One of the questions that came up in the lecture this week was ‘Is Wikipedia useful?’ I think it’s awesome. Granted I wouldn’t cite it as a source but I still use it as a base whenever I’m looking up something. If nothing else Wikipedia gives me at least a little background information of my topic, then I either use Google with a better idea on what I’m looking for or I just use the references at the bottom of the page. It tends to have a notorious rep at Uni for being a site the should be avoided at all costs but although it can be edited by anyone online, not all those people are out to screw with people. A lot of the information on there is quite factual and more often than not true. Double checking any information you find never hurts though.
I have never edited Wikipedia, mostly because I just don’t care to, but I don’t see how hard it could be when there are little ‘edit’ links at the end of every paragraph.
Why does Facebook work? Well I’m not entirely sure, I don’t really use it that often and I can’t imagine spending all my free time on it, but I assume it would be because it’s a free and easy way to keep in touch with relatives and friends. I know I joined because my friends wanted to be able to organise events and times to hang out all together – it’s cheaper than calling or texting and virtually everyone has access to it. So I suppose that Facebook works because of what it offers, a way to communicate and show off easily. I know only recently my mother found her brother, whom she hasn’t seen in at least fifteen years, on there. That would not have been likely to happen without its services.
For me to close my Facebook account, it would take a lot of time, patience, and effort. I’ve never been able to close down anything like it and frankly I’ve given up trying.
Produsage, well I found out in in my tutorial class today that it’s entirely possible to make a huge profit in produsage. Someone in my class, sorry for the life of me I can’t remember who it was, said that a friend of theirs posted blogs for a living and easily made $20 000 for them. That would rely heavily on the amount of followers that they have, but to make that much money from expressing an opinion seems pretty surreal to me.
Another topic that we spoke about today was whether or not citizen journalism was likely to over take real journalism. Personally I don’t think it’s likely to happen. News broadcasters have a ‘name’ so to speak; they’ve a legitimate background and professional people out there working. Whether or not they sensationalise their stories or not is hardly the case. However, in saying that, I don’t mean to discredit citizen journalists, I mean some of the worlds biggest stories have been captured on camera thanks to such people. Think of September 11, no one expected it and the only reason we have first hand footage is thanks to random people on the streets who were forced to witness it.
While citizen journalism can be very real and hard core, sometimes more so that televised broadcasts, because it is broadcasted over the internet on blogs and ‘tweets’ its credibility is precarious and viewed rather sceptically (1). And why wouldn’t it be? Would you believe everything you read on the net? I certainly don’t.
Further Reading
Carter, K. 2010, Citizen Journalism vs. Television Journalism, http://www.suite101.com/content/citizen-journalism-vs-television-journalism-a185487, updated 04/06/2010, date accessed 16/09/2011.
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