Reference books

“Media Law Reporter: Decisions.” Bureau of National Affairs Inc. 2003 – 2008.

Media Law Reporter is a sturdy blue binder in the reference section that contains the legal text for various media-related laws and congressional acts. The binder is made in such a way that pages can always be added. The sections are the index digest, tables of cases, and decisions. The decisions section is the largest and begins with citing laws and opinions regarding accessing divorce records and salary information. Journalists must know the law in order to abide by it, but also to know what it can do for them. Much of the rest of the decisions are defamation and copyright cases, which can be particularly useful.

Schwabach, Aaron. “Intellectual Property: A Reference Handbook.” ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Calif.: 2007.

Intellectual property laws are something that every journalist should at least be familiar. In the digital age, information is becoming easier to access and journalists should know what they can and cannot use. There’s a chapter dedicated to international law, which includes a small section on the Internet. One topic that is particularly useful to citizen journalists and bloggers is the question, “Is the look and feel of a Web site copyrightable?” Unfortunately, the judicial system doesn’t accept pleas of ignorance of the law, so everyone publishing content should know their boundaries. Additionally, if a person is publishing content they should also know what protections the law has for them.

Experts

Stewart, Robert. Associate Director for Undergraduate Studies. E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. (740) 593-2601

Dr. Stewart is the co-author of CNN: Making News in a Global Market, co-editor of the Web Journal of Mass Communication Research, and has a particular interest in the new media and media reform. He is knowledgeable in the field of online journalism and easy to contact via e-mail or phone.


DeShano, Cathy. Project Coordinator. Madison Commons Project. School of Journalism & Mass Communication. 5115 Villas Communication Hall. Madison, WI 53706.

Cathy DeShano is the project coordinator of Madison Commons, a citizen journalist project that offers seminars to citizens before they begin reporting. Madison Commons is the primary topic of one of the scholarly articles, which was written by her co-workers, Nak ho Kim and Lew Friedland. DeShano is the point-of-contact for interesting citizen journalists, so she would have a ground-level, working knowledge of the organization and the types of people it attracts.


Sennerud, Dave. Ph.D. student, New Media. E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. (740)

Dave Sennerud is a Ph.D. student focusing in Online Journalism. He completed his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University 1987 and received a Masters in Education from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1996. He has five years experience reporting and 13 years teaching high school. His experience in the field and knowledge of the field through academia make him particularly useful as a subject-matter expert. Additionally, he is easy to contact via phone or e-mail.


McAdams, Mindy. Professor. University of Florida, College of Journalism and Communications, Gainesville, Fla. mmcadams@jou.ufl.edu

Mindy McAdams is professor at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications and the author of the Teaching Online Journalism blog. She worked with The Washinton Post’s first online newspaper in 1994. McAdams was working in online journalism before broadband connections. She has seen the evolution of the industry and could provide helpful and interesting insights.


Drizin, Julie. Assistant Director. Knight Citizen News Network, 3201 New Mexico Ave. NW, Ste. 330, Washington, DC, 20016. (202) 885-8100

Julie Drizin is the assistant director of J-Lab in Washington D.C. The goal of J-Lab is to help bridge the gap between citizens and the media. Additionally, it helps train journalists in ways to open a two-way line of communication with the public. Julie primarily has a background in broadcast journalism, most notably with National Public Radio. She would be an excellent source to learn about what the organization is doing toward those goals and what’s to be expected in the future for citizen journalism.

Online reference sites

AEJMC Archives

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication site offers abstracts and papers on virtually any issue currently facing the media industry. Statistical data, dissertations, theses, and articles abound on this site.


EBSCO Host

Most of the search results come not only from journalism magazines, but also scientific journals about sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Anyone who is interesting in the learning about citizen journalism or online journalism can find a great deal of knowledge from academic journals, which are generally accurate, but sometimes hard to follow.

Scholarly articles

Rosenberry, Jack. “Participatory journalism opportunities on major newspapers’ online sites.” AEJMC Annual Convention, Aug. 2006, San Francisco. 26 Aug. 2008. AEJMC Archives.

Jack Rosenberry presented this paper for the Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Group at the AEJMC Annual Convention 2006. The paper describes the different kinds of online journalism and their uses in various situations such as Hurricane Katrina and the London bombings. The focus of his paper is more on how major newspapers’ online sites can incorporate citizen journalism without relinquishing all power to the masses. He references the gatekeeper model and says that it can be upheld, but allowing a more participatory form of journalism through the use of the Internet.


