TV Technology: Corporations Co-opt Citizen Journalism. Aided by the Internet and low-cost digital media acquisition tools, there is no doubt that a handful of talented, dedicated independent media creators have and continue to innovatively challenge the world’s largest corporate media organizations.However, as with most good things, the big guys eventually tried to co-opt it for their own benefit. The first attempts to use ordinary people as news reporters started with local TV stations and news organizations including CNN and the BBC. They actively sought amateur video of newsworthy events made by their own viewers.
No question that there’s a lot of activity aimed at co-opting the field. This is what traditional media do, after all.
But the possibilities are equally interesting for collaboration and real competition. That’s what we need more than anything.
on Feb 14th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Dan, I hate to be one-note on this, but it’s similar to my question about what happens if a journalist just doesn’t care about getting it right from reader advice. For a corporation, “collaboration” usually means “you do the work, we get the money”. What if they just don’t care about anything else?
The deep issue is destroying the social structures which support anything else in favor of those which reward digital-sharecropping, err, “local content harvesting”.