Completed Final Project: Guide to Citizen Journalism

I've finished my "Beginner's Guide to Citizen Journalism"! You can see the (more nicely laid out) PDF version here, and you can download the EPUB here.

If anything, I've just learned that I have a lot to learn about the EPUB format. After exporting my InDesign file to EPUB, I tried my hand at cracking open the file and editing the CSS. Basically, you have to save it as a .zip file and then unzip it to access the CSS. I fixed it up a bit, but I'd still like to learn more about formatting EPUBs so they look a little nicer.

Coming next is my submission to the outside world.

A Working Outline: Guide to Citizen Journalism

I was hesitant to put up an outline yesterday because I felt like it needed to have more of a first-complete-draft feel, but my fellow classmates have inspired me to put up my progress.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mXvQPuK3N8XMAFUQqdbwHXvI74QWuVI0PBpd2hnLyxI/edit

Here, I've shared a Google doc where I'm starting to flesh out my outline. You can see it grow there (and there is already more there than there is here), but the basic categories are:

1. A Brief Introduction to Citizen Journalism. This will have a little history as well as introduce some of the sticking points of the genre.
2. Getting Started. This will include the qualities of good citizen journalism and the types of media best suited to the genre. 
3. Media Ethics and Concerns. This somewhat self-explanatory section will talk about the various ethical concerns with journalism outside the strictly professional sphere.
4. Outlets for Your Content. This will give options for places specifically dedicated to publishing citizen journalism, but it will also talk about working in tandem with media professionals.
5. Guide to Further Reading. This will include more resources for my readers.
6. Bibliography. For my sources.

Things I'm clearly leaving out: Actually creating the content. This guide will steer away from trying to teach people how to write articles or take videos, or even tell them the best place to find stories. The focus is more on what content is useful and how to do something with it.

Things I'm definitely including: Points 2 through 4 above will most definitely include examples from actual citizen journalism and current events. I'll try not to date myself too quickly.

A Working Post: A Best Practices Guide to Citizen Journalism

Main Purpose: to create a guide for citizen journalists who are just entering the field and need information on the ethics of their content, the best outlets for their content, and how to work with media professionals.

Preliminary Exploration: I began by reading Dan Gillmor's We the Media, which gave me a foundation in the beginnings and importance of citizen journalism. Much of my current and relevant information has come through the articles that Google Alerts sends me for my searches (citizen journalism, grassroots journalism, participatory journalism). I've also poked around on websites completely devoted to publishing citizen journalism.

Relevance to Digital Culture and My Audience: With new technology making it easier every day for ordinary citizens to take high-quality photos and videos, as well as share text-based articles online, citizen journalism has come to the forefront of many people's minds, including but not limited to media professionals. People often get their news socially, perhaps through an article shared over Facebook, rather than going to the same professional media source regularly. My audience--the citizen--has had very little formal education in journalism, yet is expected to create content comparable in quality and truthfulness to someone who has been professionally trained in the field. This guide will give information and resources for further learning.

Format: This project will take the form of an ebook.

Outlets for My Final Project

I'm pretty set on doing an ebook for my final project (a guide to citizen journalism) that would of course be freely available for anyone to download (think like Writing about Literature in the Digital Age). But it doesn't hurt to consider what other options I could have (or what might help out my classmates).

As Aleesha pointed out earlier, this call for papers from Social Media and the Transformation of Public Space could encompass a lot of people's topics in our class, including mine. They have a whole section about news and journalism in the digital world.

I also found another call for proposals relevant to Shelly's topic in the Journal of Youth Development. "Suggested topics include digital literacy, the effects of youth engagement with new technologies, influences of intensity and duration of media exposure on youth development, and the role of advertising on youth development." Sounds pretty perfect, right? I thought one of the options was interesting--you can submit an e-poster to present from a distance. The deadline is December 31, so there's still time.

Citizen Journalism Best Practices

What are best practices for citizen journalism? If one were to create a guide for citizen journalists, as Kayla has proposed, what would be the best approach? Here are my suggestions.

• Who is the Audience?
  The audience for a guide is different than the general audience that consumes user-generated journalism. Is this a guide for communications and journalism teachers? Is this something that might accompany a citizen journalism platform (perhaps even as part of some training)? See, for example, the various categories in the help section for the AllVoices site.
• Where is citizen journalism happening?
  On private blogs, via news sites? dedicated citizen journalism platforms? Advice may differ based on these factors.
• What media and what technology are used for citizen journalism? Are citizen journalists submitting photos, text messages, videos, blog posts, links, curated content, etc.? Is this submitted via desktop computer or via mobile phone? All of these make a difference in terms of best practices.
• What about existing guides or guidelines?
  Research what's already been done so you can build upon others' work or fill in holes in what they've done. See, for example, the ethical and blogging guidelines from the University of Oregon, or
• When were guidelines published?
  A lot happens quickly in this rapidly developing space, and what was good advice in 2006 may be irrelevant or plain wrong in 2013. Like a good journalist, sleuth out what is most current.
• Who are the experts?
  People like Jay Rosen and Dan Gilmor have written key works about citizen journalism (like Rosen's "The People Formerly Known as the Audience" and Gilmor's We the Media), but you might also check to see their blogs or Twitter accounts for their most recent thinking.
• Where and how is citizen journalism being taught?
  While researching this topic an ad popped up for a New Media Journalism degree from Full Sail University. I suggest doing a search for syllabi at .edu sites that include terms like "new media journalism" and "citizen journalism" (like this search). Check a very good (though early) syllabus from Howard Rheingold at Stanford. Great readings from a real digital authority.
• What is the business angle?
  Journalism is an industry and a profession, not just a hobby for amateurs. The smart newspaper and media companies are tapping into crowdsourcing by creating platforms and business models that capitalize the user-generated news reporting that's going on. I recommend highly reviewing John Paton's "How the Crowd Saved Our Company" 
• Who is in the trenches?
  Get some social proof from people that are doing citizen journalism. Contact bloggers or those who manage platforms for crowdsourcing content. Check out Deseret Connect, a very innovative networking and crowdsourcing platform. Reach out to some of the contributors or editors that are part of it and interview them about the issues. Someone else in the trenches to consult would be Melissa Wall (bio) who is very current (doing Syrian citizen journalism November 2013) and who authored a recent (2012) book on Citizen Journalism 
• Where are guidelines for citizen journalism being discussed or debated?
  Try this Google search for starters: (forum OR debate) guidelines "citizen journalism" 2013
• What format is best for such guidelines?
  Is an FAQ, an eBook, a wiki, a print book, a video -- or some combination of these most fitting? It depends upon your audience, of course, and perhaps on which variety of citizen journalism you are talking about.

Ishmael: Teaching the Dos and Don'ts of Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism may sometimes seem like a field with no rules--anyone can upload videos or stories, and no overarching organization controls what goes out to the public. There are, however, some best practices being discussed in the media and among citizens. As I thought about Moby Dick's Ishmael as a citizen reporter (which isn't too hard to connect), I wondered where he was a good or bad example of media ethics and best practices.

I combined my curation tool of choice (Google alerts) with this topic and started to see some patterns and connections emerging between current stories and Ishmael's past, fictional one.

1. Provide information where other journalists can't. Recent bombings and attacks on school children in Syria were reported on by citizen journalists. Professionals couldn't have known where to be to get this information in real time, but local citizens stepped in to provide photos of the attackers and details on the story. Likewise, Ishmael provides a unique point of view on the adventures of the Pequod. He is in an isolated location (on a boat in the middle of the ocean) where others would be hard pressed to find them to report on the fate of the ship.
2. Weigh the risks before going into a dangerous situation. Professional journalist Lindsey Hilsum gave an address this month about why reporters go to war when there are so many risks. It's a balance between "no story is worth dying for" and "this story is important and worth it." Does Ishmael really assess the risks of reporting on the Pequod? In some ways, we can argue that he didn't really know the risks (or the true mission) when he first boarded the whaling ship, but he also knew that some things were off, and he was warned by others to not continue. 
3. Use the technological resources available to you. iTunes approved a new citizen journalism app this week that allows users to upload short videos, photos, and text updates. This app could arguably be used for lesser forms of journalism and take the form of a celebrity gossip or paparazzi venue, but it also has the potential to spread useful information. Ishmael uses technology in the sense of the first definition in the OED, "treatise on art," but it is sometimes difficult to see where the connection is to a more modern idea of technology. Does Ishmael really take advantage of resources available to him to publish this story?
4. Ask: Why is this information being published? The murder of an 18-year-old boy in a South African school in late October was recorded on video by a fellow classmate. The video spread quickly and made many question the ethics of circulating such a video. Was it purely for spectacle, for commercial purposes that drew more people to news outlets' sites? Does all truth need to be circulated? We can then think about the purpose behind Ishmael's reporting. He tells a gruesome tale at times, but the information is not purely for spectacle--there is context for the story. He hasn't simply uploaded a video titled "Huge Whale Sinks Entire Ship and Crew." He tells the story of the people involved. 

 This is all hopefully leading me to what I hope will become my final project, as I've discussed earlier, which would be a guidebook of dos and don'ts to citizen journalism.

