that is useful to be caught.

But for the videos that I posted, it's just for fun. :)

Reference

Sullivan, B. (2006) “Privacy lost: does anybody care? MSNBC Interactive. Retrieved on 9 March 2007 from,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/

QotW6: You don't know what you've got until you lost it

Do you ever feel afraid of the fact that somebody might be watching over you, and you don't know that you've been watched?

Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) is a thing that you always see everywhere, in your apartment, in the elevator, shops, shopping malls, and even in SIM's computer lab! The need of surveillance has been increased as people realized that security guards might not be so much efficient, because they can't really watch people doing so and so in certain hidden places.

When some people gain benefit from the existence of CCTV and other spy cameras, some might feel insecure knowing that they are being watched by somebody that they don't even know.

There were cases when people were offended by the presence of surveillance cameras. One of them was happened in 2003, when 3 innocent people were caught by ATM camera and suspected to perform a murder. They stayed for 3 weeks in prison, until it was discovered that the camera was set to the wrong time, so they had nothing to do with the murder case. (Sullivan, 2006)

We also deal with some privacy matters as those spying cameras are spread all over the place. We might become paranoid after reading news about hidden cameras in fitting rooms and toilets. Celebrities would be extra careful knowing that there are hundreds of paparazzi in in forms of pedestrians, hot dog sellers, taxi drivers, and anything else, try to capture their picture doing something that they don't usually do in public.

(Paris Hilton caught
in the act!)

In the rise of Internet era, people can easily get access to others' privacy. Therefore, we are experiencing the Omnipticon in which the many are watching the many, even though no one knows precisely who is watching or being watched at any given time (Rosen, 2004). It's not only about spy cameras and all that, but people can also get your private information through everything that you revealed online. It might be your personal identity, your interests, your email address, or even your house address. It is funny to figure out that we are afraid of letting others exceed the line of our privacy, yet we keep revealing our own private information through our blog, personal websites, or other sources that require you to mention some of your privacy. In other words, we are opening the gate for others to enter the stage of our privacy. So why are we still uncomfortable of the fact that our privacy are now being exposed to numbers of people?

An old expression explains it well, “You don't know what you've got until you lost it.” Sullivan (2006) also mentioned in his article, “But it’s like health: When you have it, you don’t notice it. Only when it’s gone do you wish you’d done more to protect it.”

However, there are reasons behind the reality that we are exposing our own privacy. As I have mentioned before, there are few circumstances that require people to reveal some of their private identity. I will put myself as a VICTIM of the circumstance. I love to download free-trial games from different game sites: Yahoo games, MSN games, BigfishGame, PlayFirst, etc. The problem is that they always ask for my email address to verify whatever things that they mentioned – Just like everybody else, I did not really read the terms and conditions. I thought you can predict that I ended up of receiving too many spams everyday in my inbox. For this kind of situation, people usually do not hesitate of “trading” a little bit of their privacy for something which is more worthy according to what they think. People realize there could be future costs, but they decide not to focus on those costs. In fact, it might be dangerous of letting your little privacy slipped away. It may end up in people phishing your identity! Who knows what might happen?

While some people reveal their privacy “unconsciously”,there are also people who reveal their identity “on purpose” to seek attention from others. Narcissism, that is. Nowadays, more and more people try to define themselves, or maybe other than themselves – pseudonimity, in such a manner that others might put an extra attention to what they defined. For me, the most popular medium for narcissism is Friendster, as I also show my narcissistic through my account (visit me: www.friendster.com/cheillalala). However, revealing your privacy in a narcissistic manner brings some disadvantages, too. Besides the problem of phishing and identity theft, Assosciated Press (2007) wrote that the narcissists may have problem in terms of breakdown of close relationships with others. Personally, I don't agree with this statement. I am probably one of the most narcissistic people out there, yet I don't experience any relationship problem regarding this matter of being a narcissist.

Conclusion

The matter of privacy ends up with an argument: Nothing to hide VS No place to hide (Sullivan, 2006). On one hand, if we have nothing to hide, why should we afraid of our email being recorded by the gaming company, people know your life story by reading your self-defined identity through friendster or personal blog?

On the other hand, we might also say that there's no place to hide. When security becomes more important, we will see the presence of CCTV even more. Thus, every single thing that we do is caught on camera. When most company requires a little bit of your privacy, name, address, phone number, or email adress, for verification purpose, we have nothing less to hide.

References

Rosen, J. (July 19, 2004). The Naked Crowd: America's culture of self-revelation spells the end of privacy and the promotion of a smothering conformity. Retrieved on March 9, 2007 from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm

Sullivan, B. (2006). Privacy Lost: Does Anybody Care? Retrieved March 9, 2007, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/

The Assosciated Press, (2007, Febuary 27). Study: Vanity on the rise among college students. Retrieved March 9, 2007, from CNN.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/02/27/self.centered.students.ap/index.html