Enacting Social Responsibility

The defining feature of society is fluidity; society is not something static rather it is always changing. This idea of an evolutionary society is paramount when discussing technology, because the choices we make as a collective society ultimately end up shaping the influence that certain technologies have within our society. The most recent technology that society has influenced is the internet. The internet was originally created by the United States military as a closed network of information. But ever since the internet has been open to the public sphere its role has drastically changed. The internet was originally limited in scope, and was used to provide information to those connected to the limited network. But the internet has evolved into a more participatory medium where millions of users can connect and share information. This is the result of the social pressures exerted by the public sphere in a call for a more open and participatory medium. The result has been the explosion of citizen media.

Citizen media is a new form of participatory journalism, where citizens from all over the world actively create social networks where information can be provided and shared. The key aspects of citizen media are seen as providing a radical change to the mainstream media, presenting journalism as a social responsibility, and replacing objectivity with personal biases. This explosion of citizen media, seen as alternative journalism, has called into question what truly constitutes journalism? The most key defining feature of mainstream journalism has always been providing objective information to the public sphere so that they can make informed political decisions. What has been called into question about this definition recently is the notion of objectivity.

The key defining principle of mainstream media has been the strive for objectivity in the news. Now citizen media such as blogs, are calling into question this notion of objectivity. The key defining feature of citizen media has been that of personal accounts of stories that are heavily biased and present information from a certain point of view. This pronounced point of view allows the reader to understand the bias in the article and therefore formulate their own unique opinions. The mainstream media on the other hand states that they are unbiased; this is exemplified by FOX news slogan “fair and balanced.” Fox news is an easy target because their slogan “fair and balanced’ is often seen as comical when you are presented programming such as the O’Reily Factor, which clearly demonstrates a right wing bias. This article in the LA times deals with this issue of FOX news bias http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/30/entertainment/et-onthemedia30.

What is not lost here is the active role that the citizen must play in consuming this information. We can not idly stand by and be passive consumers of information, we as citizens, especially in this age of the internet, must be active consumers of information and seek to question everything we are told. That is because mainstream media is a business like any other in our capitalist society, and therefore information is viewed as their commodity. In order to make profits they must be able to sell their commodity, this undoubtedly leads to bias in the mainstream media because they are heavily influenced by corporate power. Citizen media is similar to that of mainstream media in this regard because it is written with a distinct point of view, only with citizen media this view is often explicitly stated. John Stewart from “The Daily” show is an example of an alternative news outlet that has a distinct liberal bias, and is critical of mainstream media. In this youtube clip John Stewart accuses the talk show hosts of CNN’s show “CrossFire” as ‘hurting America.’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj6JADOZ-8. Stewart states that talk shows such as “CrossFire” are hurting America because they are failing in their civic duty to be socially responsible. They fail in this regard because they present biased information that in turn just acts as propaganda for the ruling parties.

While mainstream media has always been viewed as a reliable source of information, the internet has not. This is because the internet is an open network where any one with access to this network can produce content. Wikipedia is an example of an internet resource that can be unreliable because content can be created by any one. This example shows how everything on the internet can not be trusted, just as information presented to us by mainstream media cannot be trusted because it has an underlying bias that is not presented to the public sphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy. Blogs and other forms of citizen media are similar to that of Wikipedia because the information is generated by ordinary citizens that are often not experts on the topics they are discussing.

Both the mainstream media and alternative journalism, such as citizen media present media with a certain bias. This is because the author of stories often has an ulterior motive, in that they are trying to persuade the general public to think a certain way. Therefore we need to be critical of every thing we read, realize it presents biased information, and be an active reader who forms his or her own opinion. Citizen media, such as internet blogs allow us, citizens, to become active in the public sphere and formulate and express our own unique opinions. This explosion of citizen media, facilitated by the internet demonstrates how the public sphere is changing, due to our decisions as a collective society. This evolution of journalistic practices is happening as we speak and write about these issues on the internet. We as citizens are actively shaping the public sphere and the end result will be due to our actions as a collective group. We citizens are actively shaping the future, the decisions we make will have a direct impact on the near future. Therefore we need to realize that the saying ‘ignorance is bliss’ does not apply in our current society, and we need to critically assess everything we read. In this time of change and we are actively shaping the future, therefore we should strive to make informed decisions based upon our own beliefs not those projected upon us.

Until next time keep Enacting Social Responsibility.

- The Ubiquitous Civilian