The sheer variety of sources available makes consuming news today feel more like a lecture hall than a meeting for the modern-day assembly. We can sit in our seats and decide for ourselves where to get our news: left, right, or centre. The power to set the agenda and craft the narrative has been taken from the professionals. The walls of the hall are indeed only a product of the Internet and social media. The era of citizen free press has resulted from the negation of the walls of the hall, as they have been replaced by a billion tweets, a multitude of blogs, and social media live streams.
The phenomena described above are not simply a bunch of people expressing themselves. The ability to control, distribute, and validate information has been revolutionized. The multitude has replaced the so-called Unidos guardians of news coverage and storytelling. The walls of the hall are now replaced by a multitude of news sources, suited and unsuited to the modern-day marketplace. The news is now a sermon from a newly gained multitude. With the unsmooth telling of the new story, the multitude has provided new, smooth guidance for their power.
What is the citizen free press?
Simply put, the citizen free press is based on a model in which ordinary people, independent of mainstream news institutions, create news and commentary for the public. They use the Internet, including blogs, social media (such as X, Facebook, and Telegram), video platforms (such as YouTube and Rumble), and independent discussion forums. They use the Internet to sidestep the traditional vetting processes and corporate gatekeeping of the mainstream news industry.
The citizen free press can be seen as the journalistic equivalent of the gig economy. Rather than having a single newsroom, they have a global newsroom filled with numerous reporters and editors. The distribution of this model is based on collective distrust of established news brands and Internet News services, as well as a desire for news and commentary that is raw and unfiltered.
The Tools of the Trade: Camera Phones and Crypto
The catalyst for this revolution is the tools available to the public. A citizen journalist can use the pocket tools on their smartphone. Smartphones can be a handy tool for journalists. They can take pictures to document police activities, natural disasters, or any events that deserve coverage. They can connect to the Internet to livestream the protests and events, and social media can help spread the word.
In addition, there are encrypted messaging platforms, such as Signal and Telegram, that can facilitate secure communication with sources. Also, crowdfunding platforms like Patreon and GiveSendGo allow for financial independence from advertisers. Innovations, such as blockchain and other decentralised web protocols, also offer the possibility of a citizen-run, citizen-free press outlet that is unchangeable and resistant to removal. The time has never been better.
3. Gives The Freedom to Bypass Gatekeepers: The New News Flow
News used to follow a set and predictable path. Event. Reporter. Editor. Publisher. And then goes to the Audience. This is precisely what the citizen free press destroys. The sequence now goes event > witness with a phone > social media post > viral > audience (And then traditional media picks it up sometimes).
This is especially true with the Arab Spring and, more recently, in areas of conflict like Ukraine. Sometimes videos from ordinary civilians caught up in the conflict reach a large audience before the big news stations have time to send out a news crew. This is a powerful tool of the decentralised citizen free press, though many issues will be addressed later.
4. The Double-Edged sword: Speed vs. Verification
There is a significant problem here. Newsrooms, no matter their bias, have systems. They have fact checkers, legal reviewers, and multiple sources. The citizen free press has no system. It works as fast as a post or tweet. While this offers real-time updates, it also means misinformation and manipulation can flourish.
Rumours and false claims can go unchallenged. Videos can be posted without context, and a passionate witness can relay faulty information. The essence of a free press is its unrestrained operation, but this quality can also be used maliciously. It is the consumer’s responsibility to verify a claim at their own risk of being misled.
5. Case Study: The GameStop Saga
A good example of the citizen free press phenomenon was the GameStop short squeeze in early 2021. The Wall Street Journal or CNBC was not telling the GameStop story. The subreddit WallStreetBets reported it. Retail investors created a counter-narrative to institutional finance media.
They created memes, used streams, and challenged hedge fund positions with their own data. They took on the established Wall Street players. The GameStop short squeeze is a citizen-free-press phenomenon. Using the WallStreetBets subreddit is an example of the citizen press being utilized in the financial sector. Still, it shows the phenomenon is not limited to political news.
6. The Rise of Independent Commentators
In addition to citizen journalists, there is now a new class of media professional, the independent commentator, sometimes referred to as “YouTube pundits.” These people have little or no journalism training, yet they build enormous followings by providing commentary on the news from a particular ideological or analytical perspective.
They critique mainstream news stories, provide different perspectives, and create communities of consumers around themselves. To their supporters, they are a trusted and reliable news source, offering a competing narrative to established media. They are increasingly becoming a staple of citizen journalism and a free press.
7. Independence and Monetization
How is a citizen’s free press sustained? In the old days, they would use a model based on ads and subscriptions to cover the costs. Today, a citizen free press can rely on several different monetization strategies, including, but not limited to:
- Crowdfunding and subscriptions: Monetisation can be achieved by creating a direct link between audience support and citizen free press creators, usually via Patreon or Substack.
- Merchandising: Selling community-focused merchandise.
