Citizen Journalism and Public Participation in the Era of New Media in Indonesia: From Street to Tweet

Citizen journalism was initially practiced via mass media. This is because citizens trusted mass media as an independent information channel, and social media like Twitter was unavailable. Following mass media’s affiliation to political parties and the rise of social media, citizens began using Twit...

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Main Authors: Iswandi Syahputra, Rajab Ritonga
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Cogitatio 2019-08-01
Series:Media and Communication
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/2094
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author Iswandi Syahputra
Rajab Ritonga
author_facet Iswandi Syahputra
Rajab Ritonga
author_sort Iswandi Syahputra
collection DOAJ
description Citizen journalism was initially practiced via mass media. This is because citizens trusted mass media as an independent information channel, and social media like Twitter was unavailable. Following mass media’s affiliation to political parties and the rise of social media, citizens began using Twitter for delivering news or information. We dub this as citizen journalism from street to tweet. This study found that such process indicates the waning of mass media and the intensification of social media. Yet, the process neither strengthened citizen journalism nor increased public participation as it resulted in netizens experiencing severe polarization between groups critical and in support of the government instead. We consider this as a new emerging phenomenon caused by the advent of new media in the post-truth era. In this context, post-truth refers to social and political conditions wherein citizens no longer respect the truth due to political polarization, fake-news-producing journalist, hate-mongering citizen journalism, and unregulated social media activities. Primary data were obtained through in-depth interviews with four informants. While conversation data of netizens on Twitter were acquired from a Twitter conversation reader operated by DEA (Drone Emprit Academic), a big data system capable of capturing and analyzing netizen’s conversations, particularly on Twitter in real time. This study may have implications on the shift of citizen journalism due to its presence in the era of new media. The most salient feature in this new period is the obscurity of news, information, and opinions conveyed by citizens via social media, like Twitter.
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spelling doaj.art-3c77f2acb15f4a20841f5328f908feca2022-12-22T00:54:04ZengCogitatioMedia and Communication2183-24392019-08-0173799010.17645/mac.v7i3.20941112Citizen Journalism and Public Participation in the Era of New Media in Indonesia: From Street to TweetIswandi Syahputra0Rajab Ritonga1Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University, IndonesiaFaculty of Communication, Universitas Prof. Dr. Moestopo (Beragama), IndonesiaCitizen journalism was initially practiced via mass media. This is because citizens trusted mass media as an independent information channel, and social media like Twitter was unavailable. Following mass media’s affiliation to political parties and the rise of social media, citizens began using Twitter for delivering news or information. We dub this as citizen journalism from street to tweet. This study found that such process indicates the waning of mass media and the intensification of social media. Yet, the process neither strengthened citizen journalism nor increased public participation as it resulted in netizens experiencing severe polarization between groups critical and in support of the government instead. We consider this as a new emerging phenomenon caused by the advent of new media in the post-truth era. In this context, post-truth refers to social and political conditions wherein citizens no longer respect the truth due to political polarization, fake-news-producing journalist, hate-mongering citizen journalism, and unregulated social media activities. Primary data were obtained through in-depth interviews with four informants. While conversation data of netizens on Twitter were acquired from a Twitter conversation reader operated by DEA (Drone Emprit Academic), a big data system capable of capturing and analyzing netizen’s conversations, particularly on Twitter in real time. This study may have implications on the shift of citizen journalism due to its presence in the era of new media. The most salient feature in this new period is the obscurity of news, information, and opinions conveyed by citizens via social media, like Twitter.https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/2094citizen journalismIndonesiamass medianew mediapublic participationsocial mediaTwitter
spellingShingle Iswandi Syahputra
Rajab Ritonga
Citizen Journalism and Public Participation in the Era of New Media in Indonesia: From Street to Tweet
Media and Communication
citizen journalism
Indonesia
mass media
new media
public participation
social media
Twitter
title Citizen Journalism and Public Participation in the Era of New Media in Indonesia: From Street to Tweet
title_full Citizen Journalism and Public Participation in the Era of New Media in Indonesia: From Street to Tweet
title_fullStr Citizen Journalism and Public Participation in the Era of New Media in Indonesia: From Street to Tweet
title_full_unstemmed Citizen Journalism and Public Participation in the Era of New Media in Indonesia: From Street to Tweet
title_short Citizen Journalism and Public Participation in the Era of New Media in Indonesia: From Street to Tweet
title_sort citizen journalism and public participation in the era of new media in indonesia from street to tweet
topic citizen journalism
Indonesia
mass media
new media
public participation
social media
Twitter
url https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/2094
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