Deepika
In the age of social media, citizen journalism have seen a rise in news reporting. Citizen journalism can be defined as a type of news reporting that is not carried out by a professional journalist rather than an ordinary citizen. This kind of journalism have seen a rise in recent times because of the expansion of social media and one of the reason being that now media houses are owned by some of the influential figures and political parties which have led to biased news reporting. The lack of trust between public and media houses is quite prevalent and that’s the reason for the sudden shift of citizen journalism. In such an environment where channels are controlled by big cooperation, citizen journalism works as a fresh air and bring nuances to this arena. Citizen journalism is bound by companies which gives them the freedom to pursue the stories which interests them and gain followers by headlining a certain news that may or maybe not been covered by media houses because of the editorial guidelines. Youtubers like Dhruv Rathee and Soch by Mohak Mangal are best examples when to comes to rise of citizen journalism in India. As much we want we can appreciate Citizen journalism but one of the most significant drawbacks of citizen journalism is no one can hold accountability over them because of the internet and internet news are not always true to its essence as well. The verifying facts can cause a lot of problems and create a chaotic environment for the public that uses social media quite often.
We can account as many drawbacks as possible but we can’t deny the fact that global events like Arab Spring was shaped by the citizen journalism and the value of these kind of journalism shows diversity and the power is still being hold by the ordinary citizens.
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