 Welcome to another segment of our program. Today we are very happy to have with us Professor K.V. Nagraj, head of the Department of Mass Communication, Asam University, Siltia. So, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. So, today we are going to discuss about citizen journalism. As we all know, citizen journalism is an upcoming concept in journalism where the citizens themselves take part in disseminating information and news and views to the society. So, sir, basically like we want to know regarding the importance of citizen journalism in society, its impact and what are the steps necessary so that the citizen can participate in this process? I think I should give you a brief historical account of citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is a concept which comes from the concept of participatory communication, participatory mass communication, participatory journalism, because now we have a concept called prosumer concept. Prosumer means in a knowledge society, in an information society, every individual produces information, knowledge and he also becomes the consumer of the same information or knowledge, whatever it is. So, this concept became very much prominent in the western countries, particularly the United States of America and the European countries. If you go through a report submitted by Sean McBride to UNESCO on the new information and communication order in the world, it is titled Many Voices in One World and that deals with this participatory aspect of mass communication or communication. And for quite a long, we have been talking of interactive communication and interactive journalism, interactive politics, everything, democratization of communication. In that respect, I should tell you many countries have already experimented with participatory journalism. You will see community radius won't and managed by the people of rural communities or even in urban centers you will find small groups having their own radio stations reaching out to their own audience. Similarly, films are produced by the people, they are the directors, they are the audience, they are the characters, they are the actors and actresses. Imagine such a situation is quite interesting and there are areas where professional journalists cannot reach. When events happen and these events are to be reported and you must understand globalization has brought in certain limitations on journalism. We are more interested in what is happening across the continents but not in our local areas and local issues, local problems, local events should be reported. Sometimes certain events cannot be reported by journalists who cannot reach the spot immediately. That way the civic issues, problems of the people can be highlighted by the local people themselves. Anyone can become a journalist, he can collect the information, give it to the media house and the media house can verify the information and it can be published, it can be broadcast, it can be telecast and it reaches out to a vast majority of the people and by that you are also making the public participants in communication. It is a way of making people take interest in their own affairs. What happens in most of the countries is people become a little bit negligent towards their own issues. There are problems, they don't bother about it and people in the administration, people in power, when they don't get information they keep quiet or even if they get the information maybe because they are known to the majority of the people there is a kind of lethargy and by publicizing certain issues, certain events you can draw the attention of the people in power as well as you can make the public opinion very dynamic. You know public opinion is the bedrock of democracy and even a small issue in a local community which is to be solved, can be solved if the public opinion becomes vibrant. People will have to be assertive in every democracy. Mass media are also part of the democratic setup and if people take interest in this fourth estate, I think democracy will really serve the people. You know as such democracy is a slow process and unless people become active it will be a little slow only and people can energize, make democracy vibrant by participating in mass communication through citizen journalism. This is what people talk of. It is an old concept but it has come to India very recently with the arrival of the satellite television channels and some television channels are encouraging citizen journalism. They are asking people in different corners of the country to send the clips, visuals and they try to highlight the issues and draw the attention of the concerned authorities and that way it is a good development. So do the general public, do they have to adhere to certain rules and regulations while submitting their news, views or as we have said in the audio clips, video clips to certain news channels and other organizations? Do they have to follow a particular set of rules like certain concepts of ethics related? So do they just concern any news or any views, any videos? I will try to answer your question in two parts. The first part I will take as the production aspect, the coverage aspect. There are questions asked, the professional questions. The professional question is when a person is not a professional journalist or a media person, what is the level of credibility that he enjoys? That is the degree of credibility. There is a question. Some people can misuse and they can give some false information and they can manipulate. There is a possibility, I don't deny. That is one of the reasons why I was also initially not in favor of citizen journalism for the simple reason. If you belong to a media house, you are responsible to that media house