What is next for online communication?

When we think of all the social networking sites that are available to us on a 24 hour basis; its beyond astounding. Over the course of the past few months, it has come to my attention how involved society is in this online public sphere. A community of individuals from all over the world can communicate when ever, from where ever, and how often they would like. With the continuing addition of technological advancements, it is becoming easer to distance ourselves from traditional face-to-face communication. From our now hand-held devices we can access our online social networks at the touch of a screen. What individuals used to keep private and away from the public eye, has now changed. People can discuss their emotions, attitudes, outlooks on millions of topics and communicate with others in the process. We have created an online sphere where once private issues can now become public. We can share information immediately and obtain it just as quickly. From the avid, myspacer, facebooker, or blogger, all of them are sharing the same withdrawn experience no matter what form is used. Where we obtain our daily news, updates and understandings about the world are simply a few seconds away. Throughout the last three months, I have begun to understand the importance of understanding and giving credibility to this new online era of communiation. What will be next, how will we evolove when the internet becomes so full of information that we will not have enough time to figure it out? It will be interesting to look back on the current state of citizen media and the public sphere in 20 years from now and see which path society chose.

Now can we give credit to citizen journalists?

While surfing on the Internet, I came across this photograph of a CNN billboard reading, " You see it, you report it. Be a Citizen Journalist." At first glance, I thought this billboard portrayed many things. It is not true that most people think of citizen journalist's as being that of opinion rather than of hard fact? I notice that in this advertisement, the letters bellow the main slogan line read, "SMS CJ to 2622." Not only are they advertising people to be citizen journalists, but also they are encouraging them to distribute their information to CNN. This billboard is ironic on many levels, as it promotes opposing aspects of media. Can we see citizen journalism as a valid factual source of news in this instance, or is CNN promoting a false sense of what citizen journalism is?

The fact that CNN wants the citizen journalist to text their news stories in to this credited and valid news source poses many question. Are the stories posted on the CNN website factual and do they contain the work of academically trained journalists? This billboard definitely seems to make the average citizen reevaluate this. It is a positive thing that professional news sources are promoting citizen media and journalism, but I feel it causes more confusion between the two. We have clearly defined the separation between the two, where journalism is the profession and citizen journalism is that of free opinion and discussion. When we see images such as this, what are to think? What is the difference now between journalism and citizen journalism? Can we now call them the same thing?

This advertisement is promoting a type of journalism that is reaching out to the average citizen. But if these citizens are the ones giving professional journalists at CNN news ideas, is CNN news factual? Are the new stories in part taken from citizen journalists who texted their ideas off the streets and in their homes? What can we determine as journalism now?