Citizen Journalism

By Pichapen Prateepavanich

Abstract

The changeover of the political power paradigm from 2006 Coup D’état to the government led by Abhisit Vejjajiva of the Democrats Party in 2009, resulted in the ‘red-shirt’ demonstration movement which has matured into a powerful key political actor in ways similar to the ‘yellow-shirt’ demonstration movement between 2003 – 2006, only with a much larger size and wider scope. In addition, many critics have pointed out that social media has played a fundamental role in contributing to the significance of this movement, as people are more able to make their voices heard and representation felt. The article focuses on Citizen Journalism, one of the significant phenomenons that emerged in consequence of new media. According to Alex Burns (2008), “it is about awareness of minorities and social issues provide the character ethic and political philosophy for many Citizen Journalists... It is framed as ‘oppositional’ to traditional media.” Indeed,  has emerged from the need to seek information from alternative sources because traditional media has failed to perform its role as a public watchdog, but instead a lapdog whose motives to report on news, have been criticized for serving self interests rather than the public good. Consequently, more and more people have turned to the internet to assess, inform, and verify each other instead (Deuze 2006). Additionally, citizen journalists are those who use technological tools like 3G camera phones and digital cameras to publish information from the spot of the incident) (Shirkey 2009).

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