There are currently five total forms of citizen journalism that people use to communicate news everyday.
The first of these being commentary. Commentary is the minimum level of participation in citizen journalism. Forums, newsgroups, chatrooms and instant messaging have enabled online discussion on just about any subject of interest.
For example:
- in the day following the September 11 attacks nearly one third of all American internet users read or posted material in chat rooms, bulletin boards and online forums.
- weblogs have increased the signal of this activity, with some advocating the blog form as the next generation of newspaper.
The second form is filtering and editing. With the massive information that is available to us all, as well as the competing demands of media attention, the door has long since opened for alternative forms of editing. Filtering, sorting, ranking and linking.
This process is similar to editing in the sense of editorial judgement and selection.
Many news site today, such as MSNBC and CNN employ a similar “top ten most read” where all the sites visitors’ choices are accumulated into a popularity ranking.
The third form that we see heavily in citizen journalism and professional journalism is fact checking. In both professional journalism and citizen journalism the act of verification is a frequent activity and what follows is a community effort to uncover the truth.
Most times in journalism, journalist enter the fray in an effort to uncover the truth.
According to journalist Dan Gillmor “fact checking is tomorrows journalism.”
The fourth form of citizen journalism that we see is Reporting. People who constantly use the internet are eye witnesses, or first-hand accounts. They for the most part participate in the fact gathering and reporting process. Sometimes even conveying the breaking news.
Weblogs and forums brought first-hand accounts and photography to again the events of September 11. Without our citizen journalist out there in the field doing the reporting. The media would for the most part have censored most of the things we saw that day.
The fifth and final form of citizen journalism is Audio/video broadcasting. With the rise of the web it has ultimately inspired the audience to play the role of audio/video broadcaster. Making this possible with websites like youtube, dailymotion and googlevideo.
International channels like CNN also allow for people to broadcast their own stories and news.