Thursday 20 March 2008

Citizen journalists

Contributors to CairnsBlog will now have their writings seen by a far greater audience than just the just Cairns, Douglas and the Tablelands.

The Queensland University of Technology, in association with the Local Government Association of Queensland and On Line Opinion, has created a website which monitors blogs from around Queensland covering the local councils.

Dr Jason Wilson, a research associate with the Creative Industries Faculty at QUT, has contacted CairnsBlog seeking permission to post a selection of Strewth! contributors on his Queensland Decides site, to which we’ve agreed.

As part of the overall research project. Wilson has set up a 'hyperlocal citizen journalism'. As well as the existing partnership of us at QUT CIF, On Line Opinion, SBS, Cisco and the Brisbane Institute, the Local Government Association of Queensland is also on board.

"Maybe the best thing about it for me so far has been discovering some very strong local blogs in regional Queensland," says Dr Wilson. "Where communities are often desperately short of media diversity...trust me on this - I grew up in Townsville!"

QLD Decides monitors, among others, Cairnsblog, Strewth! and Strewth Reloaded in Hervey Bay on the Fraser Coast. "Both blogs have raised the hackles of local media and politicians alike - a sure sign that they’re doing a good job. Hyperlocal never looked so necessary," say Wilson.

Strewth! notes blogs are springing up all over the State as people decide they are no longer satisfied with having their news sanitised and trickle-filtered down to them by an entrenched establishment whose only interest is maintaining the status quo.

“Citizen journalists”, as Dr Wilson calls them, "are taking control of the agenda and reversing the flow of information, much to the chagrin of the established powers who are seeing their positions being undermined and eroded."

It brings to mind a line from a John Lennon song: “Power to the people - right on.”

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Go for it Cairns Blog! This medium has been wonderful for all those people who have felt disenfranshised and unempowered by a regime that bullies, ignores and ill- treats its constituents.
Cairns Blog has allowed us to get the "other side of the story" out there that the Cairns Post, Cairns based TV and radio stations either ignored or gave lip service to.

Thanks CairnsBlog! Their poor coverage of Val's win, says it all really and it must have been a real slap in the face for the Cairns Post especially when The
Australian came out with " Voters signalled a desire for greater controls on development in Queensland's local government elections, with candidates identified as being close to developers being defeated in high growth coastal areas."

Of course, the Cairns Post would never in a million years have admitted this, as they would never bite the hand that feeds them, and there is the crux of the matter.

Anonymous said...

Philosophy is the search for wisdom and truth ... it arises out of the resistance of the soul to its destruction by a perverted world.
Not working to discover the truth and not having reasoned opinions about what is happening in the world is a way of being complicit in the tyranny that is going on…. Livermore

The price we pay is to give Cairnsblog our ongoing Financial help ... every little helps John Babet Cairns Ratepayers Action Group (CRAG)

Anonymous said...

Spouting your own personal opinions and indulging your own biases does not make you a journalist. It just makes you a blogger, along with the millions of others around the world.

Anonymous said...

there are molecules and atoms, the rest is opinion.

Anonymous said...

“Citizen journalists”, as Dr Wilson calls them, "are taking control of the agenda and reversing the flow of information, much to the chagrin of the established powers who are seeing their positions being undermined and eroded."
And nowhere else is this being better done than in the USA. The Americans have had a gutful of their lying, obsequious media machine which sensationalises trivia and scandal at the expense of insightful, balanced investigatory journalism.

Anonymous said...

why are people so concerned with the material world, we are just ghost passing through it.

Anonymous said...

Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this post? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this post! It does not make sense.

Anonymous said...

i was a string-theorist before my time!

Anonymous said...

Sori Tumas...... no more Douglas just Cairns & the Tablelands now....

Anonymous said...

I would hardly call posting a link to the Obama/Hillary speeches "taking control of the agenda and reversing the flow of information".
It looks more like going down the path of the mainstream media who all took today off, no newspapers, no regular programs on TV.

Couldn't you at least have a cop watch section to keep everyone posted on where the speed cameras and breathos are currently operating? Now that would be reverse flow of information.