Everyone's A Reporter

Citizen Journalism & Traditional News

The strong grasp of social media has allowed anyone to become a journalist. We now have the power to record, post and ultimately make our own news that can potentially reach masses. Independent citizen journalists first emerged as amateur bloggers, who challenged mainstream news but as more social platforms emerged, citizen journalism spread like wildfire. Professional journalists were initially concerned by citizen journalism due to fearing losing their authority, until media outlets such as BBC introduced “Have Your Say” in 2005. (Wall, 2015) This enabled citizens to tune into the news program with little stories in their local area. Citizen journalism is a profound new tool for us, and gives us a voice to address issues and speak our own truth. However, it should never be our main source of news due to higher levels of bias and the ease of manipulation. In saying this, in recent years traditional news has been slandered for producing biased, selective and on occasions false news. However, in countries such as North Korea ‘citizen journalism’ is not a familiar concept, and the only news they receive is heavily filtered by their government. Who can we trust to tell us the truth?

Everyone's A Reporter: Text

Freedom of speech is a right that many of us take for granted, as in many countries we are able to be journalists everyday without many repercussions. North Korea is considered to be an authoritarian environment with its coercive tendencies and therefore citizen journalism is considered, “a radical threat to the status quo.” (Wall, 2015). If any citizen breaches this then they may face physical harm, imprisonment or even death. (Wall, 2015) Since citizens in North Korea are not legally obligated to act as journalists due to current restrictions, they rely on the news provided to them by the Korean Government. Whilst smartphones have been a critical tool for citizen journalism across many parts of the world for the last decade, North Korea has only just allowed the use of smartphones. However, this has come with many restrictions regarding internet access and filtering, tracking and monitoring, allowing the North Korean Government to control the content viewed by the citizens. Reporters Without Borders exposes that North Korean citizens who look at online media that is from outside their country will be sent to concentration camps. If North Korean citizens were legally able to publish their own news freely, then we would hear more about what happens in North Korea. Sadly, these people are not allowed to publish media content, as their freedom of speech is non-existent.

Since, North Korean citizens can not engage in their own journalism practices they rely on the KCNA for all of their news. North Korea only has one source of news which has been established by the North Korean Government. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) is the only official source of news that North Korean citizens have access to. This news is incredibly biased and only portrays the news of the North Korean Government for both domestic and foreign consumption. Reporters Without Borders states that the North Korean government has become more lenient in recent years with providing more news from foreign countries, but there is still rigid control over what the public can access.

Realistically both citizen journalism and traditional news broadcasts will never be fully unbiased but as viewers and now creators we need to learn to listen but not believe everything we hear. North Korea acts as a harsh reminder that accessing news and publishing news is a privilege and not a given human right.

References

Echosec, 2015. The Rise of The Citizen Journalist. [image] Available at: <https://www.echosec.net/blog/the-rise-of-the-citizen-journalist> [Accessed 15 August 2021].

RSF. 2021. North Korea : Full control of information | Reporters without borders. [online] Available at: <https://rsf.org/en/north-korea> [Accessed 14 August 2021].

Wall, M 2015, ‘Citizen Journalism: A retrospective on what we know, an agenda for what we don’t’, Digital journalism, vol. 3, no. 6, pp. 797–813.