Citizen Journalism, We Media and Distribution Platforms

We media is a way to begin to understand how ordinary citizens, empowered by digital technologies that connect knowledge throughout the globe, are contributing to and participating in their own truths, their own kind of news. The major example of this is citizen journalism.

WIKINEWS:

•  the headlines are quite lengthy
• it can be edited by members of the public 
• free content news source 

Citizen journalism:
level 1: providing content for corporate/professional providers
level 2: reporting events using open source platforms
level 3: creating then reporting the news using open-source platforms to sway the opinion of or mobilise the public.

Citizen journalism case study: HongKong riots

The riots were filmed by protestors and by standers which were then uploaded onto western social media to show what was really going on. This first hand footage was used by news channels such as BBC to get a better understanding of the situation in Hong Kong without any room for bias. When posted on the news channels websites links to the protestors videos are included - with video credit.

The footage was featured on various social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as local and international newspapers - both tabloid and broadsheet.

Many of the articles featured were written in favour of the civilians, bashing the Chinese government for creating plans to allow extradition to mainland china. Although the bill was withdrawn in September, demonstrations still continue and now demand full democracy and an inquiry into police actions.

The clashes between police and activists have become increasingly violent, with police firing live bullets and protestors attacking officers and throwing petrol bombs.