The Beginning of the End for Citizen Journalism

"Citizen journalism also has stabilized. Fewer than one in 10 Web users say they have created their own original news or opinion piece, according to Pew, and comment sections on blogs or mainstream media sites, which were supposed to turn the old one-way media model into a two-way street, are often too profane, hateful, or off-point to attract people. Only one in four Web users has left a comment—probably no more than wrote letters to the editor in decades past"

You have already seen this happen to some extent if you were a blogger in the past five years. People don't comment enough and if they do, all they leave behind is rants. The community feel of blogging which initially attracted everyone is probably now lost to Twitter and may move on to something else in the future. But if Wikipedia has to resort to recruiting then things are getting really bad.

[Link to The Beginning of the End for Citizen Journalism]

“The Beginning of the End for Citizen Journalism” [Short URL: http://www.ipatrix.com/?p=3605] was published Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 10:00 am by Patrix, filed under Asides, Weblogs, and tagged as blogging, journalism, social media. Both comments and linkbacks are closed.

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http://www.semanticoverload.com Semantic Overload
There is some truth to the article, but it also has a lot of stuff. A lot of the behavior outlined by the article can be explained by the ‘novelty’ factor. When people see something new, it will pique their interest and exploring it is a reward unto itself. So people tend to use it to understand it. Once the novelty factor wears out, only the hardcore fans and professionals occupy the niche. It explains everything from the slinky and beanie babies to blogs and twitter. I am surprised that the author of that article did not make that connection.
I have a couple more arguments, but the comments section may not be the best place for it. Let me write that up as a blogpost and send you a pingback :)
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
@Semantic Overload: I had several points to make on the article too but I thought nobody would read it much less comment on it ;)
http://www.semanticoverload.com Semantic Overload
@Patrix: Given the paucity of readership/evidence of readership, I have resorted to a different motivation for blogging: to crystallize my ideas and opinions into a strong rhetoric for the times that I end up in a real discussion about issues with real people. :)
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
@Semantic Overload: Yeah but I’m sure you don’t want to discuss those ideas with the same people who read your blog :) Better keep them separate.
http://windyskies.blogspot.com Anil
One issue is finding new readers, as the ‘older’ readers go seeking new blogs of interest or switch over to say, Twitter.
I’d imagine that commenting, to an extent, is usually directly proportional to the ‘newness’ of the blog excepting ofcourse the dedicated readers who might actually connect more with the ‘familiarity’ with the blogger developed over time than his blog in its current form.
That said, the rate at which content, not necessarily original or interesting, is being created, the chances of readers who might actually like your blog finding it, Google notwithstanding, is reducing by the day.
Many former bloggers turning to Twitter might have done so on realising ‘connectivity’ they could only aspire for when they were blogging.
By ‘connectivity’ I mean those who respond to their tweets, or those who seek to follow. With blogs it can only come from comments, or at most Feedreader numbers.
Numbers offer a certain tangibility to one’s effort, and Twitter offers it to an extent, and fairly instantly as well.
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
@Anil: I think it is more to do with people trying to consume as much information as possible without pausing to take a breath or commenting on the stories they like. Why would you engage in a conversation when there are 100+ links still unread? It is like a mad race to ‘Mark All as Read’.
You’re right about it being instant and easier on Twitter hence its popularity. Sometimes I get more @ replies on Twitter for a post I have linked there than on my blog.
http://windyskies.blogspot.com Anil
Oh yes, that an important factor as well. The ease of available links (distributed via Twitter, FB and the like) will gravitate potential readers away from blogs and toward ‘linked’ reading material appearing on the timeline, as you rightly pointed out.
And on Twitter, knowing you’re online will quickly draw @ replies as feedback to posts linked, even if there’re not as many @ replies when you’re offline on Twitter. The latter is one key difference with sharing links on FB where even when you’re offline chances are you’d get an equal or numerically better feedback on your wall than when you’re online on Twitter. Might have to do with the difference in the dynamics of scroll vis-a-vis time elapsed.
On streams I monitor from time to time, bloggers are reporting better incoming traffic to their blogs from FB links (their own and from others’ accts.) as opposed to from Twitter links (their own and from others’ accts.). How is it working with you?
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
@Anil: Since Facebook is not just about status updates, it often tend to attract a higher click-through rate or greater interaction on links you share. But more serious or thought-provoking the link, the fewer are the comments but a FAILBLOG link might attract more ‘likes’ and comments. But that’s the nature of commenting irrespective of the platform.
Since my blog is under a pseudonym, I don’t share my links on Facebook which is under my real name.

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The Beginning of the End for Citizen Journalism

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