Friedland, Lewis A., Hernando Rojas, Christopher Long, Eulàlia Puig Abril, Victoria Hildebrandt, Nak Ho Kim, Eunsun Lee, Seung-Hyun Lee and Yong Jun Shin. “Surveying Citizen Journalism: Describing emerging phenomena that posit a renovation of the public sphere.” AEJMC Annual Convention, Aug. 2006, San Francisco. 26 Aug. 2008. AEJMC Archives.

Lewis Friedland, et al., submitted this paper for the Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Group at the AEJMC Annual Convention 2006. The paper defines the concept of citizen journalism based on a logical criteria within the parameters of the standard definitions of publishing, journalism, and the media. The paper uses data from case studies, surveys of citizen journalists and the analysis of the aforementioned to assign the definition. From that data also gauged the general attitude of citizen journalists to governments, corporations, and other institutions. The findings are interesting because citizen journalists often have different goals and motivations for their writing.


Bentley, Clyde H. “Sense of Community as a Driver for Citizen Journalism.” AEJMC Annual Convention, Aug. 2006, San Francisco. 26 Aug. 2008. AEJMC Archives.

Clyde H. Bentley submitted this paper for the Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Group at the AEJMC Annual Convention 2006. The paper delves into the reasons why people became citizen journalists in an age where everything is user-driven. Bentley surveyed the people who volunteered as citizen journalists for mymissourian.com. The main draws were politics and interest in the local community. An interesting point he made was his definition of community journalism, which is “a journalist-moderated community blog.”

Online blogs

Bradshaw, Paul. “Online Journalism Blog.” 25 Aug. 2008. 27 Aug. 2008. (http://www.onlinejournalismblogger.com)

Online Journalism Blog is a UK-based blog written by Paul Bradshaw, a senior lecturer in Online Journalism and Magazines at Birmingham City University, UK, four other mentioned authors and a group of “virtual interns.” The site has a wealth of information about the topic of online journalism and many refer specifically to citizen journalism. Its main strength is in the analyses of news related to the online journalism industry at a global level.


McAdams, Mindy. “Teaching Online Journalism.” 28 Aug. 2008. 27 Aug. 2008.
(http://mindymcadams.com/tojou)

Teaching Online Journalism is a blog by Mindy McAdams who is apparently a university professor at an undisclosed location. Her “about” page is sparse. The blog is good though. It takes on many topics about online journalism and not just teaching online journalism. The site has lots of traffic and commentary seems to spring up for many of the posts. In addition to the standard informative news snippets and recent events, there are many how-to guides about starting up a blog or adding small personal touches to the blog. Overall, it’s an excellent resource in online journalism.

Newspaper articles

“Citizen Journalism Project Gains a Voice in the Campaign.” New York Times. July 25, 2008: B1

Offthebus.net has more than 7,500 contributors to its Democratic-sided Web site. Recently, the citizen journalism site has affected the presidential campaign with a writer reporting from a small town about some disparaging remarks by Barack Obama. The post made headlines nationwide when the writer reported Obama’s “bitter” small-town voters comment. The article delves into the beginnings and motivations behind the site and the concept of citizen journalism. It’s interesting to see the examples that show citizen journalism as making a difference in a presidential race.


Cohen, Noam. “Journalism in the Hands of the Neighborhood.” New York Times. March 10, 2008, late ed.: B3

The Internet is ubiquitous in the United States. A vast majority of the population has access to it; therefore, the news is in the hands of the people, according to this article. However, the article claims that the only people able to access this ability to tell the news as he/she sees it are the people with Internet access. Those who are on the other side of the digital divide still have no power. One demographic represented in the article was immigrants – illegal or legal. Often, they are left on the wrong side of the digital divide without the proper equipment to access the Internet or without Internet all together.


Johnson, Steve. “Stamping citizen journalism.” Chicago Tribune. 21 May 2008: B3.

Steve Johnson writes this article primarily in first-person as he walks the reader through a class teaching citizens how to be journalists, thus releasing more trained-citizen journalists into the public. The general tone of the story is rather discouraging because he mentions the lack of involvement or motivation for citizen journalists to write the news. Major news events such as the London bombings or Hurricane Katrina offer plenty of opportunity for citizens take up their pens and cameras and report the news in the absence of trained professionals. However, in the day-to-day life of citizens how do editors keep their volunteer stringers motivated. This side of the story is one that often only arises when a Web site fails (and many do).

Statistically based sources

United States. Census Bureau. Table 1127: Internet Access and Usage and Online Service Usage: 2006.

The Census Bureau’s Internet Access and Usage and Online Service Usage table is an excellent resource to gauge the people who have the Internet. The next statistic has a narrower focus, but the two combined can offer incite into the demographic that is most interesting in Internet news sources. An interesting concept associated with this table is that more than 218 million people have Internet access at home or work. The other category could be a neighbor, family member, or local library. Potentially every one of these people could be a citizen journalist if they chose to do so. The possibilities for the field in this respect become clearer with this data. Journalists can’t be everywhere at once, but each one of these people could carry that torch.


