'Twitter has made a significant contribution to citizen journalism' Essay

'Twitter has made a significant contribution to citizen journalism'. Do you agree Argue your case with reference to at least 2 - Essay Example Citizen journalism has emerged as a contemporary innovation in the spectrum of journalism. To this end, it encompasses the new role played by ordinary citizens in the collection, reporting and dissemination of information (Anwar, 2012). Evidently, the efficacy of citizen journalism in reporting has been shaped due to its potential in inspiring the participation of a large target audience locally, nationally and internationally. Moreover, citizen journalism envisions a system in which persons can report pertinent issues that are relevant to an area or locality. The growth of citizen journalism has largely been influenced by technological advancement in the social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook. In reference to Twitter, it has emerged as a revolutionary social media tool whereby an increasing number of people are acting as citizen journalists. Moreover, Twitter has equally captured the attention of mainstream media houses. Consequently, an increasing number of media houses have embraced the use Twitter handles in the reporting of citizen journalistic news. To this end the plethora of media news handles dedicated to citizen journalism includes; Blottr, NowPublic, iReport for CNN, GroundReport, Demotix and many more (Rosen, 2012). According to a research finding by Infographic Labs, the popularity is evident from the 175 million tweets daily and the consequent 31 billion tweets recorded annually. Moreover, the increasing use of Twitter by citizen journalists has been spurred by several positive attributes of the social media technology. These include; its flexible posse power and high speed in sharing of information. In addition, it ensures efficiency whereby information can be received on time and edited accordingly. Furthermore, Twitters offers the luxury of simplicity, and flexibility in use by the citizen journalists. Over and above this, Twitter is a totally free social media service that is available to the majority of users (Knight Community New s Network, n.d.). To this end, Twitter has been used as a tool for citizen journalism in influencing contemporary activism, reporting on natural disasters and shaping of political landscapes. In particular, Twitter played a critical played a critical role in reporting of the political and social mandarins during the Arab Spring uprising. The Arab spring uprising that began in earnest in Tunisia and Egypt, was largely propelled by the use of social media communication via Twitter. Evidently, citizen journalists utilized Twitter in the organization of mass action protests. Moreover, mobilization and the spreading of awareness concerning the revolution were done via Twitter and Facebook. Evidently, during the Egypt revolution, 1.4 million tweets were recorded on the hashtag or search item ‘Egypt.’ Moreover, the hashtag ‘Jan 25’ recorded 1.2 million posts (Huang, 2011). A survey conducted on over 200 people during the uprising in Tunisia and Egypt revealed that they received updates via Twitter. To this end, 88% and 94% in Egypt and Tunisia respectively received information updates concerning the revolution through Twitter (Huang, 2011). Another survey during the Arab spring showed that the popularity of Twitter within the Arab world had increased astronomically. Consequently, there was a record of over two million tweets during the month of November 2010 (France-Presse, 2012). This by contrast, was a marked increase from 99,000 tweets in the month of October 2010