LEVEL 8 - Even Hot_Mumma69 is a Professional

The story of South Korea's struggle to citizen journalism.

Imagine this:
Hot_Mumma69 writes an article for the Hankyoreh newspaper in South Korea, she discusses her political preference and gives evidence based on her research. She’s proud of her work, hands it to her boss and he tears it up in her face. BAM! Bye bye career. 




So maybe it wasn’t that harsh but in the 1980’s freedom and full advocacy was hard to come by. Media outlets and major news stations were the watchdogs of the Government, in a time where no one could discuss any political allegations, the audience was given a one-sided view on almost everything.

In Isozaki's books he discusses the ways the Government has control and what they have control over.

"The South Korean state controlled resources and their distribution in all spheres, including politics, economics, social welfare and autonomous activities by non-governmental groups" (2002, pg 288) 

It looked as though South Korea was plummeting into the dark abyss of full Governmental control and Hot_Mumma69 was out of a job.  But not all was lost. By 2003 a new Prime Minister was elected, Roh Moo-Hyan, (we’re going to call him Roh03). Roh03 was given the opportunity to turn the current state of South Korea around and his first order of action after he was elected was to allow his first interview as PM to OhMyNews. OhMyNews was one of the first online newspapers that made room for the public to speak. It is an open source style of news reporting where people can send in their stories and they can be published online. Their slogan ‘every citizen is a reporter’, fits well in the topic of citizen journalism and as discussed in the tutorials can have issues. However, considering OhMyNews has almost 15 million visits per day, I would say it’s working. Not only as an online portal but as a place where South Korean’s can safely have a voice. There are still some restrictions in South Korea, for example, the current Government is able to limit the expression of ideas that circle the communist party of North Korea. In other words, they don’t like it when you are pro-North Korean. But apart from that you are practically free. 

The question that arises from this story is,how far will citizen journalism really go?

                                          

I believe there is still a long road ahead for the boundaries of professional vs amateur to blur completely, but I also argue that without citizen journalism there would not have been civil disobedience and ultimately Non-Governmental Organisations. We want the amateur to become the professional. We want the girl to become the journalist. As Bruns states in his article:

“the very term ‘journalist’ has been broadened to include not only core news professionals, but also commentators, hosts, and a variety of other media personalities” (2009).

Because not only do we want Hot_Mumma69 to be a professional in the bedroom, we want her to become a professional journalist too.

           

SOURCES:

Bruns A, 2009, 'News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism' 
URL: http://produsage.org/files/News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf

Isozaki N, 2002, South Korean Advocacy for Democratization,the state and NGO's: Perspective from Asia, Shin'ichi Shigetomi ed. Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore