We Media: Where does citizen journalism emerge?

Posted by Martin Stabe on 4 May 2006 at 10:07
Tags: Blogs, Citizen journalism, Journalism, Reuters, We Media

Speaking on a We Media panel about participatory media in Asia and China, Rebecca Mackinnon just made a very interesting point.

Mackinnon, who heads Global Voices, an initiative based at the Berkman Center at Harvard University which seeks to bring bloggers from around the world to a larger overseas audience (and which recently linked up with Reuters), was previously an East Asia correspondent with CNN.

She recounted reporting on the emergence of Ohmynews, the South Korean citizen journalism site which remains the most significant project of the sort in the world.

Mackinnon argued that Ohmynews emerged out of specific socio-political conditions that existed in South Korea at the time. South Korea was an emerging democracy, but one dominant, conservative party controlled the media. At the same time, the country had among the highest rates of Internet penetration in the world. A whole generation, she said, felt an impetuous to participate in a way the existing media configuration

This is why something like Ohmynews emerged in Korea, but not in Japan. Another fact, Mackinnon argued is simply cultural. In Japan, she said, people view the relationship between individual, government, and the media differently and are less inclined to participate individually. The system was also more established and stable, with no impetuous to encourage the development of a new media configuration.

These are interesting points to consider. Over the past year, British bloggers have periodically wondered why no robust and rambunctious political blogosphere has emerged here the way it has so quickly in the United States. This periodically recurring theme re-emerged this week when Reuters reported:

… unlike in the United States, where bloggers have claimed credit for major political upsets, including the resignations of broadcaster Dan Rather and Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, British newspapers remain in charge for now of exposing the misdemeanours of public figures and institutions.

Leaving aside the question of whether number of political or media scalps claimed is the best measure of a successful blog subculture (short anwer: it is not), could similar confluences of economics, politics and culture hold the key to understanding why blogging and other forms of participatory media take off in some parts of the world but not others? Why is “mobloginng” a hit in Asia but nearly non-existant in North America?

There is certainly nothing inevitable about it. The mere existence of a technical infrastucture is a necessary but insufficient condition for the emergence of particular practices of participatory media.

Update: See also Alfred Hermida’s take on this, over on the BBC’s blog. He writes: “Would something like OhMyNews work in countries like the UK? It strikes me that we may be some way off from this happening here.”

Tags: Blogs, Citizen journalism, Journalism, Reuters, We Media