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“Citizen journalism”KCB201

Dr Jason WilsonResearch Associate

j5.wilson@qut.edu.au

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Youdecide2007

‒ Citizen journalism project run during Australian Federal Election

‒ Part of ARC Linkage Project - QUT CIF, SBS, OLO, Cisco Systems and Brisbane Institute.

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Youdecide2007

‒ Aggregated, hyperlocal, crowdsourced model of citizen journalism.

‒ Small team coordinated citizens reporting on the contest in their electorates.

‒ Vital statistics - 2000+ registered users, 230+ submitted articles from 50+ electorates.

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Youdecide2007

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Youdecide2007

‒ Rationale: finding out about the audience base for cit j; relationships between online independent media and MSM

‒ Importantly - what does the work of facilitating citizen journalism entail? How does it differ from traditional journalism?

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Queensland Decides

‒ Queensland local government elections

‒ A project that aimed to learn the lessons from youdecide2007

‒ Similar “aggregated-hyperlocal” structure, but simplified submission

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Preditor”

‒ From Miller: “new media employees who perform both production and editorial roles. [This is] an emblem of the shift toward media industries as content producing and organizing, rather than the production of new and original cultural works.”

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4 kinds of preditor labour in citizen journalism

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Content work

‒ Editing user contributions to meet legal/regulatory and quality requirements.

‒ Making news content to guarantee content flows, provide models of practice, and to draw users.

‒ [chart]

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Networking

‒ Making links with existing news channels, organisations and colleagues.

‒ Pushing out and pulling in content in a networked news environment.

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Community work

‒ Providing users with training, site-specific information and mediation.

‒ Providing both structural and personal solutions for users’ needs

‒ Cultivating “super-contributors”.

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Tech work

‒ On-site tech work (CMS, web design)

‒ Off-site tech work (Content, networking and community work using other apps)

‒ Meta-tech wor

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Implications

‒ Some elements of trad journalistic work, some new elements.

‒ Implications for organisations moving to harness UGC, independent initiatives, but also journalism education.

‒ Implies less competitive, more collegial and community-oriented practices.

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Case study from youdecide2007 - “Crategate”

‒ Interview with Peter Lindsay (Liberal Party MP)

‒ Pushing through Labor Party contacts, resulted in question in parliament

‒ Uptake from mainstream media

‒ “Meta-story”

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Crategate lessons

‒ Citizen journalism initiatives need MSM exposure, so collaborative relationships with MSM outlets are beneficial.

‒ MSM increasingly benefit from the closeness of citjs to their subjects, and will follow their lead when stories overlap with their news values.

‒ The production of news content is now a distributed activity, and news-generating capacity is now embedded in a range of spaces.