-----------------------
In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi succeeded in transmitting wireless signals over more than a mile (Steinbock 2005). This was the birth of radio, and wireless technologies including mobile communications. The first mobile phone service was launched in the 1980s, since then, mobile communication have been dramatically changing our lives (Steinbock 2005). The journalism industry has also been experiencing a dramatic change on the way they gather their news sources by way of the rapid improvement of mobile communication technologies. Any news stories are now able to be delivered to individual audiences without the worry of geographical distance, and no worries about the time neither. News industries are able to gather, edit and broadcast the story by utilising mobile communications and the audiences can read, watch and comment on the news by mobile device. Interactivity of web 2.0 also brought us another phase of journalism. Citizen journalism has started spreading all over the world, and the audience has now started posting the news stories as well as professional journalists. "Anyone can register for free and within seconds you can start posting articles or comments in real time (Typeboard website)."
This change brought by mobile communication technologies has been affecting journalism on both the positive side and the negative side. This essay examines the advantages and the disadvantages of news gathering by mobile technologies considering the impact on journalistic practices, news values and ethics.
New mobile communication technology has been contributing to an expansion of abilities of the contemporary journalism industry. Especially, mobile phones take a large part of the change in journalism. People can report the news over the phone live as it unfolds. This is a huge advantage to report something very quickly, before the camera crew arrive at the incidents. Moreover, most mobile phones now allow users to take audio, video, and photographs. The quality of those mobile phone recordings are now good enough to broadcast or publish, and journalists do not have to miss the moment when something happens without the proper equipment. They can also record an interview with just a tiny device without scaring people with big lighting and camera equipment with many crew members (Wynja 2010) .
New iPhone4 made another revolution to the journalism industry as well. While the mobile phone itself is getting a huge advantage to the journalism industry, iPhone4 leads the industry with many functions and applications useful to the journalists (Wynja 2010). With iPhone4, people can record HD videos, edit videos, and with a five mega pixel front facing camera which you can see what is recording when the person holds the camera takes him/herself, and LED light to allow shooting in the dark.
Mobile journalism has also made the newsroom more cost effective as well. Frank Barnett, the vice president of CNN Newsbeam explains "With a Mac laptop and an Internet connection (DSL, broadband, BGAN, satellite, Wi-Fi, wireless card) we can go live and file reports from almost anywhere in the world. This capability has been especially beneficial internationally, as the equipment is extremely small, lightweight and can run off car, truck or camera batteries as well as AC. Also, since some IP transmissions can be done via the Internet there is little or no incremental cost. (Digital SNG: Technology Gains Make Journalists Even More Mobile 2008) "
Technology devices like ‘Eye-Fi’ contribute to the portability of journalists as well. Eye-Fi is a built-in wireless SD memory card for digital cameras. It can use up to 32 networks where a Wi-Fi network is available, and photos or videos recorded by the digital camera can transfer images to the specified network directory without any other communication devices (Eye-Fi 2010). With this handy memory card, photographers can quickly send their photos via Internet without using even a laptop computer. This technology is getting popular among photo journalists, as during a competitive incident such as big sporting event like the Olympics, speed of news room update is crucial in competed with all other journalists from all over the world (Faulkner 2010). Therefore, this new technology gives journalists a huge advantage.
These mobile communication technologies have made it easy for both professionals and citizen journalists to publish or broadcast their news stories, and has expand the way in how they deliver their content. This has invited many people to participate in the journalism industry, and therefore, ethics and news value issues have become controversial. Many websites which allow anyone to contribute in writing news stories are very popular including CNN iReport and Wikinews. Oh Yoen Ho launched OhmyNews in 2000 in South Korea, with their slogan “Every citizen is a reporter”, and took a large part of challenging the existing newspapers and defeating the conservative government on their election (Bentley 2005). In Australia, there are ABC Open, The Razor in Melbourne and Typeboard using GeoMaps. These stories are submitted by unpaid volunteer citizen reporters. While many of both the audience and the journalists welcome this new movement, some traditionalists argue the issues of citizen journalism, such as The New York Times (Brown 2007).
The tech columnist of Wall Street Journal, Walter Mossberg criticised as “It’s like citizen surgery … very similar” (Mossberg 2007).
The first negative issue of the untrained citizen journalists are the objectivity, as the insider stories are often biased (McKnight 1997). The credibility without fact-checkers is another problem (Bentley 2005). When public interest is focused more, the entertainment value has often become more significant as well. For example, political reporting becomes like horse racing aspects rather than arguing their policies in depth. (McKnight 1997).
