Your Name and Title: Dr. Lesley Farmer, Professor of Library Media
School or Organization Name: California State University Long Beach
Co-Presenter Name(s):
Area of the World from Which You Will Present: California, USA
Language in Which You Will Present: English
Target Audience(s): teacher librarians, subject teachers
Short Session Description (one line): Citizen Journalism: Activating students to participiate in global issues.
Full Session Description (as long as you would like): This presentation explores the role of digital citizenship, civic engagement and the impact of technology on it, and the potential of citizen journalism as a mechanism for facilitating youth-centered pro-active digital citizenship.
Digital citizenship may be defined as the ability to use technology safely, responsibly, critically, productively, and civically. As globalization has impacted information access and exchange, the idea of positive action has counterbalanced the attitude of fear and wrongdoing. Pro-active digital citizenship may be considered as the integration of digital citizenship and civic engagement: individuals use technology to improve their communities, whatever form that community assumes.
Civic engagement may be defined individual and collective actions that address issues of public concern. The underlying goal is to improve the quality of life within a community through actions that may be political or non-political. In schools, civic engagement is often carried out through service learning. With this definition, consuming civic information, such as reading about the justice system, does not constitute civic engagement. However, blogging about the justice system could be considered a minimal level of civic engagement, and helping a judge run for office shows more committed and significant engagement, and could involve technology such as creating a donor list spreadsheet.
Indeed, technology has facilitated civic engagement because it offers more varied and convenient ways to access, communicate with, and contribute to civic organizations and their information. Even though today’s youth have a growing distruct in mainstream politics, youth are likely to get most of their news online or through social commentary television rather than mainstream news outlets, and over two-thirds of teenagers participate at least monthly in social causes (Bennett 2008). They tend to prefer a self-actualizing approach to civic engagement such as lifestyle politics on the local or global scale, such as pollution, pay equity and gay rights.
Block (2011) studied citizenship as a communicative achievement in global spaces, and affirmed the idea of citizenship as a way that people position themselves in participatory events. As early as 1974, UNESCO recommended promoting at every stage of education, an active civic training which will enable every person to gain knowledge of the method of operation and the work of public institutions, whether local, national or international; and to participate in the cultural life of the community and in public affairs. Wherever possible, this participation should increasingly link education and action to solve problems at the local, national and international levels.
Journalists serve as an independent body that provides a check-and-balance social system to disseminate information and keep people current. The key to quality reporting is deliberative, thoughtful interaction (Holzer et al. 2004). In the 1990s, a public journalism movement began as a manifestation of social responsibility theory (Coleman 1997) and liberal press theory (Ess 2014), which encouraged people to get more involved in local issues by commenting on the news or suggesting news items. Enter the advent of social media, which differs significantly from mass media in that it augments one-way communication with two-way and many-to-many communication. With social media people have sometimes sidestepped mainstream media outlets altogether, broadcasting them independently.
Citizen journalism may be defined as user-centered news production and participatory journalism. It is associated with blogs and their comments, videos and photos, and social networking site news stories. As they include non-professional citizens in news gathering, journalists have to consider issues of access, source protection, and intellectual property (Musa and Price 2006). At the same time, media outlets do need to acknowledge the benefits of citizen participation and contributions, particularly for local issues. They can no longer practice a closed culture; but rather leverage an open journalistic culture. News outlets that let citizens participate through new media gain more trust and social capital.
Citizen journalism holds great promise for today’s youth. Youth particularly like interactivity that is the result of co-production, where they participate in producing and manipulating information. Furthermore, youth respond well when given responsibilities to serve their communities, which leads to more positive personal development (Bennett 2008). To help these students communicate effectively in this public arena, Librarians can teach investigative skills, and other educators can teach students critical thinking and communication skills. The school community can facilitate community workplace service learning and intern opportunities. Students can leverage their own interests and peer networks to provide insider information to media outlets; their unique position benefits the media as well as the public at large. By collaborating with the education community, including students, journalists can maintain professional oversight and mentor upcoming potential employees. On their part, students gain privileged access and insights into the professional world of the media and their ethical stance, as well as opportunities to impact their community as informed digital citizens.
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