Ann Laenen

It was maybe a rather peculiar presentation for the Digital Marketing First event, since it hadn’t anything to do with hard marketing facts … although there was a link. The role of social media in the way we pick up news is very present today, and will become even more important in the future.

I did not want to be  it the next powerpoint presentation, so I used a couple of slides with quotes and ended with two short videoreports. For this post I added som extra slides.

The presentation linked in on the blogboat discussion that took place last year in Ghent and moved over to one possible new way of newsmaking. What we call Citizen Journalism or Citizen Media is not new, but it is more present now due to technological evolutions.

Take for instance the images about the London bombings.  The first ones where taken by mobiles phones from the scene. BBC integrated this user generated content in his website.

These images, comments, videos travel the world fast and on a wider scale than ever before. News and discussions are above all going on outside newschannels today. Again more than one exemple possible, but I used the influence of Facebook and Flickr on the informationstream about  Iran elections. Some twitter clients still have a green coloured image. The video at necn.com gives a good overview about the influence of social media on the news.

It is a trend that cannot be stopped. News made by non-professional journalists is here to stay. This was also the consensus at the blogboat meeting. Thus question is how to embrace it within mainstream media? Collaborative models, models concentrated around certain topics with a professional journalist as coach, … were presented.

From the mainstream journalists, however, came the message that “user generated content” is neither free nor easy to deal with, particularly as volume increases, which puts a particular strain on editorial and technical resources. That’s not to say that the mainstream media people in attendance see citizen journalism as a threat, either to their ability to maintain or seek out new audiences, and it was exciting to see both sides discuss the very real possibility of mutually beneficial collaboration in future. (quote from Robin Hamman’s text for the blogboat 1.0. publication) So we have to find ways forward.

Our goal now should be to embrace citizen journalism and to help improve it.  A more diverse ecosystem can be better for all of us, but we need to make sure it is a healty one. (quote from Dan Gillmor’s text for the blogboat 1.0 publication)

Which did lead in the presentation to the StampMedia - model. It is a possible model if you keep Jay Rosen’s definition of CItizen Jornalism in mind of how this kind of journalism and mainstream can reinforce on another in a specific part of newsmaking. StampMedia is the first officially recognized press agency for young people. The agency works inclusive and offers the opportunity for young people to raise their voice in the Media. It is them them decided upon the name of the agency, it is them that decide what news will be covered. They are professionally supported (in that they work with professional material and that they are coached by professionals) and they have plenty of opportunities to improve their skills and to work on a portfolio. The agency exists about 2 years, and works today with a core group of 35 voluntary young reporters (aged 16-26) and more that 200 adhoc reporters. And the news they generate is part of the Belga newsfeed. Thus finds its way towards mainstream media. The agency is a joint initative of the City of Antwerp and C.H.I.P.S.vzw, supported by the City and will start with second department in Genk, which is supported by the Flemish Community, the City of Genk and the Province of Limburg.(the Blogboat 1.0. - publication will be available by the end of 2009)