Costs and Benefits of Citizen Journalism

The responsibility and impact of digital news creators

Why is Journalism Important?

Good and accurate journalism is the foundation of any just and functional society. An informed population is powerful. Over the past decade or so, social media have become a primary source of news for American citizens, and for better or for worse, they are platforms that are mostly free from the gatekeeping and editorial standards of traditional journalism.

However, problems with social media arise when users that can publish anything they want use these platforms as a means to intentionally spread disinformation to as wide of an audience as possible. The truth becomes hard to find, and lies run rampant. 

This is possible because social media platforms act as a publisher, and users act as authors, therefore a platform cannot legally be faulted for any claims or statements made by its users. Although many platforms have conduct and user guidelines put in place to prevent wrongdoing, they are not universally or efficiently enforced.

Exploiting the Algorithm

In his book Antisocial, author Andrew Marantz recounts his experiences following key social media influencers prior to the 2016 presidential election as they convince their followers to vote for Donald Trump. He provides insight on how exactly these self-proclaimed internet trolls used social media and misinformation to sway millions of Americans’ political beliefs. The subjects of Antisocial are well versed in the utilization of the internet for personal gain. They take advantage of the fact that truth does not drive internet virality. Emotion drives conversation online. They use reactionary content to spark engagement.

Behavioral scientists call this “high arousal emotion.” The more emotionally charged their content is, the more people engage with and react to it. This leads to more popularity, status, and revenue. In their eyes, all press is good press. Through the understanding of how social media algorithms work, they are able to exploit it to their advantage.

In the TED Talk below, Marantz discusses the impact of these propagandists, as he calls them.

Is News on Social Media All That Bad?

Although social media can be used negatively, they are also free spaces that make information easily accessible. They are tools that, at the core value, are meant to connect people and provide a plethora of available knowledge. 

A critique of traditional news is that the type of content being broadcast and published is decided by “gatekeepers” in the newsroom. According to this article published in Medium, “Gatekeeping as a theory, is the news selection and extraction of news, which then gets passed through a series of gates (the journalists), and gets transformed and ends up in the news (Groshek & Tandoc, 2016).” Gatekeepers determine what is most important for the public to see. However, a dissonance between journalists and their audience can occur when their values do not align.

As social media first gained traction, they became sources for more interactive and immediate news. They also allowed the everyday citizen to participate in journalism and reporting. Over the past decade, political movements and activism have become a growing topic in the news. This is partly due to the increase in citizen reporting. The conversations surrounding the most relevant topics of news have been opened up to everyone that has access to the internet. Social media give a voice to those that may have been overlooked in the past.

While there are numerous benefits and costs of the increase in citizen journalism, it is clear that the same responsibility for truth and accuracy is mandatory for both citizen and traditional journalists.