MIDTERM EXAM - Gatdula, Ria Abby S.

Gatdula, Ria Abby S.

BAJ-2B

1. In your own words, compare and contrast citizen journalism and community journalism.

    Although the two both require participation from the people, these two are still completely different from one another. The whole sense of citizen journalism revolves around any individual who does journalism practices—basically acting as a journalist to gain and report news that the mainstream media, sometimes, do not cover—despite not having any formal training or degree in the field of journalism. Citizen journalists can also provide their insights on every happening but the information they hold can make skepticism rise from the audience due to the possibilities of inaccuracy and bias. Community journalism, on the other hand, is all about writing a story focusing on a particular community where the local residents’ voices will be heard as they share about their community issues and events. This side of journalism offers a sense of engagement or connection with the people especially to those underrepresented communities as community journalists help in tackling issues unheard of. It requires a lot of dedication to reach these communities, but it is the main point of community journalism.

2. Choose one social issue and explain how citizen journalism or community journalism can be used.

    One social issue I could think of is the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Thousands of Palestinians have been dying and the death toll just keeps on increasing since the start of war in 2023. With this, boycotting some popular brands has been encouraged all around the world to show protest against Israel which has been the main oppressor in the said genocide. Community journalism can be applied to this kind of issue, since the objective is to know if people in a certain area, especially in the Philippines, are aware of the importance of the boycott and how it affects the ongoing genocide that keeps on taking away people’s lives. Although most people say our country is not directly affected by this issue, it is still highly important to have an awareness of what is currently going on and show empathy and compassion to those who are abominably affected, not just because the boycott is a trend or something we should do to avoid cancel culture. Community journalism could be a tool in order to know if people take boycotting seriously, or if they know what that is and its importance, and by asking them questions and seeking their insights about Palestine and Israel since most of the brands they use could be some of the companies that support Israel.