QotW9: Stompin' Ground

“Citizen journalism, also known as participatory journalism, is the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information” [Bowman & Willis, 2003]

If the above is how we should define Citizen Journalism, then I guess STOMP is indeed an example of it. In this website, for example, under the section “Singapore Seen”, they carry a slogan that goes, “You generate the contents, you write the reports, you take the photos, you shoot the videos”. This is indeed what Citizen Journalism is about. The public does the jobs of the journalists. The emphasis on “you”, referring to the public, being the ones providing the news, is a tell-tale characteristic.

“The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others.” [Citizen Journalism, 2007] This seems to be the key in Citizen Journalism: it comes from the general public or laymen who are not trained professionals. Most of the submissions of updates, news and podcasts available on STOMP are indeed submitted by this very category of people.

“What will happen when 10 average citizens aim their phones at the stars and zap the images they take to their friends or to websites? Still images are only the beginning; video cameras will be par of our phones soon enough. The paparazzi have better cameras and are better picture-takers, but the swarms of amateur paparazzi will satisfy most of the public’s insatiable hunger for news about their favourite celebrities. And for the people who live in the public eye, that eye will never blink when they’re outside of their homes.” [Gillmor, 2004]

Under the section “Stompcast” audio tracks of interviews or podcasts mainly concerning celebrities and popular figures can be found. A lot of latest news about celebrities is uploaded here and pretty much all of them are submissions made by the public, just like the above-mentioned scenario. We are now living in a “society of voyeurs and exhibitionists” and that “the mass is now the paparazzi”. [Gillmor, 2004]

Apart from being an example of how Citizen Journalism functions, STOMP seems to offer a little more than that. The website also provides a platform for an online community to be formed. Forums are set up and are categorized accordingly. Students can participate in the “campus chit-chat”, females can check out “the tai tai room”, health practitioners can share tips at “the gym”, NS men and regulars can share about their army experiences in “wake up your idea”, gourmets and food lovers can make recommendations in “foodie groupie”, music lovers can gather at “backstage”, and the list goes on. Hence, users are able to interact with people of similar interests, and in a lot of ways it can also work like a gift economy when ideas and tips are shared and helps are rendered to one another.

As to how STOMP can be improved, personally I think that maybe the contents can be further broadened. The way I see it, STOMP currently focuses on a lot of daily stuffs as well as entertainment related things. Other than that, what we get to see on STOMP is mostly sensational news. Perhaps more serious contents (i.e. grounds that newspapers would cover, such as sports news, politics, etc) can be added in, that way participation by the community may be maximized as well, although I think it would not be that easy as Singapore is pretty much notorious when it comes to censorship. With the reason move taken by the government anonymously looking into people’s blogs, freedom of speech is not very much left either. However, in order for one to participate in Citizen Journalism, it does not mean that we have to post radical or controversial contents. Hence, it would still be good for people to contribute more.


References:

Bowman, S., Willis, C. (2003) We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information. The Media Center at the American Press Institute. Retrieved March 30, 2007 from: http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php

Gillmor, D. (July, 2004). We The Media: Grassroots Journalism by The People, for the People. Retrieved March 30, 2007 from: http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html

Citizen Journalism. (2007). Citizen Journalism. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved March 30, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism