Democratic journalism
Encyclopedia
Democratic journalism is a term describing a relatively new phenomenon where news stories are ranked by a vote among the stories' readers . This phenomenon has been brought about largely due to the creation of social networking sites such as Digg
and Newsvine
.
The effect of democratic journalism is that it promotes news based on the popular opinion of the majority, or the "wisdom of the crowd
". This differs from more traditional approaches, such as the one commonly used in the newspaper industry, where an editor would decide whether to print a particular news story.
Some authors look at democratic journalism as taking in rights to free speech, assembly, human rights, the rule of law and other mechanisms to check abuses. It also takes in civic conscionsness and social solidarity. Journalism then has a clear link with democracy, and is shaped accordingly. This would also have different meanings in First, Second and Third World nations. The democratic role of journalism should transcend excessive commercialism, sensationalism, and manipulation by media elites.
, censorship
, and lack of professional review. However, other approaches will also suffer from many of these problems. In order to get a set of news stories, at some point, something must decide one story's rank over another using some criteria. A different approach at making such a selection simply changes the source of the bias.
Digg
Digg is a social news website. Prior to Digg v4, its cornerstone function consisted of letting people vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively. Digg's popularity prompted the creation of copycat social networking sites with story submission and voting systems...
and Newsvine
Newsvine
Newsvine is a community-powered, collaborative journalism news website, owned by msnbc.com, which draws content from its users and syndicated content from mainstream sources such as The Associated Press...
.
The effect of democratic journalism is that it promotes news based on the popular opinion of the majority, or the "wisdom of the crowd
Wisdom of the crowd
The wisdom of the crowd refers to the process of taking into account the collective opinion of a group of individuals rather than a single expert to answer a question. This process, while not new to the information age, has been pushed into the mainstream spotlight by social information sites such...
". This differs from more traditional approaches, such as the one commonly used in the newspaper industry, where an editor would decide whether to print a particular news story.
Some authors look at democratic journalism as taking in rights to free speech, assembly, human rights, the rule of law and other mechanisms to check abuses. It also takes in civic conscionsness and social solidarity. Journalism then has a clear link with democracy, and is shaped accordingly. This would also have different meanings in First, Second and Third World nations. The democratic role of journalism should transcend excessive commercialism, sensationalism, and manipulation by media elites.
Implementations
- Digg is the most popular and allows Digg users to publish, vote and comment on stories on Digg's website.
- coRank.com allows users to create their own news site within coRank where coRank users can publish, vote and comment on stories.
- Pligg allows users to create their own news site anywhere and allow any users to publish, vote and comment on stories.
Problems
A common problem faced by democratic journalism is the unreliability and bias of the voting system used, which may not reflect the actual opinions of the majority. Many of the mediums which help enable democratic journalism suffer from problems such as gaming, biasBias
Bias is an inclination to present or hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives. Bias can come in many forms.-In judgement and decision making:...
, censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
, and lack of professional review. However, other approaches will also suffer from many of these problems. In order to get a set of news stories, at some point, something must decide one story's rank over another using some criteria. A different approach at making such a selection simply changes the source of the bias.