How has the Internet changed journalism?

The internet has changed journalism through its power of connection. It connects people from all over the world and gives them the opportunity to communicate with one another. Because of this, people are able to tell others of events and news straight away. This could be through different methods of digital distribution such as uploading videos, taking pictures and blogging.

One quite significant example of those who have used the internet as a method of journalism are the activists of Arab Spring. They managed to, through social networking sites such as Facebook and Youtube, arrange ways of protesting against their leaders. They became citizen journalists and used equipment such as mobile phones and cameras to record the activism first-hand to tell and show others what was going on. This was particularly important as some leaders did not allow professional journalists across the borders of their countries and so it was up to the people to let the public know about certain events. There were however issues of this method of journalism. For example, security forces in Egypt set up a special unit to monitor internet activists. If they were caught posting anything online about activism they could have been killed or even tortured. There are benefits to citizen journalism however. Alexander (2011) said that ‘today there are vast numbers of people online, making it far more difficult for the state to track them all’.

Through being an active social agent, news uploaded or talked about by the general public on the internet could also make the information less biased then any information from a newspaper could be. It’s unedited as it may be straight off a person’s mobile phone or from someone’s first-hand experience. The internet has made journalism more quickly available and unbiased. It gives people the opportunity to become the journalists themselves spreading the news in a way that a newspaper or television cannot do.

Alexander, A. (9th February 2011) Internet role in Egypt’s Protests. BBC News, Middle East,p.3.

Youtube (2012) Youtube.[Online] Available from: http://www.youtube.com/ [Acessed 19th March 2012].