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The video clip for citizen journalism
By Ken Wilson
A thought-provoking online approach has been explored for about nine years, but it has only turned into a genuine trend for two years or so. This trend is given by the uploading of video clip content. At the level of online businesses, this is a very profitable advertising technique, while for strictly interpersonal relationships the practice can be both entertaining and informative. In this latter direction, a new form of journalism has developed. Labeled as citizen journalism, it can consist of text and images or of text and a video clip attached to it or of a mere video post able to speak for itself, with no additional comment from the one who uploads it.
As a result, each video post comes to accomplish a dynamic function in the overall operation of gathering, broadcasting and evaluating data that can be treated as news. As compared to traditional mass-media, the difference is that this is media at the individual level. It happens often for a non-professional to be on a location where something spectacular or strange is happening; this individual also happens to carry along a camcorder, a digital camera or a camera-equipped mobile phone. He will most likely record the event and then share it with friends and acquaintances. He could also upload it as a video post: in this manner he makes it available for entire online communities; they are very likely to be interested in this particular video clip: if the event has caught the eye of one of them, it could also grab the attention of the rest of them.
In other words, citizen journalism is exploited at its best if a video post is added. The impact of the broadcast information is obviously more profound, since images combined with sound and text are definitely more powerful than plain text. Of course, if you want to earn some money from the news you are making available, members of online communities could be charged a fee for the permission of playing your video clip.
However, don't make this fee too high; you will waste all the potential interest in your data in the case where other members don't think that your video post deserves a rather significant amount of money. Keep in mind that members of online communities are most of the times amateurs, just like you are. And they will not pay too much only to be able to see just another video clip that recorded some catastrophe or some amusing event. Remember that, unfortunately, you are not the only one who happens to seize on camera less fortunate events. The same, you are not the only one who has had the opportunity of camcording truly hilarious or entertaining happenings. People will just opt for any similar video post and ignore yours if you are not careful about your fee.
Citizen journalism is part of the wider sphere of vlogging (a shortened version for videoblogging or video web logging). This means that the illustrative video clip generally comes accompanied by a common blog entry, where facts or events are explained in a text. Thus vlogging covers almost all the requirements of a regular TV broadcast newsletter, with the sole exception that it is not done by professionals.
However, it might just happen that professionals opt for placing such videos on video upload sites, but the phenomenon is implausible since they are legally engaged in activities that typically demand that their materials are written/recorded for the use of the hiring company.
Nonetheless, an upload video site remains a valuable source of the kind of journalism practiced by amateurs. Such a site stands for a normal spread of information, for the normal flow of data that bear interest for online communities. It is definitely worth exploring.
About the Author
A video post containing informative, explanatory data is often included in the sphere of citizen journalism. In its turn, this kind of journalism that employs the advantages brought by the image and sound which are typical for a video clip is included in the larger domain of vlogging.
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/49862.html
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