Week 6 : Opinion on Citizen Journalism Phenomenon
I believe that citizen journalism is just “another sign of the times.” As our societies become more technologically advanced and more complicated at the same time, people are no longer happy to sit idly by as the world passes them. People want to be “part of the action” and I believe citizen journalism is a clear indication of this.
Even if a person does not have a blog or their own websites, they can still voice their opinions vis-à-vis daily occurrences in their community or country by turning to the many on-line versions of daily newspapers to post their input. Many of the news sites now offer users the opportunity to post messages after most articles, especially controversial ones.
In Thailand, the Nation’s website, http://www.nationmultimedia.com/, is very popular with citizen journalists because up to a hundred people post their messages agreeing or disagreeing with the paper’s journalists, the government and even each other on a daily basis. I think this is a clear example of the future of news and the nature of today’s citizens. It seems that everyone has something to say now.
On major Thai language websites, such as sanook.com, people of all ages also post their views on political issues and their support or protest of particular laws or plans for new regulations.
I believe that we will see more and more blogs and such sites as the Korean site, OhMyNews, because people want to know the truth and they want to be able to access as many sources as possible. Our citizens are more educated, and with this comes a stronger desire and need to have their say. If a newspaper’s website does not have space for people to post their comments, then they will simply go elsewhere where they have a space to express themselves. They might even sign-up for a blog of their own!
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