Stay cool.

Kate

A theme noted immediately in this blog, is American politics. Posts regarding the battle for the Presidency of the United States of America between Barack Obama and John McCain being frequent.

‘A free ride for political advertising’ and ‘Yes McCain is in trouble’, are effectively using a visual to send the message of the blogger as well as supporting the image with a paragraph or two of text.

As well as this, the blog contains personal accounts of Giner, making regular posts on a temporary blog while traveling on the QE2, titled the ‘QE2: The Last Crossing. The American Farewell of the longest serving ship in Cunard’s 169-year history’.

Posts by Juan Antonio Giner, the lead editor and founder of the blog, are brief but clear and concise and to the point. These qualities are ideal for me when reading blogs, the effort isn’t poured into a creative style of writing and the over use of words containing more that three syllables. Instead, it is in the form of an easy to read blog covering a range of interesting topics utilising multi-media tools.

The site also contains an impressive worldwide ‘blogroll’ linking readers to other blogs and widening the perspective of a reader.

In an attempt to take some sort of control of the ‘blogosphere’ and with an international team of authors, regional-blog editors and translators Global Voices aims towards helping people navigate through the abundance of blogs and information they provide.

By utilising various forms of media the site offers a place where citizen’s voices can be heard and considered, calls attention to the important issues concerning citizens and advocates freedom of expression all over the world.

A recent example of a blog on Global Voices is USA: Homeland Guantanamo by Solana Larsen. The post covers a interactive on-line game produced by the human rights organisation, Breakthrough. The article explains the game and how it will effect people’s perceptions of detention centres.

This blog has articles that are relative to citizens covering a wide variety of topics ranging from politics to foreign news and special coverage. Interview with a blogger for Global Voices

In comparison to our mainstream news we experience, these blogs invite us into a more personal representation making the news easy to relate to.

Covering countries all over the world, Global Voices allows you to, by following a link, tap into your own countries blogs relating to current news and events.

Each blog opening up the forum for discussion goes toward an increasingly positive on-line citizen community building communication all over the world and supporting multi-media journalism.

A video link to Global Voices, regarding mobile journalism and web blogging: MobileActive08: Mobiles and Citizen Media

The blog itself is well presented, much the same as this one, with posts running down the pages, after reading some of the blogs posted, generally an informal approach is taken to the style of writing.

However not so formal that the writer has adopted the ‘lol’ and ‘4eva’, text message slang that so many have adopted outside their mobile phones.

He maintains sounding intelligent throughout his blogs keeping obnoxious outbursts of opinion to a minimum, which is somewhat refreshing.

I think some people see blogs as a round about way to slander someone without consequence, but Javis puts his opinion forward in a generally well rounded and supported way.

Apologies for my negativity, but on an entirely personal level I find these posts a little long, that’s not to say that what the writer is posting is uninteresting, but in order to maintain my attention I find a short blog that gets straight to the point is almost always more enjoyable to read.

In once of his more recent posts ‘Once and for all’, Javis takes the time to answer a few ‘yes-buts’, as he refers to them. Stating and responding to, each issue people have in regards to his enthusiasm for the Internet and its positive effects on our media.

An interesting video link to an interview with Jarvis, on CBS news. Eye to Eye with Katie Couric (Jeff Jarvis) CBS News

Citizen and professional journalists are finding new ways to tap into this technology and use it as a valuable resource when it comes to reporting and recording.

Often snapping quick photographs and recording footage without the entire set up of a camera crew can enable a reporter to obtain a different more spontaneous perspective.

Reuters, a major news bureaus has embraced mobile phone technology when it comes to reporting and news gathering giving reporters a ‘mobile journalism toolkit’, making for a more convenient and less intimidating approach to interviews and filming.

Disadvantages of the ‘mojo’ technology are that sound can be quite bad quality espesially on windy days, also the picture quality is far less quality than that of a professional camera often appearing pixelated and delayed.

However, as mobiles get more and more advanced so will the quality of this type of journalism, Nokia claiming to produce mobiles with HD camera quality in the coming years.

One phone I found particually impressive for this purpose was the Nokia N93i, with its features being a 3.2 mega pixel camera and up to 90 minutes of filming time.

This tool will not be replacing high quality cameras in news but will provide a perfect alternative benifiting both citizens and professionals jounalists.