- Affiliate Marketing and Sponsorships: These operate in partnership with companies that the citizen free press community supports.
- Cryptocurrency Donations: Crowdfunding via the use of anonymous digital currencies.
This unique and independent funding model is what makes citizen free press content creators most attractive to their audiences. They can state, “I am not funded by a corporate parent or a pharma ad, I am funded by my viewers.”
8. The Algorithmic Amplifier
An algorithm fuels the citizen free press, and without knowing it, you can’t fully comprehend what it is. The algorithm that’s applied to social media is designed to gain traction to drive where it can spark comments, likes, and shares. Usually, content that is more shocking, controversial, and confirms a bias drives more traction.
This content can become an echo chamber, with powerful reach within a community but limited broader exposure. The algorithm giveth reach, but shapes the discourse in problematic ways.
9. The Mainstream Media Counter-Reaction
The mainstream media has tried to keep up with the citizen free press, resulting in either adaptation, co-option, or condemnation. This has resulted in
- Incorporation: News channels air “viral videos” recorded by citizens
- Dismissal: Alternative narratives get labelled as “misinformation” or “conspiracy theories”
- Competition: Mainstream media putting out their own podcasts, interactive digital content and social media to keep up with the attention span of the public.
The relationship is quite antagonistic and highly symbiotic. Each side defines itself in contrast to and in opposition to the other.
10. Legal and Ethical Grey Areas
The citizen free press operates in legal grey areas and potential risks. Legal protections like shield laws don’t apply to bloggers. Laws regarding defamation, copyright, and journalists’ privilege are being challenged. There are also legal grey areas with no clear answers: What responsibilities, if any, does a citizen journalist have? Is monetizing a video of a tragedy ethical? How do you shield the identity of a source when you don’t have legal protections?
These and other grey areas are questions the citizen press answers in real time, often through expensive lessons.
11. Global Results: From Protests to Revolutions
The Global results are also widely recognized. In Hong Kong, protesters used Telegram and Airdrop to share documents and organise. In Iran, videos of protests circulated despite government restrictions. In Myanmar, people captured the demonstrations and the military’s crimes. The citizen free press empowers people to resist regimes and makes it difficult for authoritarian governments to impose a total blackout. The citizen free press also empowers regimes to surveil and suppress in new ways.
12. The Community as Editor: Collective Verification
Some members of citizen free press have begun using crowd-based methods to address the verification problem. Using a distributed model similar to a traditional newsroom collaborative fact-checking process, decentralized communities join to verify videos by locating, translating, and cross-referencing the Audio and timestamps. While this process is not perfect, it compares to the fact-checking processes utilized in old-school newsrooms, making it similar to traditional news fact-checking practices. It is one of the many unique properties of the networked citizen free press that warrants attention.
13. The Future: Decentralisation and Web3
The embodiment of citizen free press and the citizen-led media landscape of the future is likely to be decentralised organisations and Web3 blockchain technologies. The news and journalism websites of the future will be owned by their readers and contributors through a tokenization system, rather than a corporate entity. Articles and videos can be stored on a blockchain, which provides an immutable record that cannot be censored or altered.
It will also be freedom at its core. It will be free of a centralized control model and will be funded by the community that consumes it. It will be designed to be decentralised and will serve as a model of preserved journalism.
14. Critical Challenges: Toxicity and Polarisation
We must confront the toxicity of the platforms created by (and for) the people. There is little editorial oversight. Anonymity allows for harassment and the spread of hate coordinated in the dark. The free press model can worsen divisive polarisation. This occurs when members of an audience are given content that is very one-sided and dismissively hostile towards anyone from the ‘other side’ of the issue. This model poses a serious challenge to an optimistic, healthy ecosystem.
15. Navigating the New Landscape as a Consumer
What do the changes mean for you, the news consumer? The age of passive reception is over. To interact with the citizen free press, you will need to develop the following skills.
- Practice Radical Media Literacy: Always ask: Who is sharing this? What is their incentive? Can I corroborate this elsewhere?
- Diversify Your Diet: Seek information from mainstream media, independent citizen free press, and sources outside the nation. Intentionally break the bubble created by your algorithms.
- Value Process Over Conclusion: Look for journals that provide documents, raw footage, and clear rationale rather than ones that deliver a catchy title.
- Support Responsibly: If you financially back a citizen-journalism creator, you should know what you are supporting.
It is unlikely that the citizen press will go away anytime soon. It is both permanent and profound. It has reinvigorated the power of the individual, enabling people to hold the powerful to unprecedented accountability. With that power comes responsibility. The creator has power, and the consumer of that power also has responsibility. It’s chaotic, revolutionary, flawed, and essential. Keeping in mind the 15 dynamics of this power is critical to understanding the world as it is, rather than how it is being presented to you. The town square is open to all, and they can all be heard. The essential question is, how will the powerful be held accountable?
You may also read itbigbash