Video Book Review of We the Media

There's a lot going on in this book, so I decided the best way to review it would be by giving a one-sentence summary of each chapter. They may not have been the main ideas the author wanted me to get from the book, but here is my interpretation:

Things I wish I could do better technologically:

1. Get a better thumbnail so my face isn't frozen like that in the beginning.
2. Edit video down so I could cut off the extra couple dozen seconds. 

It's amazing how quickly the time goes. I mean, I thought with one sentence per chapter I'd be doing just fine. Too many chapters I guess. Here are my twelve sentences, more or less as I said them:

Budding Thoughts on Citizen Journalism (and more on Google alert curation)

A video review of Dan Gillmor's book is coming soon, but in the meantime I thought I'd give a quick update on my thoughts with citizen journalism as a broader topic. As I've continued to curate content using Google alerts, I've come across some useful articles and some not-so-useful articles, which I fully expected. Luckily, it's easy to filter out the bad ones quickly.

Funding and Audience Participation

Image by Howard Lake

Through two articles in particular (one article on a Chinese man changing up his journalism career and crowd-funding his entire income, and another article on a new news outlet in Philadelphia to be run by "an army of citizens" who are interested in having a say on how the city runs), I've had some new thoughts.

For one thing, economics play an interesting role in this new form of journalism. The two articles I've mentioned take it as a positive that only stories that the public finds interesting will be funded. In many ways this makes participatory journalism not only about more citizens participating in the creation of news, but also its funding.

My Own Contribution

I'd like to also take my participation in news up a notch from a simple consumer to a true contributor by using both my personal passions and skills and the information I've gleaned in my research. My thinking so far has led me to the idea of compiling and laying out a guide to good citizen journalism using the information I gather. As I've mentioned before, I love design and editing, and I'm sure this will be a good mix of new information and my own expertise. The book (or short guide) will, of course, be available for free online.

Where Next?

Aside from the obvious of gathering more information to compile into the guide I've talked about, I also need to figure out the best way to get my creation into circulation. Something I need to focus more on is social connections and proof in networks that would care about such a publication. While Google alerts has been a great tool for research, I need to find another tool that is more suited for social connection. More to come there. I also should decide what I want the final format of my guide to be (a simple PDF? Many file types that can be read on e-readers?). 

Review: Dan Gillmor's We the Media

I've just finished Dan Gillmor's We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People as part of my research into citizen journalism. You can read my Goodreads review if you'd like as well.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. The stories made it quite easy to get through, though as I noted in my Goodreads review, the examples also dated the book quite quickly. Something I'd like to add that I didn't get to talk about before was Gillmor's brief discussion of copyright at the end of his book. Part of the reason I was left with a good feeling at the end of the book was the way he presented his views on copyright, which corresponded very nicely with mine.

Gillmor supports copyright. He thinks that creators should have incentive to create. However, current copyright law is abusive, and stems creativity (especially since there is no more incentive for creators to be creative if their copyright extends 70 years beyond their death than if the copyright period was much, much shorter). Gillmor licensed this book under a Creative Commons license, which is like saying, as he claims "Some rights reserved." He still believes he and the publisher will benefit from the production of the book, but he has also left it open to inspire more people creatively.

I'm glad I read this book, but I know I'm not done yet. It's time to expand to new citizen journalism horizons.

Citizen Journalism Curation through Google Alerts

Google alerts seemed to me like the perfect curation tool to learn about citizen journalism, since new material is always being created. My concern was that I would be drowning in the number of results every day unless I had a long string of search terms and Boolean operators. Luckily, things have been working out so far, and I think I'm going to add more alerts. Here's how I started out:

Pretty simple. I wanted the best results for citizen journalism once a day so I could keep up but not be overwhelmed. So far, this has meant that I've received an alert every day with one new article to read. That has been pretty manageable, and from what I've been reading, I think I want to add "participatory journalism" to my searches as well.

Selected Results

This article from an African newspaper deals with the rise of citizen journalism and, quite unusually for the genre, provides quotes from a lot of scholarly references. Niyomukiza says that while citizen journalism has its perks (immediacy, new opportunities for minorities, citizens can go places the mainstream media can't), it lacks some of the things that make the mainstream media worthwhile (professionalism, meetings ethical standards, reliability, knowing sources). The parts about ethical standards were particularly interesting to me. Citizen journalists, he says, "don't care about privacy, sensitivity, balance, etc" and don't live up to the standards that would be expected of professional journalists. He suggests that citizen journalists learn basic professional journalistic standards.

One article from an emergency management journal considers how citizen journalism has contributed to the dissemination of information during crises. What is interesting about this article is the way it depicts professionals and citizens working together, instead of being in conflict with each other. A citizen might publish a survivor's diary, eyewitness statements, pictures, or video, and then a professional journalist would come across it and link these first-person accounts together to create a larger story. The authors also note that decision-makers in crises should integrate information from their citizens into their decisions in the future.