what does the citizen journalist want? alternative media and activism rhetoric in cyberculture
DESCRIPTION
Presentation for Virtual Futures 2.0 - University of Warwick http://virtualfutures.co.uk/vf2011/programme/citizen-journalist-want/TRANSCRIPT
Alternative Media & Activism Rhetoric in Cyberculture
What does the
Citizen Journalist want?
@jennifermjones #virtualfutures
dominant narratives
access to information
user generated content
multi-platform experiences
mobile technologies
(Jenkins, 2006)
mode of production/distribution
forms of content
aesthetic quality
interaction with audiences
(Atton, 2002)
Challenge dominant narratives
Voice to marginal communities
Build networks between groups
(Downing, 2001)
different modes of address
different perspectives
story selection
(Goode, 2009: 1070)
competing with?
“It is not easy to be both an academic and an activist. The values, the audiences and the constraints are different.
Sitting down to write, you can feel yourself pulled in two different ways. The result is often muddled thinking and murky prose.There is too much ranting for an academic audience, and too much goobledgook for the activists. In
many cases, there is no prose at all, only silence and pages crumbled in the wastebasket or erased on the
screen.” (Neale, 2008 :217)
Activist and Academia
social/political context of
research environment
education of/in the future
What are the alternatives?
How do you communicate them?
online activism
(or using the internet to
communicate action?)
‘underpinned by socio-historical narratives, rather than socio-technical’
participation & being there
(Hall, 2011)
access to information
dominant narratives
dominant narratives
access to information
critique
human need
realms of freedom
(Rikowski, 2004)
participation does not begin with
the content
human connections &
relationships
reclaiming something from the
mainstream?
tools for the human condition
things
modelspeers
mentors
(lllich, 1976)
the web cannot provide new opportunities and new modes of relationship if we propose that people are able to “come together ‘out of
nothing’” in order to form new entities.
(Slevin, 2000: 113)
Thus, there needs to be motivation and a symbolic context within information can be
produced, received and distributed.
(Slevin, 2000: 113)
symbolic action
reporting the unreported
citizen media as self defense
processes of producing
content
constructing arguments
articulating different ideas about the world
workshops
access to resources
confidence buildingcritiquing ideas
no “master online citizen journalism
site lists” to sample from
(Carpenter, 2010: 1070)
Incentive to write?
Validation from the dominant narrative?
Internet as a cultural artefact?
Internet as a culture?
(Hine, 2000: 14)
Beware of the geek?
competition
applications
venture capital
“Even if geeks are ‘about’ justice and equality, the consequence of the
widespread adoption and extension of their work is the most extreme
economic inequality the world has ever known.” (Dean, 2010: 22)
the demotic turn
(Turner, 2009: 123)
not everyone that encounters the internet in this way becomes an
active producer, nor creative subject
(Terranova, 2000: 35)
Protests in Vancouver, 2010
Young reporters writing about
new library
“It may take some work to discover distortions and suppressions of information. All you need is the
desire to learn the truth.” (Chomsky, 2004: 10)
Working within constructs, on
their terms
Citizen Media as a learning space?
Full paper: http://bit.ly/virtualfutureshttp://www.jennifermjones.net
@jennifermjonesThanks to @citizenseye