Citizen Journalism and Democracy

When Dr Andy Williams of Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies delivered a lecture on the role of Citizen Journalism in democracy, it got me thinking -

Do citizen journalists make democracy better?

The fundamental definition of democracy is where the supreme power has landed the job in a free electoral system by the people. So at the basest level, the media's role in a functioning democracy is to report and cover the people and parties seeking office.

But one of the old limitations of the mainstream media, is that to find out most of the information we need to about politicians, we are slave to the judgement and choices the hacks on Fleet Street make.

This can therefore profoundly shape the fortunes of democracy, and the successes of individual politicians. How can we vote for someone if we do not know anything about them? Excusing of course information the politicians themselves advertise to us out of their own pockets. But most routes to finding out about our govermentnts have traditionally been through the media.

Until now.

The rise of Citizen Journalism is a recent thing, particularly within the last few years. Most of it is to be found springing up all over the World Wide Web. The average joe is reporting on the issues of the day, and his copy, video, audio and pictures are being seen by millions.

And Citizen Journalism's role in democracy is being seen right here right now, all around us. Next month one of the most important elections around the world will be decided. Will it be Obama or McCain? So simple to sum up, but isn't this bipartisan choice so, well, simple? Is there not more on offer?

Just ten months ago, there actually was, as the primaries gave the chance for voters to elect someone from over 20 different personalities in the main two US parties alone. Sadly, 20 is a lot of people to cram into broadcast timeslots or newspaper margins, so enter the citizen journalists! They had their say in trying to sway the path of democracy away from inevitability.

Nobody represents this shift better than Dr. Ron Paul. A 73 year old Republican congressman from Texas, this man captured the hearts and minds of well over a million Americans, and secured enough votes and delegates in the primaries to take fourth place in the Republican Race. An anti war libertarian, his pro-civil liberties, anti-big government views made him stand out from the rest in his party, who seemed steadfast in their support for many of George Bush's policies.

But I will both be disappointed, and yet not too surprised if most of the British people reading this have not heard of him. Low figures in the official political polls simply meant the mainstream media did not cover him enough over in the US, let alone in the UK.

The blogosphere and networking media went nuts for him. News portal websites like http://www.ronpaulforpresident2008.com/ and http://www.dailypaul.com/ would post multimedia reports covering his every move from professional journalists to an ordinary member of the public. This article showed how for a significant part of last year "Paul" was a number 1 web searched term as ranked by Technorati.

This article shows his placing as the top number of You Tube subscribers for most of his campaign - pipping Obama, who begrudgingly settled for second place. Such was the enthusiasm and buzz generated by his online rise, he managed to break fundraising records, by receiving the largest amount of campaign donations ever received in one day in US political history on December 16th, at over $6 million, all of it received online. In the final quarter of 2007, he raised over $9 million more than the second highest Republican candidate, Rudy Giuliani.

I could discuss the many myriad reasons why the citizen journalist driven revolution for this man did not in the end get him elected. Perhaps their voices are not yet as powerful, and Ron Paul would have needed full, regular, supportive coverage by all mainstream media outlets to secure the nomination. Primary and Caucus voters were clearly not all active Internet users. Yet the Journalistic fire in ordinary voices tried their hardest in making a different, perhaps better choice than Obama or McCain.

Citizen Journalism is clearly causing a stir in the outcomes of democracy, but it has not yet seen clear revolutionary results to suppass the efforts of the mainstream. In fact the relationship between the mainstream and the alternative media is crucial to its success. When the two are combined, does it help or hinder democracy?

Take a look at this video, where Fox News utilised User Generated Content (UGC) in the form of a post debate text poll, which frequently crowned Ron Paul the winner of the Republican debates.

The issue of quality standards is ongoing - can we trust what the public thinks as truthful and accurate?

Sean Hannity as the major pundit is clearly displeased and disbelieving of these polls, claiming the Congressman's supporters must have texted in repeatedly.

As the regular political commentator, who are we to believe? The earnest texters, or the adamant proclaimers of the phrase "he has no chance of winning"?

When there is a discord between what the public say and think and what journalists tell us to think, you begin to realise Journalism's role in making democracy better may yet have a long way to go.