Talk:Citizen media

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[edit] improvements needed

several problems:

  • this article is very US-centric in examples and scholarly references
  • mixes the US media reform movement, media literacy and anything related into the citizens media description- totally confusing.

Actually, the US media reform movement focusses on mainstream media (check mcchesney and the freepress network); as does most media literacy education.

  • the word citizen media is weird... who uses it? have not seen that in research (at least not in English)

suggest re-organizing! Bine maya 11:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] response

  • Hi Bine maya! If I understand correctly, your criticisms seem to be threefold:
  1. too US-centric : I have clarified one part to address this. But how else would you propose we fix this? If you have any non-US data, you could add that to the article, then have sections for each country.
  2. poor name for the article. I would support a move to a better name, as I have been simply improving an existing article, and merging related pages. Presently, all of these presently link here: Democratic Media, Participatory Media, Public Access Media, Community Media, and Media Democracy. I have been contacted by some grad students who are writting a Media Democracy article, so let's forget that one. Now, which would be the best? I would suggest either "Participatory Media" or "Community Media" as best.
  3. confusing : I disagree, and feel the intro is clear. The "media literacy" bit is clearly attached to the "Media Democracy" entry, which will soon be a distinct article. Without the "Media Democracy" section, would you still think things are unclear or confusing? Bhuston 12:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] response

  • Sorry, I jumped in and cut this article back a bit - i was one of the original authors who tried to steer this into an inclusive light. It seems as if many topics were being addressed at once and clearly all require their own articles. "Citizen media" is a new term put into use at the last Free Press Conference for Media Reform, and I think it most accurately reflects that this kind of media is:
  1. originally authored by unaffiliated individuals
  2. does not necessarily contain elements of journalism (why Citizen Journalism is not a great term to apply here)
  3. does not necessarily indicate local centricity (why Community Media is also a poor representative title)
  4. does not distinguish between media that does nor does not have a social, political, financial agenda (why Democratic or Participatory Media doesn't represent well - lots of blogs about cats and puppies that are arguably included under the citizen media umbrella)

Participatory, democratic and etc, should all have their own articles specific to their movements. Also, I have yanked out a lot of biased commenting about whether the US mass media is good or bad, or why citizen media is or is not important. Lets try to develop this article from this (what I think is a) neutral and inclusive perspective. Hope these changes are contributing in a positive way. --Sean Effel 23:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


sorry have not been here for a while. Right, Seaneffel- the debate about terminology is ongoing and hairy and largely unresolved, in academica and elsewhere. rather than trying to resolve it here by redirecting everything in the neighborhood to this article, we need to make separate ones for the most important ones. good idea to take out the stuff about US mainstream media. that has its place in the media democracy article.

  • I'm not so sure if freepress includes blogs about puppies under 'citizen media' (gosh i hope not!) but if it does we need to distinguish it from:
  • citizens' media: it was coined in academic writing by Clemencia Rodriguez but has been in use longer in activism. Bine maya 10:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)