Shifting boundaries: Objectivity, citizen journalism and tomorrow’s journalists

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between citizen journalism and professional journalism by means of a theoretical discussion combined with empirical data gathered through focus group interviews with students of international journalism. The article discusses the process and ongoing struggle within journalistic practice of keeping up the idea as well as the practice of journalistic objectivity. Working on from Schudson (2003), Schudson and Anderson (2009) and Tumber and Prentoulis’ (2003) analyses of journalistic professionalism, the article develops the idea of journalistic objectivity as it is faced with the technological advances that support citizen journalism. The interviews focus on the ways in which the students understand the tension of the changing relationship between professional journalism and citizens, brought about by citizen journalism or User Generated Content (UGC), and focus further on the question of how the students address and react to this paradigmatic shift.

Change the Space, Change the Practice?

“…For example, in one of the few studies to examine students and citizen journalism, Blaagaard (2013) found that attitudes toward citizen journalism were already forming before journalism students had left university. Studying international graduate students, she found that they appear already engaged in professional boundary maintenance, suggesting a pre-professional socialization to a professional identity and its accompanying norms and values, including attitudes toward participatory journalism.…”

Chinese journalists' views of user-generated content producers and journalism: a case study of the boundary work of journalism

“…The same norms have also been adopted to demarcate journalists from 'citizen journalists' as demonstrated in later studies (e.g. Örnebring 2013;Blaagaard 2013). Professional norms lie at the heart of journalism's boundary work, acting as essential elements that identify journalism as professional.…”

What is citizen journalism? A critical analysis from the perspective of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation

“…So, from the journalistic perspective, citizen journalism may not be a useful platform for the public sphere beyond its connection to professional journalism (Blaagaard, 2013 In other words, amateurs are unqualified to produce and publish original content.…”