Citizen Videojournalism

First time I heard the phrase "citizen journalism" was around 2009, when I accidentally hit an article written by somebody "ordinary", posted on leading news portal. The article, which reports a night-long Vesak commemoration from enormous Borobudur temple in Magelang city of Center Java
later dragged my intention on how common people got involved in the breaking news. Took me thirty minutes to realize that the article was tagged under citizen journalism column.

In some blogging workshops years later, I then figured out how fast this kind of citizen-in-news reform actually grow. From the same sources I later knew that some catastrophic events in the country had been successfully documented by those in fact non-journalistic people.

Handycams, camera phones, and social media rise the rate of news made and shared by common people. The disastrous 2004's Aceh Tsunami marks one significant milestone of how citizen-videojournalism prove its huge influences in the structure of nation-wide news.

When citizen journalism might show us many more stunning images and footages in the next decade, we can start to think how to take responsibilities on how the news are made, eventually. However, just like all journalism outputs, those produced (or reproduced) by citizens could bring collateral effects, alongside with its proof on how fast the news reach our lives.

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