Pew Internet and American Life Project. 24 Aug. 2008. (http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/c/1/topics.asp)

The Pew Internet and American Life Project is a non-partisan organization that researches online activities by Americans. The activities include communication, information gathering, entertainment and transactions. The most relevant to citizen journalism are the statistics about how Americans access their news. Other useful studies include general Internet usage by age group and for what purpose. Applications to online journalism for this information are boundless. News outlets can find out who receives their news from what sources in order to tailor the product to that demographic. This information is also particularly useful for advertising on these Web sites.

Government documents

United States. Cong. Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. H.R. 5353: Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008. By Ed Markey. Feb. 2008. 26 Aug. 2008 (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h5353:)

H.R. 5353 is the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008, which was introduced to the House of Representatives on Feb. 12, 2008 by Congressman Ed Markey. There are two interesting facets of this bill, as originally presented. The first is that it provides protection to free speech on the Internet and ensures that corporations enforce that basic right as an American. The proceedings of this bill will be held in eight separate locations, but there’s mention that the Internet will be used for citizens to participate in the passing of the bill. Citizen journalism is when citizens, regardless of their degree or previous training, have the opportunity to report the news from their perspective. The proceedings are using “citizen politics” where they can comment directly about the bill’s progression


United States. Cong. H.R. 2101: Free Flow of Information Act of 2007. By Rick Boucher. July 2007. 26 Aug. 2008 (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h2102:)

H.R. 2101 is the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, which was introduced to the House of Representatives in July 2007. The law, if passed through the Senate, would shield media members against legal action if he/she doesn’t disclose a source who engaged in illegal activity. In the past, reporters have gone to jail when they refused to identify such a source. It’s important to add that there’s a provision in the law that dictates the “covered persons” under this law and bloggers and citizen journalists are not included unless “a substantial portion” of their livelihood is obtained from that source. Interestingly enough, bloggers, columnists, and citizen journalists could be included under this shield law.

Multimedia resources

YouTube. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://www.youtube.com/citizennews)

At its core, citizen journalism is media produced by people with little or no formal journalism training. It often acts as supplementary material to national or international stories at the local level. YouTube has all the characteristics of a citizen journalism site, though the news pieces are not always so obviously placed. YouTube will launch aa journalism program that solicits news videos from viewers about topics that might not be heard about otherwise. This vlog improves the concept of YouTube into a consolidated format specifically meant for vloggers. Additional features of the site include how-to videos and a playlist of work by citizen journalists.


Flickr. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://www.flickr.com)

Flickr is a photo-sharing site where users download their photos to an album and can send the link via e-mail to family and friends. In the past, it’s been merely another personal photo gallery with capabilities for sharing photos with anyone around the world. Recently, Getty Images, a stock image Web site, began looking through Flickr galleries and offering people royalties for their photographs. The company plans to pitch stock photographs and newsworthy photos to various media outlets. Photo-sharing sites such as these are related to citizen journalism because anyone can use them and anyone can view them – now even media outlets in need of photographs.


Your Hub. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://www.yourhub.com)

Your Hub is primarily a photo site, but also serves as a story-submitting tool for local newspapers. The Sebastian Sun in Indian River County, Fla., asked their readers in May to submit their photos and stories to their newspaper. The newspaper’s Your Hub site is full of local events and announcements for the county. The newspaper isn’t primarily online and it’s not a wholly citizen journalism project, but their ingenuity to use such a portal is quite unique.

International sites

iNorden. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://www.inorden.org)

iNorden.org is an emerging citizen journalist Web site based out of Scandinavia with plans to staff offices Finland and Iceland once the main sites in Norway, Sweden and Denmark are completed. iNorden focuses primarily on events relevant to the region, but enlists any person to write for this non-profit publication. The editorial staff ensure submitted articles are error-free, properly formatted, and accurate, but they serve as little more than a filter. Citizen journalism is relatively new and iNorgen offers a look into the process of starting such a site from the ground level. Whether the site succeeds or fails also acts as a barometer for the acceptance of citizen journalism on a regional scale.


Ohmynews. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://www.ohmynews.com)

OhmyNews is a citizen journalism site with the motto "Every Citizen is a Journalist." The site is based out of South Korea and has expanded to many other countries. The English site is particularly popular (http://english.ohmynews.com). The site offers opinion, commentary, and news from anyone in the world with Internet access. Anyone has the potential to be published on the site; however, editors read submissions and ensure they are error-free and well-written. Ohmynews instated a program similar to Madison Commons – a workshop geared toward teaching participants how to report and write for a news outlet.