However, professional journalists are also often criticised on their ethics. The Australian TV show ‘Media Watch’ recently pointed out that Australian Channel 9 reporter, Laura Turner cheated to make her look like she was deep in depth of flooding water by standing in a culvert (Media Watch 2010). The same show also pointed out that Channel 9 news keeps using the word ‘underbelly’ for describing ‘underworld’ to promote their own TV drama, and they even used a photo of Matthew Newton, an actor of Underbelly, to describe the real person who committed the crime called ‘Mr Asia’ (Media Watch 2010). In America, the poll found more than half of the people are not confident with news media in 2004, after CBS News reported wrongly about President George W. Bush’s Vietnam era (Gillespie 2004). However, the only way that professional journalism can compete with citizen journalism is by maintaining their credibility and authority (Brown 2007).
Mobile communication technologies have changed news gathering and made it easier and faster. News industries are now able to gather, edit and broadcast the story by utilising mobile communications and the audiences can read, watch and comment on the news by mobile device. This invited citizen journalists to participate in delivering news stories, and it caused the ethics and the news values of journalism to become more controversial. The conservative, professional journalists criticised the citizen journalism while people started losing credibility in the existing media. Citizen journalism will become more mature in very near future, and it will become more and more popular, being supported by audiences who are already natural active participants in this digital world. Although citizen journalism would never wipe out the professional journalists, these journalists should aware now that they are standing on the edge. They are now required to report accurate, fair and reliable news stories more than ever to maintain their positions as a main stream of journalists.
References
Steinbock, Dan 2005, Mobile service Revolution – CNN Effect Goes Mobile, Scienece & Technology, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 6, Issue: 2, pp. 133-140, http://hy8fy9jj4b.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Mobile+Service+Revolution%3A+CNN+Effect+Goes+Mobile&rft.jtitle=Georgetown+Journal+of+International+Affairs&rft.au=Dan+Steinbock&rft.date=2005-09-30&rft.issn=1526-0054&rft.volume=6&rft.issue=2&rft.spage=133&rft.externalDBID=GJIA&rft.externalDocID=982974071)
About, Typeboard, viewed 22/10/10, http://www.typeboard.com/about/
Wynja, Nick 2010, What iPhone 4 means for Mobile Journalists, viewed 19/10/10, http://nickwynja.ca/post/674118427/what-iphone-4-means-for-mobile-journalists
Digital SNG: Technology Gains Make Journalists Even More Mobile 2005, Via Satellite, Potomac: Oct 2008, Vol. 13, Iss. 10, http://libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/pqdweb?did=1573810921&Fmt=7&clientId=13713&RQT=309&VName=PQD
Basics, Eye-Fi, viewed 20/10/10, http://www.eye.fi/how-it-works/basics)
Faulkner, Heather 2010, News photography1 lectures, Griffith University, Gold Coast.
Bentley, Clyde H 2005Reconnecting with the audience: what they say--not what we think--is what counts. Neman Reports 59.4 (Winter 2005), pp.26-29, http://find.galegroup.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&docId=A141213641&source=gale&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=griffith&version=1.0
Brown, Fred 2007, When the audience does the reporting: with media outlets clamouring for more ‘citizen journalism,’ who will be left as the voice of authority?, The Quill 95.2, pp.35, http://find.galegroup.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&docId=A164105294&source=gale&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=griffith&version=1.0
Mossberg, Walter 2007, Wall Street Journal, American Journalism Review 29.3: 14, http://find.galegroup.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&docId=A165807319&source=gale&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=griffith&version=1.0
McKnight, David 1997, Public Journalism- A response to the crisis in public life, Australian Press Council News, February 1997 vol 9, No1, viewed 20/10/10, http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/apcnews/feb97/public.html
In-depth flood coverage 2010, Media Watch, episode 32, viewed 20/10/10, http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3010493.htm
Mr Actor not Mr Asia 2010, Media Watch, episode 11, viewed 20/10/10, http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2876793.htm
Gillespie, Mark 2004, Media credibility reaches lowest point in three decades: CBS news incident latest in long history of media mistakes, The Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, http://find.galegroup.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&docId=A125782243&source=gale&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=griffith&version=1.0
Bibliography
Scott, Ben 2005, A Contemporary History of Digital Journalism, Television & News Media Vol.6 No1, http://tvn.sagepub.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/content/6/1/89.full.pdf+html
Mosco, Vincent 2009, The future of journalism, Journalism 10, pp 350, http://jou.sagepub.com/content/10/3/350
Bahnisch, Mark 2008, Theme: The public right to know – 1.Political blogging in the 2007 Australian federal election: Beyond citizen journalism and towards civic creativity, Pacific Journalism review 14(2), pp.8
New Communication Technologies lectures and tutorials 2010, Griffith University, Gold Coast.
No comments:
Post a Comment