Citizen Journalism

People used to rely on books or journals in libraries as primary sources in order to get information, but the aspects of searching information have changed dramatically since the advent of the Internet. In an Internet connected office or home, it only takes a few seconds to find information and it is also very cheap. Moreover, Internet has also allowed people more chances to speak up their voices and opinions to the world by posting articles on blogs; being a journalist becomes very easy. Yoani Sanchez takes advantages of this. She creates public opinions and tries to change Cuban society. Her blog, Generation Y, can be a good source to get information and to know the Cuba, but it doesn’t mean that people can rely on her positing completely. Blogs’ articles are not always reliable and objective as journals.

Publishing magazines or broadcasting news is very complicated and expensive process. Only people who have huge capital to support the process financially can do so; it is an impossible goal to an individual to make its own company. As Joseph Liebling said, ‘Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one’, ideas or thoughts that couldn’t be supported by mainstream media didn’t have any chance to be available in public. However, people find other methods to show their opinions in public. The advent of the Internet, especially blogging, has made it possible; people simply type their opinions on their blogs. Since blogs are available through the Internet, everybody who has an internet connection can read articles or watch videos on blogs. Individual now has a power to create online magazines or broadcasting news. Like Sanchez, already many potential citizen journalists use blogs to provide information deeper and more often than mainstream media. Sanchez uses her blog as a megaphone to speak out her opinions associated with Cuba to the world. According to the interview with Ted Henken, sociology professor, Sanchez emphasizes, “citizen journalism is especially important given the fact that the government exercises an information monopoly”. In a place where people are only exposed to the government information or propaganda, the effective way to take an action against the government is providing real stories to Cubans and last of the world. Sanchez knows that it is hard to change if Cubans don’t realize why they face so many problems. Her method to change Cuban society is simple but very effective. She describes what she feels or sees on the streets and provides reasonable reasons why they have such problems.

When people ask questions or request information on a search engine like google.com or yahoo.com, many times the search engine shows blogs’ articles as results. If all bloggers considered and disciplined themselves as professional journalists, blogs would be a reliable source as a substitute for journalism. The problem is that people sometimes use articles in blogs without verifying or criticizing opinions. Rettberg says, “journalism is expected to be objective and reliable, and the editor and the brand of the newspaper or broadcast medium itself stand as guarantees of this”. Journalism is objective and it doesn’t provide subjective opinions to their readers. In comparison, blogs are generally both subjective and objective, which means that articles in blogs contain facts and opinions. Sanchez has posted many articles regarding to reality of living in Cuba. It is hard to say that her blog is closed to journalism because her descriptions are subjective and sometimes emotional. One of her articles describes a raining day in Cuba. She said that Cubans cannot walk on streets in raining days because Cubans don’t have umbrellas. She then criticizes government policy and she asserts that Cubans do not like their current situations. However, her posting doesn’t show a neutral point of view. There are obviously other opinions towards to Cuban government policy, but she only shows negative side of situation or her own opinion.

Reliability is another factor to define journalism. Since publicly available articles on the Internet can be seen anywhere in the world, maintaining credibility and providing origins of sources are critical because passive readers usually accept information. When mainstream media companies publish newspapers or broadcasting news, there are people who responsible the contents of their news or articles. Since editors and producers supervise before people read newspaper or watch TV programs, readers are only exposed to reliable and correct information. However, we cannot fully rely on information on blogs even though blogs only contains linked articles. For example, Filterblogs usually provide links, but it doesn’t guarantee that original information is reliable. More creditability issues occur when we look at personal blogs. Unlike filterblogs, articles in personal blogs are written by individual blogger, which means that nobody checks the quality or reliability of articles before publishing. Sanchez’s blogs is a personal and topic-driven blog. Most of the articles are written by her, which means that her writings are only approved by herself. If articles are published without verification by someone else, I don’t think I can rely on them.

Blogs are one of the most powerful tools for an individual to spread its own opinion to the world. It is very cheap and simple way to do it. The number of people who use blogs now already shows how popular and powerful it is. Blogs has changed the aspect of publishing. For a long time, people perceived journalists as professional writers who had high education and professional experience. Bloggers still think that they are not journalist, but many characteristics of blogger similar to journalist. However, we cannot fully rely on blogs as a substitute for journalism because articles in blogs are not verified by others. Of course, comments or reply from others can corrent them, but articles are still subject to be verified. The blog, Generation Y, provides a good point of view about Cuba, but I don’t think that people should perceive the blog as a good source of news and information and perceive it as true. If the blog only provided subjective point of view about Cuba, it would prevent readers to perceive and think neutrally about Cuba.