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Landmark moments in citizen journalism Monday, March 30, 2009 Depending on whom you ask, citizen journalism is either pushing journalism forward or is unaccountable vigilantism. Either way, it is shaping the way we consume our news. Surely ordinary citizens were documenting and discussing news events before the advent of the internet but what separates citizen journalism from pure observation is the use of the net as an avenue to either aid or circumvent traditional media outlets and spread the news independently. Average Joes can take their own photos, record their own video and recount a story through blogs or other social media, often more quickly than a media organization can begin to report and in a more organic way than is usually presented by mainstream media. The following is a timeline of events in which ordinary citizens shaped the news, followed by an analog description of each landmark moment.

Twitter Basics for Journalists & Recovering Journos On Saturday, at the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, I gave a talk to an audience of mostly journalists explaining the basics of blogs, social media, and search visibility. People had lots of questions, more than I could get to in the session. I was getting stopped in halls, at parties, and even in bathrooms, to be asked things like, "Does it really make that big a difference if I blog under my own domain?" (Answer: Yes!) OK, I don't mind answering those questions. That's really why I went to this conference - because I know that journalists (many of whom are facing potential layoffs, or who have already been laid off) are in dire need of online media awareness and skills. So I'm going to do a bunch of posts answering questions, because it's more efficient to do that via blogging. This is one of those posts. By now you've probably heard about Twitter, the social media service that allows you to publish posts of 140 characters max. What Twitter does, in a nutshell: This service allows you to receive posts ("tweets") from other Twitter users whom you choose to "follow." Likewise, other Twitter users can choose to follow you. When you follow someone on Twitter, their tweets show up in reverse chronological order in the "tweetstream" that scrolls down the Twitter home page when you're logged in. The effect is somewhat like an ongoing Headline News version of what's happening in the minds and worlds of people you know or find interesting.

"Everybody likes to cite the Iranian protests as a great example of how the Internet and Social Media was able to bypass censorship and narrate a powerful, fast-shifting story to the world. But how much do we really know about what was happening online and how journalists outside of Iran connected to the Online information?"

Founded in 1974 San Francisco Camerawork encourages emerging and mid-career artists to explore new directions in photography and related media by fostering creative forms of expression that push existing boundaries. SF Camerawork Through exhibitions, publications, and educational programs, Camerawork stimulates public dialogue and inquiry about contemporary image-making in the context of current social and aesthetic issues. Camerawork has presented nearly 400 exhibitions in its thirty years of support and services to local, national, and international artists. Additionally, Camerawork has produced many exhibition catalogs and a publication, Camerawork: A Journal of Photographic Arts. Other educational programs and informational services offered are lectures, workshops, conferences, critique sessions, a reference library, and an active internship program.

Street Level was founded in 1989. From its inception it has provided artists and the public with the opportunity to produce and participate in photography and lens-based media. It aims to make artistic production accessible, both physically and intellectually, to a wide audience. Recognised for its integrated practice, the organisation promotes the work of artists through exhibitions, commissions, residencies, and publications; an education programme; community collaborations; open access facilities and training courses for the public. The exhibitions programme supports both emerging and established artists from local, national and international sources. Earlier exhibitions have included such diverse artists as Ian Breakwell, Chila Kumari Burman, Peter Kennard, Daniel Reeves, Maud Sulter, Andrew Stones, David Levinthal, and Elizabeth and Iftikhar Dadi. Critical ideas are also fostered through talks, symposia, and publications. Exhibitions and projects from the past five years are being listed on the archive section of the website. The education programme involves a range of collaborations in the community, with schools and with agencies working across areas of inclusion, social justice, and equalities. It aims to enable the creativity of non-artists, increase involvement by under-represented groups, and assist the artistic programme by engaging participants. A chronological list of projects will be listed on our education archive.

Joy is a graduate of Manchester Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art. She has developed a practise which is concerned with social and political issues with particular reference to history and cultural differences in contemporary society. As a photographer she makes full use of the media from video, digital and analogue photography to Victorian print processes. In 2002, Gregory received the NESTA Fellowship, which enabled her time to research for a major piece around language endangerment. She has exhibited all over the world and shown in many biennales and festivals and is also the recipient of numerous awards. Her work included in many collections including the UK Arts Council Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, and Yale British Art Collection. She currently lives and works in London.

The Raw File was created to produce and distribute socially reflective media that will provoke discussion. It is our hope that these conversations will intersect the lines of race and class, private and professional. Our content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License so that anyone may download, copy, exhibit, and distribute it for non-profit, educational purposes. We simply ask you to attribute this work to "www.therawfile.org". The Raw File has no agenda other than to provide a neutral and approachable environment for the documentation and dissemination of information by and about individuals and their communities, an outlet for stories that would otherwise go unheard into history. The Raw File is self-funded and in the process of being registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit . The Raw File… Founded by Brenda Ann Kenneally.

Dorothea Lange: The Photographer As Agricultural Sociologist By Linda Gordon To a startling degree, popular understanding of the Great Depression of the 1930s derives from visual images, and among them, Dorothea Lange's are the most influential. Although many do not know her name, her photographs live in the subconscious of virtually anyone in the United States who has any concept of that economic disaster. Her pictures exerted great force in their own time, helping shape 1930s and 1940s Popular Front representational and artistic sensibility, because the Farm Security Administration (FSA), her employer, distributed the photographs aggressively through the mass media. If you watch the film The Grapes of Wrath with a collection of her photographs next to you, you will see the influence.1 Lange's commitment to making her photography speak to matters of injustice was hardly unique-thousands of artists, writers, dancers, and actors were trying to connect with the vibrant grass-roots social movements of the time. They formed a cultural wing of the Popular Front, a politics of liberal-Left unity in support of the New Deal.