An interesting video link to the future of citizen mobile journalism…

First up Alive in Baghdad, a critical view on the lives of civilians in Iraq and how conflict has affected their day to day lives. Although the reporting is short and in the style of several interviews, it is still significantly contributing to the ‘bigger picture’, covering what the mainstream news may not allows us as viewers to absorb a variety of information, giving us a greater knowledge of the situation. Audio Interview with Brian Conley, from Alive in Baghdad

Mobuzz TV, blurs the lines between TV and video bloggs, although the reports are on topical relevant issues, the report takes a similar style to that of ET (Entertainment Tonight), covering the gossip side of politics in a far less formal approach than that of, Alive in Baghdad.

Ask a Ninja, is an example of a comedy vlog, to me personally, I didn’t find it particularly funny. However makes for a good contrast to the previous two vlogs we discussed and makes the difference between citizen journalism and video bloggers distinguishable.

Wine Library TV, again falls into the category of video bloggers, discussing things along the lines of wine and cheese will most definitely appeal to a specific audience and once again helps differentiate a citizen journalist form a video blogger.

Rocket Boom takes an opinionated approach, trying to raise awareness to things deemed important of misunderstood by the public. The vlog is interesting to watch and informative however, still remains an opinion and wouldn’t be seen as citizen journalism.

Of the five vlogs we looked at, in terms of citizen journalism, Alive in Baghdad covered a relevant topic that is important and did it in a way that can be seen as a trustworthy representation of the truth.

Despite editing being a very powerful tool in the way that manipulation that can occur, Alive in Baghdad have taken on this project of reporting the ’significant’ under-looked view of the civilians affected by events and not just the events themselves.

The site is fun and exiting with bright colours, bold fonts and seems to be aimed at a younger demographic strengthening the relationship readers and also appeal to non-readers.

How Stomp operates is different to that of OhmyNews, (discussed in week 5) in the way that user-generated content is utilised. People can send in photos or stories that perhaps would be overlooked in some of the mainstream national papers.

These can be sent via mobile phone, SMS, e-mail, phone call etc., and content is sorted though and deemed newsworthy or not by educated and experienced journalists most times the issue or story is re-written by a journalist to produce consistant stories of a newsworthy style in terms of grammar, editing and ethical codes.

However in this editing process they are careful to not change the intention of the article, checking that the citizens who send in the pictures or stories are happy with the changes and the intention or message of the article has not been lost.

As the push continues for fair and accurate news reporting so does the need for citizen contribution, Stomp is a cleaver way of taking the citizens perspective and interests into a mainstream news outlet without sacrificing the professional elements that comes with journalistic writing style.

Check out this video I found on YouTube on Citizen Journalism, it makes things crystal clear.

Citizen Journalism – What Is It ?

The review consisted of several web-based tools that allow photos to be uploaded and shown as a slide show to accompany other web based content.

Out of Picasa, PictureTrail, BubbleShare and SlideFlickr Google-owned Picasa proved to be the pick of the crop.

These new tools are adding to our multi-media world of journalism making imagery move readily available and in slide form a greater visual perspective can be given than one singular picture.

The comparison was based on the criteria that the slide tool would allow photos to be uploaded and embedded onto another website, be a free service that is compatible with most popular browsers.

After running these four tools through the trial, advantages and disadvantages for each arose, SlideFlickr being the better option to begin with, however after further consideration Picasa rated the best.

Perhaps most commonly used for sharing photos on forums like MySpace or Facebook, they also provide a service for journalism.

Providing a story with images this way can help the reader identify the scene without taking it out of context and in terms of citizen journalism or even photojournalism its an excellent way to share images with the world. A photojournalist slide show, A Glimpse at Korea, helps demonstrate how the bigger picture can be seen through as series of images rather that relying on one.

Citizen Tube, a place on the ever expanding YouTube, allows people who are not officially journalists to take news reporting into their own hands.

A place where perhaps credibility isn’t assumed by all readers, and not quite in the same league the South Koren, OhmyNews, however introducing these forums is most definitely a step in the right direction for the citizen journalism evolution.

People like Kevin Sites, a news correspondent for Yahoo, have lead the way for more upcoming citizen journalism. The ‘Hot Zone’ project was unconventional reporting on foreign wars.

To raise awareness to the types of issues and conflicts that are perhaps not the number one priority for mainstream news. Kevins main goal was to shed some much needed light on those types of issues.

Another video report I found shocking was, ‘Shoot the messenger-Iraq’.

Sites was reporting on the conflict in Iraq for NBC and happened to capture some controversial footage of a U.S marine shooting an injured, unarmed civilian.

He goes on to discuss how the portrayal of the incident the mainstream media gave and the actual truth were different stories, highlighting the ethical dilemma a reporter faces when put in this postion of responibilty. Protecting our public from the harmful truth may prove more harmful than the truth itself.