Bonnie

Admittedly, I had never heard of a mo-blog or a v-log before I had read this article. However, now I do know what these technical terms really are I do see how they prove to be popular amongst bloggers. The provide instant news coverage.

With the high quality camera and video-recording devices they have developed on mobile phones people viewing blog and news online sites can see high quality pictures and video clips from news as it emerges. In the readings this week what stood out for me was the vast area that citizen journalists were news-gathering. From London, to Thailand, America and Korea, people were recording, writing, shooting, blogging, mo-blogging etc from all parts of the world. The citizen journalism phenomenon is greatly a part of the effects of globalisation. People across the world can communicate instantly through pictures, video and writing about what’s happening in their part of the world because of technology. It is evident that major news events that effect a city or a national can now effect every person in every continent with a click of a button. Terrorist attacks and natural disasters that cause widespread damage and grief are the events that seem to attract the most cross-continental attention. people can view blogs or read foreign news from online news sites and get a detailed story of an event if the local or national news does not cover it. In the case of blogs it provides a much more personalised story you never really know how credible the material is but by being able to read the posts and responses it enables the reader to gain a wider understanding of an event or news story, and peoples opinions and experiences.

This is my response to the week 2 readings: ‘Why and How Convergence is Emerging.’

What an exciting time to be entering the journalism profession. It is apparent from this week’s readings that becoming a journalist can lead to many different specialised areas within the media, and enable us to reach more audiences that no more than a decade ago was unperceived. Journalists will today’s day and age need to be multi skilled in all aspects to be competitive for job placements. As pointed out in the readings the technological advancements in society plays a key role to becoming a successful multi-skilled reporter. If you are capable of reporting, writing, editing, shooting and transmitting your own stories your skills as a journalist is much more valuable to your employer. However, the advancement in technology and the role it plays in the media may have its negatives both for the reporter and the consumer. Sitting down with a hot cup of coffee and your favourite daily newspaper is fast becoming a tradition of the past with news online sites becoming more and more popular with the new generation. And why not? It’s easy, straight forward, everlasting and best of all it’s free! While these are exciting times in journalism it is also causing a lot of people to become insecure of their futures. Hopefully, the niche market of newspaper readers will be around long enough to be able to allow media owners to figure out how embrace convergence into a profitable and quality news source that will interest and inform its reader demographic.