We got a preview of how important citizen journalism is likely to become in developing countries when social media played a leading role in covering the China earthquake and the Mumbai terror attack.

'Meta-reading': the generational differences in consuming news May 13th, 2009Posted by Judith Townend in Events, Online Journalism, Social media and blogging Turi Munthe, CEO and founder of the citizen journalism site, Demotix, shared an interesting thought with participants of the Voices Online Blogging Conference on Monday. The young Demotix interns consume news differently from the way he does. He elaborated to Journalism.co.uk after the panel. 'Meta-reading': "There is a generational split, but not in the way everyone imagines. It's much more recent than that," he said. People only ten years younger - he is in his 30s - consume news differently from the way he does, Munthe told Journalism.co.uk. The interns in the office ('who play a hugely important role: they're regional editors and they get properly stuck into what we do') read slightly differently, he said. "They are getting the Twitter feeds, and the blog posts, and the Facebook messaging and the free papers, and everything else, and are very happy with it. Much more happy with it than I am." "Essentially, they process information differently. It's a 'meta-reading'. It's not about individual brands. They are fully aware of all the back-stories of all the stories they're getting," he says. It's a 'degree of sophistication,' he said, 'which reads the interests behind the news as an integral part of the news'.

2005 and 2006 saw the popular recognition and commercial embrace of a phenomenon which is set to deeply affect the intellectual life of developed and developing nations for years to come. Yahoo! bought Flickr. Google acquired YouTube. Rupert Murdoch purchased MySpace, and declared the future of his NewsCorp empire to lie in the user-led content creation spaces of such social software Websites more than in its many newspapers, broadcast channels, and other media interests (Murdoch, 2005). Finally, TIME broke with its long-standing tradition of nominating one outstanding public figure as 'person of the year', and instead selected 'you': all of us who are active in collaborative online spaces (Grossman, 2006).

"There are times when technological change catches up with an idea. Now is such a moment, as social media transform how people receive and share news and information. Just a few years back the notion of journalism being a conversation, not a lecture, wasn't embraced widely in an industry content to transmit what reporters learned to audiences expected to consume it. Comfort with that notion grew as online comments and live chats assumed a role that Letters to the Editor once held on their own, albeit with greater anonymity and often less civility. Then, from the "audience" spilled forth blogs and photos, videos and tweets. Soon, the words "citizen" and "journalist" were joined in a marriage brokered by technology and nurtured by convenience as news organizations shed staff yet still needed to produce "content.""

Blackboard Collaborate software solutions offer a social, interactive learning experience with virtual classrooms, online conferencing, instant messaging and more collaboration tools.

interesting piece on how social networks helped build an audience for multimedia "It used to be so simple: Whether I needed to make my way through a police roadblock or explain to curious neighbors why I was taking pictures on their block, barking just two words usually did the trick: "Daily News!" In one breath, the transaction was complete. I had told them something about the authority behind my presence, and at the same time let them know exactly where they'd find my photos-in the next day's paper. I spent the better part of 17 years with the Philadelphia Daily News as a staff photographer and, eventually, the newsroom's first video journalist. Then, 10 months after taking a buyout, I found myself unable to respond to a local deli clerk's simple question: "What do you do for a living?""

"There is an unmistakable seriousness as well as a handsome hospitality in the range of method and morality, topic and topography on show." Times Higher Education Supplement The past two decades have witnessed an explosion of interest, research and writing on visual culture within the humanities and social sciences. journal of visual culture is an international, refereed journal which is a site for astute, informative and dynamic thought on the visual. The journal publishes work from a range of methodological positions, on various historical moments and across diverse geographical locations. It promotes research, scholarship and critical engagement with visual cultures.

"Finding the Frame is a gathering spot where multimedia journalists can receive feedback on their videos, audio slideshows and multimedia projects from industry professionals and fellow visual journalists. "

Photographers on Twitter: How They Use It By Qiana MestrichqianamestrichcloseAuthor: Qiana Mestrich See Author's Posts (6) Recent Posts * Braving the Sight Unseen: Interview with Blind Photographer Timothy O'Brien * Photographers on Twitter, Part 2: My Favorite Tweets * Photographers on Twitter: How They Use It * Photography Empathy: How You Feel Is What You Get * Your Camera Is an Agent for Change Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, of Panamanian and Croatian heritage, Qiana Mestrich has studied photography and its history for more than 15 years. Trained as a fine art photographer, Qiana's personal work ranges from portraiture to still life and landscapes. As a world citizen, she's also documented her travels to countries like Panama, Cuba, Trinidad & Tobago, the U.K. and more to come. View Qiana Mestrich's fine art photography on her Web site or read her blog, Dodge & Burn: Diversity in Photography. in Business of Photography on December 4th, 2008 What is Twitter? You may have heard of it from many different sources like the social media geeks in your life. Perhaps it was through corporate news like the recent Twittering Moms against Motrin incident or how the online shoe retailer Zappos uses this micro-blogging platform to transparently communicate with its customers. Regardless of what you've heard, it all started with a 14-year old Jack Dorsey (now CEO) who way back when wondered: what if you could create an instant messaging service to easily and quickly share your status with friends and vice versa? Personally, I created my own profile after reading that NASA's Phoenix Mars lander was posting updates of its mission on Twitter. Soon after choosing my profile picture and a photo to customize my Twitter background, I discovered there was a whole world of online communication happening-with over 3 million users all sending messages to each other, in 140 characters or less. Within the Twitter-verse, I've found many who identif

Research paper from 2008 plotting the evolution of Flickr and examining it's emerging role as a community forum for disaster-related grassroots activity.