and the media house can be hauled up in any court of law for the omissions and commissions of the concerned journalist. But when it comes to a citizen journalist, he is not attached to any newspaper organization or any television channel or a radio station and you have to believe him and sometimes it's so difficult to cross verify the facts, you have to believe him and you have to give it out. If it is wrong, then he is not in trouble, but you are in trouble. And many professional journalists say this accountability factor is very important. That is one way. And the second thing is the quality of production. See, if a person does not know what is news and what is not news, if he is not aware of the news values, what is important for the people, what is not important for the public, then he will upload anything and everything which may not be of any use. We will be wasting our time and also we can't go on teaching the general public the finer aspects of coverage, ethical, legal, technical, even journalistic aspects. So it becomes really difficult. But today people say technology has made everything possible and technology has made the coverage very easy. If someone knows how to manage a camera, how to use a camera and technology makes it perfect. If you want to focus, for example, there is autofocus. If you want to adjust light, automatically the camera adjusts depending upon the availability of light. Now when everything is being managed by technology, the job of a person is only to capture the event either on the camera or on his mobile or write down and transmit it to the media house. And the media house can always verify sending by sending someone and then it can publicize it. Here what is important is, you know, there are certain local or what we call as community issues. These can be highlighted for the benefit of the community. You can call it as citizen journalism. Perhaps I believe in a different form it existed as community journalism. In community journalism, journalists themselves were going out. Here you are taking the citizens, the common people and making them journalists either by choice or by default. And it gives them an opportunity to highlight the local issues. That is one thing. And the most important aspect is it is also a form of media literacy. You are making a person take interest in the media operations. And the media operations are quite complex. And once a person starts appreciating, not only he takes interest, he will also make some others take interest by seeing him on television screen or by seeing his photograph in a newspaper. Some more people may take interest in civic affairs. Normally it is not related to crime or, you know, suspense or mystery things. Normally citizen journalism focuses on issues related to the community well-being. But at times certain events concerning certain people who are at the receiving end within the system, their problems can also be highlighted. And that way citizen journalism is a very good trend. At the same time, you know, it is a powerful tool. It depends upon how you use it. You know, anything can be used for good or also for bad. And unless people become morally conscious, ethically stubborn, manipulations cannot be stopped. And I personally feel most of the people are good. Most of the people are ethically strong. Most of the people have the moral fiber. And that's why citizen journalism is thriving in India. Of course, it has made a very late entry into India. But I think there are television channels like CNN, IBM and also I think Times Now, they are encouraging citizen journalism, which is a good sign. But if you ask me about the professional quality, I have my own doubts. I have my own doubts, because they are not educated. They are not literate in media operations. There shouldn't be any hard and fast process like that person has to be media literate or he has to have a big green mass communication. Any person from any background can contribute to this. Anybody. If you want to use, of course, it is not to degrade the description as that any Tom, Dick and Harry can become a citizen journalist. That's what we say. I think, in fact, very recently, I was in Manipur University conducting a workshop on citizen journalism. And it was a nice experience because we started telling people about how it can be adopted to the local situations. Manipuri is in such a situation where everyday existence is a problem and how to highlight the problems, I think it is really a happy hunting ground for citizen journalists. And I think it can be done anywhere and everywhere. I will also tell you one more thing. There is a wonderful development in certain metropolitan cities, particularly with regard to print media. It is known as neighborhood newspapers. Neighborhood newspapers, they don't go beyond a particular suburban locality. For example, you go to Chennai. If you go to Chennai, there is a locality called Adyar. And Adyar has got its own newspaper. It is only for the people of Adyar. Go to Mylapore. There is a newspaper called Mylapore Times. It is only for the people of Mylapore. It doesn't go beyond. And this is a kind of citizen journalism as well as community journalism where the local issues are brought to the notice of the people. And citizen journalism don't think it should always highlight only the problem aspect. It can also highlight the positive aspect. For example, neighborhood newspapers, if there is any birth in any family, they will highlight it. If somebody gets married, they highlight it. What you call as society news, social news. See, if there is something good happening, you can also highlight it. It is possible. But unfortunately, our conception of citizen journalism is only to highlight the problem areas. I think we