Participatory Journalism

Types of Participatory Journalism:

Citizen Journalism: Where an everyday citizen who is not trained in Journalism creates the content for a story, or is assisted in telling their story with a Journalist as a facilitator or narrator. 

Crowdsourcing: Multiple citizens collectively writing a story together little by little. 

User-Generated Content: Content that came from a citizen that is a part of a story.

User Feedback: Responses by citizens of the stories they are reading, which can affect the story. 

Sources: People who give information on the story, usually someone who is skilled or an expert in a specific field, or someone who was at the event.

Citizen Journalism and Crowdsourcing involve audiences the most since they are the ones making the content. User feedback is notes that can change the story AFTER, its the response. User-generated content and sources is taking something from the audience and putting it in the story, but the sources are usually specific and more credible to the story than the user-generated content.

On Facebook there is a group called the “Whitewater Anything Forum” that people post their own thoughts and experiences in Whitewater. I think that this is a type of Citizen Journalism since they are the ones creating the content. This is the max participation the audience can have with sharing news.

On CNN, they will have experts explain various political or  economic processes so that the audience can better understand, which is an example of a source. This does not have any audience participation, as the average citizen isn’t as well-versed or educated in specific topics as such.