Final Paper Proposal

Topic(s):

Digital Storytelling, Online Narratives, Citizen Journalism, YouTube, User-Submitted, on-the-ground

Format:

Paper

Thesis question(s): How has user-generated/user-submitted Internet news content changed the conventional media landscape? Are these changes for better or for worse? What potential effects could this have on the conglomerated media ownership structure? How does the tension between accuracy and immediacy manifest itself?

Two sources on history and how they relate:

1. An immediate, up-to-date news source that was on the ground where the action was happening - "Radio was instantaneous. Furthermore, print could never match the immediacy of Edward R. Murrow broadcasting from London as German bombs ripped through the city."
http://www.ablongman.com/samplechapter/0205387012.pdf

Folkerts, Jean, and Stephen Lacy. "The media in your life." (2004).

2.Television as the most up-to-date visual news source by new type of journalist - "...had changed by the 1960s into aggressive, full-color reporting with extensive interpretation and analysis by members of a new and nontraditional school of journalism. The latter felt and still feel that their responsibility is "to discover truth, not merely facts. Reporters, denying their very name, are encouraged to give their own subjective analyses of events.... The Tet Offensive during the Vietnam war put on television for all to see:  The Tet offensive newsreel footage was 24 hours old by the time it had been processed for home consumption. If Tet occurred today, the news would be transmitted instantaneously."
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1982/jan-feb/baldwin.html

Baldwin, N. B. "Strategy and the Social Dimension in the 1980s." Air University Review (1982).

Two sources on theory and how they relate:

1. Ch. 1 of Image Ethics in the Digital Age - with digital technology's immediacy, the news is constantly updating, so there are no longer "big images" that have the same widespread impact and recognizability like photos of the past did (newspapers),

2. User-generated sites are surpassing the capabilities, speed and accuracy of the government and conventional mainstream media, especially in times of crisis:

"A continuously updated board of victim status and their current hospital sits atop a rolling update of critical news, including pictures, video, and essential information about the situation, making it quite possibly the quickest way to get essential news for those needing information on potential victims (more informative than the government websites and local news channels). The incredible outpouring of eyewitness journalism and support has turned the humble news aggregator into an impressive source of information in the midst of a national crisis."
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/20/reddit-aurora-shooting/ 

"At the same time that the Iranian regime was closing the country off from the outside world, a group of disconnected digital activists who were watching with horror realized that they had the technical chops to try to get information out from under the regime’s lockdown. They began setting up proxy servers, receiving content and distributing videos and images to members of the international press, who were being denied access to the streets—or to the country."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/06/10/the-revolution-was-televised.html 

"Within hours, sometimes minutes of a demonstration, a clash or an atrocity, viewers saw clips disseminated all over the Internet via YouTube and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook and Iranian Diaspora sites such as Iranian.com Tehran Bureau, Gooya, and the Persian blogger's site Balatarin.com."
p. 120

Kamalipour, Yahya R. Media, Power, and Politics in the Digital Age: The 2009 Presidential Election Uprising in Iran. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010.

How you got there/Problems/Issues you see: (OPTIONAL)
Maybe find better examples of strictly citizen journalism? Letters, etc.