For-profit businesses

Human Times. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://www.humantimes.org)

Human Times is a for-profit citizen journalism site that pays their writers based on a percentage of the revenue brought in via advertising. The process by which the writers are paid seems rather convoluted, but it’s still a viable news source written by the common man. Large news wire services such as Associated Press dominate the world news headlines; however, citizen journalists provide most of the content in the travel and food sections.


Newsvine. 25 Aug. 2008. (http://www.newsvine.com)

Newsvine is a citizen journalism site owned by MSNBC Interactive News that uses news wire stories in conjunction with external sources added by users, citizen-written blogs, stories and columns, and user-added multimedia features. The site boasts that users receive 90 percent of the ad revenue generated from their personal column. This site is not a pure citizen journalism site; instead, this site takes a different approach to the concept of a user-controlled media outlet. Users read and vote on top stories and decide which make the front page. The more votes, the higher ranked story. While much of the content isn’t user-produced, users, as a collective body, have control over what they view.

Non-profit associations

The Center for Citizen Media. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://citmedia.org)

The Center for Citizen Media offers invaluable resources for citizen journalists or researchers of citizen journalism. The principles of citizen journalism section offers current or future writers resources necessary to ensure accuracy, thoroughness, fairness, transparency, and independence in their work. This particular section of the site was compiled through a separate project called The Knight Citizen New Network. Aside from the tips available to aspiring writers, there is related news and blogs. The site, overall, is quite useful for anyone interested in writing for a citizen journalism publication. Citmedia.org will continue to add more tools of the trade based on the data they receive from surveys and web forms asking users to suggest new sites and projects.


The Knight Citizen News Network. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://www.kcnn.org)

The Knight Citizen News Network is a resource for citizen journalists or anyone interesting in citizen journalism. The site offers a learning module that offers simple, yet useful, lesson about some tools citizen journalists can use in their writing and information gathering. The subjects become gradually more targeted toward editors and content managers rather than the average citizen. Additionally, there are well-researched readings about case studies, survey results and industry leader interviews. The site offers a wealth of knowledge for amateurs and professionals alike including a .pdf copy of a comprehensive online journalism book titled, “Journalism 2.0.”


Madison Commons. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://www.madisoncommons.org)

Madison Commons is a trained-citizen journalism site that is a project of the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. This site is an example of citizen journalism when the writers receive training in writing and reporting through free workshops at local libraries and community buildings. Staff editors edit all content prior to publication for structure, accuracy, and spelling and grammatical errors. The goal of this project, like many other local citizen journalism projects, is to offer normally lightly covered neighborhoods a news source about their area.

Books

Allan, Stuart. Online News. New York, Open University Press: 2006.

Online News is a recently published book about the affect of the Internet on the media landscape. Allan touches on all the bases of online journalism including blogs, participatory journalism, and citizen journalism. He cites world events such as Hurricane Katrina, Sept. 11, 2001, the London bombings, and the war in Iraq as proof that this form of journalism is here to stay. As long as technology continues hurdling forth at such a speed there is little doubt that citizen journalism won’t become more advanced and widespread.


Barlow, Aaron. The Rise of the Blogosphere. Westport, Conn., Praeger: 2007.

The Rise of the Blogosphere touches on many of the current issues and concerns about online journalism including the overlaying concern that major media corporations have about the new media taking over. Barlow takes a chronological approach to the book. It starts in the 19th century and moves toward the current state of the world. There is quite a bit of history related directly to how the industry evolved throughout the years and the catalysts for change.


Pavlik, John Vernon. Journalism and the New Media. New York, Columbia Univerity Press: 2001.

Journalism and New Media is not a new book and that’s why I choose it. Based on the information in the last two book sources, Sept. 11, 2001 was a turning point in the journalism realm in the direction of the Internet. Pavlik’s book refers to advanced computer-assisted reporting methods as the way of the future and the only way to remain employed in the, then, upcoming atmosphere of the industry. He saw the indicators and was dead on in most of the book. In other aspects he wasn’t far-minded enough. Merely seven years after this book’s publication the industry has overshot even what he was predicting.

Government agencies

House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Internet

The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee contains the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Ed Markey is chairman of the subcommittee and also a blogger for the Huffington Post, which is a liberal news site from which Offthebus.org spawned.


Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission is the government agency charged with plays heavily into the furthering. The Commission plays an important role in ensuring that every American has access to broadband Internet based on Section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The goal was to foster economic growth. The result in regard to the media is that isolated rural areas have access to national and world news that otherwise they may not read. Additionally, any person with access to the Internet can become a citizen journalist, thus expanding the ranks of online journalists.