Today with modern technology, not just journalists but everyone can create news. Discuss the effects of these developments.
Intro:
Negative Effects:
To begin with, it is primordial to understand that the mediatic world is one bound by ethics and regulated by laws and, therefore, it could be very much where the common man may fail due to a lack of knowledge on the subject. Although it is true that media, in general, is notorious for sensationalism when an individual tries to achieve the same, the appended sequels can affect lives more directly. Several cases of defamation and bullying on social platforms came to light as well as instances where individuals create offensive news that hurt the integrity of a person or a group of people. Whether it is immature behaviour or not, it was surely unethical for a group pf adolescents in an American High School to leak in May 2014 videos of sexual assaults on a Black American teenage girl, Jada, on the internet although the initial intention was to remedy the situation. The uncomfortable situations that arose since 2010 following revelations made by WikiLeaks are condemned by the law. Even if the revelations are in favour of the ''proletariats'' and attempt to denounce sheer domination by capitalists, they raise important questions on ethics.
Today, the number of new stories people create can easily be estimated by the ''Trends of the day'' section of social networks such as Twitter and YouTube. While it has become a matter of competition to 'trend' a particular news, often social groups collectively create bias in the top news. January 2015 for instance that witnessed, a feverish movement not only in the streets of Paris but also in several social feeds in support of Charlie Hebdo and freedom of speech also saw how the tide was turned against newsworthiness evaluated by Internet when it came to the 17 Nigerians who were killed by the terror group Boko Haram and the continuous rampant atrocities of ISIS in Iran during the same month. The danger that resides in shifting the power of media broadcasting thus is that only the voices of the majority swell at the rim of the water bucket and the rest stay unpopularised. Despite the fact that even professional journalists play the same agenda-setting and gate-keeping game from time to time, they, at least, spread a fair variety of news on their shows; whereas the common man chooses to hear and see only and only what he desires, discarding the possibility of taking other views seriously, especially when it comes from a not-so-reliable source: another common man.
In contrast to citizen journalism, employed reporters have the responsibility of educating the mass and play consequently a role in bringing about social change as well as maintaining peace. They present their audiences with a myriad of alternatives. But citizen journalism can do just the opposite by setting out mechanisms of incitement to violence, resistance and perpetuation of stereotypes. All bloggers and V bloggers do not raise above established ideologies. It is not a rare case where a group of people create a homophobic movement as was the case in Russia and France. In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo's events, many who inspired by their sense of protection towards their religion indulged in violent protests. This is how around 4,200 people were brutally assaulted in Nigeria during agitated protests in response to that single piece of information.