In today’s world, breaking news is spread very rapidly and i can assure you its not by the news reporters but by users of the internet and people who have access to cameras/camera phones. In the past it used to be that you received all your news from a big media company that would air it either at certain times of the day. Now you have people showing news and exclusive footage from their own personal devices, whether its on youtube or a blog site. When Baruch had a protest and footage of a female reporter being thrown out of the school was shown with students footage. That made the difference of what the media shows you and what you can see for yourself.
According to Jeff Jarvis, “Give the people control of media, they will use it. The corollary: Don’t give the people control of media, and you will lose. Whenever citizens can exercise control, they will.” We now have the power to show footage of things that the media wouldnt want you to see. In this sense we are the advanced media producers because we have the power to edit our own material. When someone wants to showcase their talents whether its singing or dancing, they dont have to go to a contest or try to get scouted by a talent agency. All they have to do is record themselves and post it on youtube and within an instance i guarantee they will get hits and views and some kind of agency will find that video of the person and never have to leave their office to recruit a talent.
I believe Jay Rosen made a true point because when you look at the world today, a lot of people have access to some sort of recording device whether its a video camera or a camera phone. These devices help people spread information faster than anyone could have thought at all. You post videos or pictures of lets say a crime scene or something that the news didnt get to in time and it goes on a social network like facebook or twitter and i guarantee you have a community following you within minutes. I personally didnt know about the KONY 2012 film situation, but within minutes after at least 20 people discussed the situation, i was more aware of what was going on then lets say some news media trying to sugar coat the situation.
I agree with your statment one hundred percent. In fact many times it is those individuals with the cameras and camera phones that give the news stations there media. People are not predictable so it is difficult for reporters to be at every place at every time because things occur in the blink of an eye. Whereas an incident occured and the story was passed on by word of mouth so the information was not completely accurate, now people can take out their camera phones and record everything.
I totally agree with your statement. I happy it has come this way because we are not limited anymore. Our minds are open to all kinds of media due to the rapid span of it. When you mention we can get exclusive footage not only from the news, I thought of an example of Saddam Hussein being hanged. CNN aired only up to the part where they put the rope around his neck, but there were footage of Hussein falling to his death that surfaced online.