Defamation in Citizen Journalism

Perez Hilton is one of the most notorious gossip bloggers on the Internet, his opinionated rants about a diverse range of celeberities, has often gotten him in to serious trouble with people suing him for defamation of character; just one hurdle that bloggers and citizen journalists must go through to get their message across.

Blogs and citizen journalism are two very different things, blogs 'provide commentary or news on a particular subject' (Wikipedia), i.e. Perez Hilton's blog is primarily about gossip; whereas citizen journalism is also centred on news values, commenting upon recent events, usually with a political slant. Axel Bruns states in Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation, that citizen journalism ranges from "individually published news and politics blogs to collaboratively written and edited sites such as Indymedia, the technology news site Slashdot, or the Korean opinion leader OhmyNews".

Bruns goes on to state that "citizen journalism fundamentally disrupts the industrial journalism model by employing its users as journalists and commentators". Citizen journalism is such a prominent form of media that is has already shown an "impact on political processes in the United States, Europe, Korea, and many other countries around the world" (Bruns 2008).

However, it must be noted that to convey the messages that they wish to communicate to their readers, citizen journalists risk being sued for defamation. Defamation, means to "injure another's reputation by any slanderous communication, written or oral" (Dictionary.com). In my opinion, when citizen journalists are reporting on recent news events to do with entertainment, sports, finance and politics they have to damage the reputation and character of a person to convey the message in which they wish to communicate to their readers. For instance, if a citizen journalist portrayed a particluar political leader, celebrity or sports person in a certain way, then they may risk being sued for defamation.

In my personal opinion, citizen journalists have the right to free speech and to express their opinion of a person, group or organisation in any way they feel is necessary to get their point across. Citizen journalists should not feel that whenever they write an article they are at risk of being sued just for stating their opinion. Professional journalists do not get sued for defamation, however, it can be said that they are not sued because they do not usually have a bias; and, if there is then it is quite usually the company they work for who are sued.

References

Bruns, A. 2008. Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation.

A Week in the Open Source Software World

Having been a loyal and avid user of Internet Explorer for most of computer driven life, using the free software format of Mozilla Firefox was a different experience. Axel Bruns states that 'few users of computer software, few users of the Web are likely to be even remotely aware of the extent to which their experience of computer-mediated communication is made possible by open source software technologies' (2008, 39). A notion that i totally agree with, as i had not realised the scope of open source software and the possibilities that it entails.

The ability to only have one window open but have 6 or 7 different tabs astounded me, it may seem funny to some, but as a new user of the open source software of Firefox it was all new to me and the potential of open source software.

Furthermore, 'the Firefox Web browser, which now commands a small but significant portion of its market (at present, it holds upwards of 15% of the browser market, making a notable impression on the formerly overwhelming market dominance of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer)' (2008, 39); further displaying the fact that more and more people are realising the innovativeness of Firefox.

Spending a week using Firefox instead of my trusty old friend Internet Explorer, I found that Firefox is somewhat more reliable than Internet Explorer. It does have its downfalls, however, when having a numerous amount of tabs open; caution should be taken when closing down individual tabs as I found one day as i accidentally closed down the whole program, for instance, closing down sites that had taken a laborious time to find and would have to find again.

This is probably an amateur mistake or an error a computer illerate person would make. Although, I am neither computer illerate or an amateur at navigating my way through the Net, it provides a refreshing insight into how technology is changing so rapidly in front of our eyes that even the most skillful of Net surfers can be thrown by the ever changing technology of the Internet.

Bruns mentions in Open Source Software Development: Probabilistic Eyeballs that 'open source development...has played a crucial role in ensuring and protecting the unity of the Internet as a global network...' (2008, 39); therefore, new open source softwares are ensuring and protecting the unity of the Internet as a global status, as they provide different ways for users to access the Internet eg. Mozilla Firefox.

References

Bruns, Axel. (2008). Open Source Software Development: Probabilistic Eyeballs in Bruns, Axel, Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, New York: Peter Lang, pp.37-68.