#10. Internet and Journalism

With the advent of Web 2.0, the term “produser” comes constantly into play – Produser: An amalgamation of the words “production” and “user”, a produser is an individual who self-produces as well as uses information on the internet. By becoming a produser, an individual makes a shift to becoming an active produser who has a hand in controlling the distribution of information online. This is in contrast to the previous role of passive consumers taken, where control is predominantly given to the institution. Produsers thus gain more freedom without as much prior restrictions.

yeah okay this was just an excuse for loki/tom hiddleston gifs

This shift is particularly obvious in the area of journalism, where there has been an exponential increase in citizen journalism – public citizens reporting upon and distributing such news information instead of professional/paid-for journalists. With the increasing use of advanced technological devices such as smart phones, ipads, and so on, that come with high-resolution cameras and recording capabilities, citizens are able to immediately capture shots or videos of the situation on the spot if they so happen to be on the scene at the time of occurrence. Furthermore, they can go on to upload what they have captured onto social networking sites where awareness of the situation can be easily spread. In this way, citizen journalists can cover events much quicker than professional journalists who have to be dispatched to the scene. A significant aspect of citizen journalism is that citizens report about situations not only in real time, but without having to go through a filter like professional journalists would through their editors. This means that they are less likely to be affected by the any potential bias a news agency might have.

i aspect this is how professional journalists look like rushing to the scene

On a more trivial note, another result of the rising intersection of the Internet and journalism is the use of online news sources steadily overtaking out the use of more traditional news sources such as printed newspapers. Users can access news online not just through going to the websites, but they can also use applications that can be used on their phone or tablet devices to read through articles – the mobile format allows them to load the articles/images/videos much faster than when they have to access through the regular website. Applications can also be set to provide notifications for new articles or articles regarding a specified area of concern, thus adding another layer of convenience since users can have a cursory understanding of the latest updates without having to actually go into the application. There even are apps that combine news updates from various sources rather than catering to just one agency; users can refer to a variety of news updates rather than having to download multiple applications to read from the different sources.

Finally, the shift to preferring online news sources also mean that (and this is really, really trivial) I no longer have to dirty my hands with newspapers. This is more of a personal issue for me so it may not necessarily apply to you folks out there, but I have such a difficult time with newspapers. I find them so difficult to handle (the pages always fall apart when I read and they are never as tidy as they were before I started by the time I’m done with them), so dull-looking (even the printed photos look so lifeless, ack), and yup I hate how they dirty my hands. You’d think that they’d have figured out a way to make the ink not rub off, or at least come up with a type that doesn’t, considering it’s the 21st century. (Or maybe it’s the cost, but let’s not even get into the issue of the rising cost of newspapers!) While I like the feel of holding a physical copy of a book in my hands, I unfortunately cannot say the same for newspapers. This is why I will zealously hold on to my news applications and happily get my updates from Twitter etc while some mourn the newspapers as a dying breed.

(Unless they come up with newspapers that can move a la Harry Potter aka gifs in real life, y/y??)