Citizen Journalism and Stomp

During EIR lesson, the class has come out with a list of words that describe what citizen journalism meant. I have recorded it down:

a) User-submitted/ citizen/ public
b) Non-professional reporting
c) No privacy (invasion)
d) Sharing/ contribution
e) Freedom of views
f) subjective/bias/unbiased
g) Blogs/educational/reviews/news/wikis

Next, we were asked to evaluate Stomp based on 2 out of 9 criteria assigned to us. They are 'currency' and 'assessibility'. After evaluating the site, we have concluded that Stomp provides up-to-date information as the date of the source produced is within this week. Also, users do not need to register or log in to access the articles. However, registration is required to comment on a post. Large amount of pictures and videos is also available in Stomp and it is best viewed with IE 6.0 or Firefox 1.0 or above. Singapore Press Holdings Ltd has the copyright ownership.

So, what do I think of citizen Journalism and Stomp?

Basically, Stomp provides reporting from professionals such as The Straits Times as well as user-submitted reports and comments about anything under the sun. Most often than not, these contributions are public and the netizens' opinions and views of certain topics or subjects. The reports and articles can ve subjective, biased or unbiased and it ranges widely from socially important news to sharing of displeases about random people on the streets. For example, one can submit an entry to Stomp about a ransom student couple holding hands outside school premises. In addition, photos or videos are taken and uploaded into Stomp which could easily invade into others' privacy. Most of the times, the author of these articles would not use their real name . Thus, it is difficult to track them down. Hence, you would not know if one day an article written about you could end up in Stomp!