Yesterday my 14-years old sister came into my bedroom jumping with a great smile on her face: “Look” she said “My blog has 200 visits…200!” I got surprised. She just had made it one week ago and it was one of this teenage spaces talking about hot guys, make up or clothes. It was not the professional stuff I used to think about blogs. You know, lots of journalists, politicians and important people enjoy a blog and they are supposed to be very followed…But my sister?!
I only needed a few minutes surfing in the net to realize how mistaken I was. There are Blogs about almost everything! Music, technology, parodies, science, stories… The spread of what we can call “informal information” was heavier than the formal one. The number of followers does not depend on how serious or important you are, but whether your posts are attractive to the audience or not.
The popularity of Blogs shows that everybody has a story to tell and they find in the Internet the best tool to get their target. User generated content is more than a trend, is the evidence of a society that wants to be heard and does not hesitate in publishing what it thinks. That is the reason why posts on blogs tend to be around a personal opinion. That differs from the (supposed) objectivity of professional journalism. It is claimed that nowadays everybody can turn into a newsmaker and that is true, they can be witness of an event and create news but do they know how to deal with it? More than a danger to this job, new ways of interaction are a help because thanks to them is faster to get what the hell is happening. The point is in the capacity of adaption to this communicative revolution that is affirmed to have dismissed the expression gatekeeper. I do not think that it is (already) as unemployed as is tended to say because in some points, they still decide what to publish and what not to. Do we know about Wikileaks before it appeared in the main newspapers? …I don’t think so.
Civil participation can be defined in one word: “feedback”. It does not make any sense to shout if nobody is listening. Furthermore, this someone must write you a comment to encourage you to keep on shouting. We repeat the same multiplied by millions of users and voilá! There is this digital and global community where the information runs in an unsuspected speed. We could call this the “user’s rebellion”, a fact that has showed its power in the different revolts that are taking place in the Muslim countries or the activist group Anonymous, which organizes itself through social networks. Participatory journalism is changing the world as we know it, we all know this tale. By the way, I prefer to call it “participatory sourcing”. More than journalists, civil society has turn into the professional’s best source. 
Yes, "participatory sourcing" sounds great!, above all for us future journalists.
ResponderEliminarYou wrote a great article, congrats!
I agree. Not all people can be a journalist. A journalist knows a little bit of everything, while the majority of the bloggers are specialized in certain areas. They make opinions but I think that they rarely create their own content. Even so, they are a good source for journalists.
ResponderEliminarExactly what I think! Not everybody can be a journalist, not only because of the fact that a journalist has to be intelligent and know about everything, but because of their skills. One thing is to know how to write, and another and completely different one is to know how to write with respect, ethic, moral, and the most important thing, with professionality.
ResponderEliminarGood article! I've enjoyed.
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ResponderEliminarI told you once and I'll repeat again. You have a great future just waiting.
ResponderEliminarCongrats for the article, i love it!
It's truth. All we have a big ego and we want that everybody knows what we think about some subject. But the authentic journalism will never end. NEVER :)
ResponderEliminar