Mobile Journalism: The Audience Becomes the Producer

Ever since the news was delivered, it has been the same general routine: someone picks up a newspaper, turns on a radio or TV, and has the news delivered to them. Since the invention of mobile phones, and increase in popularity of social media, the tide has shifted.

The person holding the phone, is telling the news. The sudden event, is now being shown to the masses, shortly after it happens. No one is having to wait for major news outlets like: CNN, Fox News, or the BBC, to show the event.

Someone can use their phone, capture the event, upload it to Twitter and watch their clip take off, as it traverses the world.

It is fascinating, if you think about it, how one small piece of equipment, can set off a tidal wave of massive changes in the world of Journalism. It has become so common, that you don't notice it, unless you're looking for mobile journalism.

Take a step back and think for one moment, and ask your this: How many times have you gone to CNN, and story breaks out, only for them to show a brief clip from someone on Twitter?

The image will be shaky and it might have confusing audio. But, you get a glimpse of what happened in those few seconds. That clip, may give you a better sense of what happened, than listening to two or three anchors talking.

This is an example of user generated content (UGC). UGC is raw unedited coverage, that's preferred by news agencies because of its' easiness of packaging.

But, can it be said that all these clips are news? That they are in fact Journalism? William Woo, a former professor of Journalism at Stanford University, once compared journalism to the duck. "If it looks like journalism, acts like journalism, produced the work of journalism, then it is in fact journalism, and the people doing it are journalists."

That could be said before, but that doesn't mean the item in your pocket, makes you a journalist does it? No. A journalist should be defined as someone who produces information that is relevant to the audience it is intended for.

The problem with the average citizen becoming the producer of their own story, is it causes the world of journalism, and the definitions involved, to always be ready to change and evolve with the changing of times.

It truly is hard to believe that something, so small, has made this much change our own world, let alone just journalism. There's truly no telling where it will lead us as we move into the future.

The producer used to be the one, who delivered the news to the audience, and now the audience is the producer. Who knows what will happen next?