Citizen and Community Journalism Midterm Examination ┃Ogaña, Czarina Gale A.

1. In 6 to 10 sentences, differentiate citizen journalism and community journalism in your own words. 

    A particular type of news journalism known as "community journalism" concentrates exclusively on one community, region, or group of people. Unlike national news, it immerses community members in their everyday lives, including their opinions and ideas, encouraging them to pay attention to the unique perspectives and life stories of each person. It is also utilized as a bridge and instrument in the information gap in local government through all facets of the covered neighborhood, ensuring accessibility and providing attention to all of its constituents, particularly the ones who receive little to no support from the government.

    This stands in sharp contrast to citizen journalism, in which ordinary people use social media and the internet to create and disseminate news. This serves to increase the awareness of those community members regarding concerns that may not be known to them on a local or global level. Despite the benefits it offers in terms of information dissemination, critics take issue with these individuals because they lack expertise in this field and do not have credentials as journalists. They frequently ignore the veracity and legitimacy of the entire situation since they fail to perform fact-checking before disseminating whatever story they want to tell the public.

    Community journalists who have studied, sufficient media experience, and are professionals in their field are therefore more reliable than citizen journalists because they lack professionalism in gathering, editing, and disseminating news to the public.

2. In 6 to 10 sentences, choose a unique local issue that you think can be resolved through community journalism and explain why in your own words.

    Here in our neighborhood, factories have been established over the years, most notably an agricultural facility that produces feed for chickens and livestock. These companies have played a significant role in the growth of our town because they are well-known around the nation and continue to expand. However, because of the materials they use, the smoke from the massive machinery that produces the feeds always smells terrible. As a consequence of this, people around them inhale it, particularly in the barangays near these businesses, which is dangerous for their overall well-being and may result in respiratory problems. Some community members have already complained to our town's local government, but as of this writing, nothing noticeable has changed. This indicates that the government hasn't given serious consideration to the complaints made by the people and failed to take any action to address them. For this reason, I believe that community journalism could aid in raising awareness of this issue in the neighborhood. These voices can be a way for leaders to hear the frustrations of their community members by gathering and presenting individual stories, experiences, and concerns.