The People's Tech Takeover

THE PEOPLE'S TECH TAKEOVER IPHONE THRIVES AS DIGITAL CAMERAS AND TRADITIONAL PHOTOJOURNALISM STRUGGLE TO STAY ALIVE MANY WOULD SAY THAT 2011 WAS A YEAR OF PROTEST. The Arab Spring saw citizens overthrow longstanding regimes abroad, and the Occupy movement in the states drew attention to protests and unrest here at home. An interesting subset to these events has been how they have been displayed by a shift in mass media and journalistic communication: information about these movements has been delivered to the public less and less by traditional media, and more and more by ordinary citizens with smartphones and twitter accounts. THE CAMERA YOU TAKE WITH YOU 1 EVERYWHERE The most recent iPhone, the 4S, had its sales top 4 MILLION UNITS SOLD IN THE FIRST WEEKEND. THE IPHONE 4S CAMERA boasts an impressive technological set up (especially for a phone) Face detecting technology 8 megapixels Advanced In-camera light-capturing optics (f/2.4 aperture) photo editing HDR ability Hybrid infrared filter Ability to text, call, surf the web, store music, A5 chip (image signal processor similar to play games, etc ones found in DSLR cameras) Ability to immediately send, tweet, post, Fast capture share online, over response time email, via text, etc COST: STARTS AT $199 plus monthly mobile service charges iPhone camera usage has surpassed that of the most popular point and shoot camera- the Canon Powershot. (According to statistics on the world's most popular imaging site, Flickr) THE CANONPOWERSHOT SD1100IS (most popular point and shoot) 8 megapixels / 3x Optical Zoom Optical image stabilizer Face detecting technology DIGIC III Image processor (not as good as ones found in DSLR cameras) Does not text, make calls, surf the web, store music, or have games. COST: $249.95 PHOTOJOURNALISM STRUGGLES Mid-November 2011, CNN laid off 12 OF ITS FULL-TIME PHOTOJOURNALISTS Due largely to the growing popularity of their iReport platform (where people at the scene of breaking news send in on-the-ground civilian coverage, often via smartphones "In an age when anyone with an iPhone can tweet breaking news pictures, the photojournalist is going the way of the pterodactyl" May 2011: Stephanie Gordon used her iPhone to photograph the last launch of Space Shuttle Endeavor from the window of her flight to Palm Beach. She then tweeted them. 440 $$$ Within hours her Associated Press paid her $500 per photo photos were on dozens of news sites HER PHOTOS BECAME ABLY THE MOST FAMOUS OF THE EVENT "The modern media consumer seems to demand that less attention be paid to the craft. A great photograph is still a great photograph, but a good photograph immediately dispersed through Twitter wins the day." - Cord Jefferson, Good Technology in "Where Have All the Photojournalists Gone? SMARTPHONES, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND 3 POLITICAL UPRISING While this on-the-ground "social journalism" is the recipient of some criticism, there is no denying that it has the potential to be a drastic moving force The New York Times In the wake of the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movements, the New York Times FREE EGYPT increased its use of cameraphone images and citizen content by 100x in 2011 TAKE, FOR EXAMPLE, THE ARAB SPRING: Protesters disseminate photos of "Day of Rage" EGYPT: protests in opposition to Hosni Mubarak's regime Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are primary resources through which they display evidence of unrest and encourage other citizens to participate #EGYPT Egypt The week before Hosni Mubarak's resignation, tweets from Egypt increased from 2,300 a day to 230,000 A DAY (Egyptians were tweeting 100x more than previously) The YouTube videos of protests and political opinion (many from cell phones) received millions of views – the top 23 logged NEARLY 5.5 MILLION VIEWS Twitter helped protesters coordinate meeting places and evade police Twitter and Facebook protest mobilization was so effective that the government moved to shut down the internet and cellular networks 9 IN 10 EGYPTIANS AND TUNISIANS surveyed admitted to organizing or spreading information of protests via Facebook facebook Day of Rage Protest Time Tuesday, January 25, 2011 ATTENDING? Location Cairo, Egypt Camera phones and smart FREE phones were a primary way EGYPT the civilian situation was surfaced to a wider audience "Post-Egypt, in places like Libya, Yemen, and Syria, citizens posting online have been the primary lens through which people have been able to see what is happening on the ground." - Riyaad Minty, head of Al-Jazeera's social media In response to the onslaught of cameraphone news, some mainstream media outlets are beginning to use cameraphone images because there has been a cultural/social shift perceiving them as more authentic "Gone are the days when governments will be able to hide their crimes by prohibiting TV stations and journalists from being on the scene. Everyone on the scene is a citizen journalist, and everyone is documenting while protesting." - Dr. Rasha Abdulla, Chair of Journalism and Mass Media at the American University in Cairo As Dr. Abdulla says, the rise of"citizen journalism" represents something new in cultural media. However, this is not necessarily in opposition to traditional photojournalism: Dr. Abdulla cites instances where citizen documentation has helped give photojournalistic pieces validity and corroboration. While the medium may be changing and the nature of the game may change with camera phones being a more convenient tool than film or even professional level digital photography, citizen journalism has overall brought us closer to the world's important events. The question that remains is, what will we do with this new, heretofore unprecedented access to what is happening in the world? And how will mass media and traditional photojournalists adapt and respond to this shift? 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