Citizen Journalism

When I, at the request of my friend, went to see Diary of the Dead on Easter Sunday, I hardly expected it to be as much of a comment on citizen journalism as it was on how to survive a zombie apocalypse.

The movie is filmed in hand-cam style and centers on a group of college students whose horror movie turned into a documentary. Throughout the movie, the popular media are portrayed as unreliable. They beat around the bush and give no important information about the supposed “virus.” By contrast, citizen journalists across the world are posting helpful videos online.

One of the students watches a clip on her cell phone of a girl in Tokyo who posted a video urging, “Don’t bury dead; shoot in head.” The film’s main character films the grisly deaths of his friends and finally himself in the hopes that the full truth will reach fellow survivors. After shooting the death of one of their comrades, his girlfriend, also filming, hands off the camera and says, “It’s too easy to use.” The point is that the camera is just as easy to use as the gun that was shot to spare his dead friend from turning into a full zombie. His partial post halfway through the movie receives 72,000 hits after only eight minutes, attesting to the incredible speed at which information travels today. In this era of widespread technology, people can get information from an incredible number of sources.

This movie, though far-fetched, is a testament to the power, influence and importance of raw, unfiltered content from everyday citizens capturing and discussing current events. Citizen journalism, though much of it is biased, plays a valuable role in keeping democracy strong, and is especially important when media outlets are unwilling or unable to put forth such blunt information.

Check out the blog of our own Dan Gillmor, an expert in grassroots journalism.