The 2008 Golden Scissors 

Of cyber-Championsship

Citizen Journalism in Zimbawe:

During the last week of February 2008, 26 participants from civil society organisations in Zimbabwe participated in a workshop in Harare which focused on using new media tools to highlight issues key to their organisations. Working under difficult conditions – equipment and manuals were delayed at customs and participants from some organisations were detained by Zimbabwean security forces – the workshop nevertheless demonstrated the hunger and ability of civil society organisations in that country to use all forms of media to effect change. 

I think that the condition in Africa, especially in Zimbabwe, is far to be easy. They just had the right to get several object of communication such as telephone or electronic. Then, the president Robert Mugabe "take the necessary steps" to have an eye on it, and to prevent the spread of illegal content on the net.

Citizen Journalism in Irak:

The citizen journalism becoming a rage in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, internet in Saudi Arabia is often sensured. Many websites dealing with social life are inaccessible. Almost 400 000 pages are blocked, because of "dirty things" such as homosexuality or women's rights.  Arabian people are very strict about it. Someone have been arrested for given his voice, and talk about disadvantages of being Muslim.

I think that the freedom of speech is not allowed in Saudi Arabia because arabian people have a strongly belief in religion. 

 Journalism had to adapt itself to the new technologies. Nevertheless, the word citizen, contribute to change the sense of "journalism". So technological evolutions,  first of all the Internet, brought to a profusion of information, owed partially to the will of expression of the citizens.

1)    Media to multimedia

The change to print media, then to radio then to broadcasting was not made without fear of seeing the paper disappearing. The paper establishes an unmistakable strength: it leaves tracks. Certainly it is always possible to register a radio or television’s program, but it is all the easier to have to only preserve the newspaper.  Furthermore, the various medias, which I have just quoted, are an addition. Certainly they often deal with the same information, but according to different glances, offer a real plurality of point of view contributing to the exercise of the citizen.

So the Internet upset this vision with a multimedia support grouping including text, image and sound. Nevertheless, Internet does not constitute a revolution in itself. Indeed, the traditional media, whatever they are (written, radio, television), use Internet to complete their information by taking into account in particular the citizen’s words. It is moreover in that sense that develops initiatives into citizen journalism.

 

2)    Of the traditional journalism in the citizen journalism 

With the growth of blogs, personal expression was widely facilitated. So, according to the number presently increasing of these blogs, the citizen expression took an essential place in the treatment of the current events. The initiatives of citizen journalism  thus don’t stop to develop all these points of view and offer them a real echo, and a real power. So, does those citizen journalism settle themselves in opposition even battling against the traditional media? Certainly not. The objective of the citizen journalism translates the exercise of the freedom of expression. The purpose of the journalism is to analyze all the points of view, more or less objectively. We distinguish from then on an essential stake for the journalism: contribute to assure this echo of the citizen’s words. The traditional journalism has to grow rich of this plurality. Citizen journalism allows a treatment of the current events real-time, in theory, without constraints (if they are the legal limits).

Journalism cannot confine to tell a fact without studying it. The word citizen thus contributes to bring a concrete, often engaged analysis, of raw facts.

So a definition of "journalism" could be " Study of a fact or a subject of current events most objectively possible, in the light of additional and\or contradictory points of view, and the analysis of which brings a real added value to information succinctly.