Shifting boundaries: Objectivity, citizen journalism and tomorrow’s journalists

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between citizen journalism and professional journalism by means of a theoretical discussion combined with empirical data gathered through focus group interviews with students of international journalism. The article discusses the process and ongoing struggle within journalistic practice of keeping up the idea as well as the practice of journalistic objectivity. Working on from Schudson (2003), Schudson and Anderson (2009) and Tumber and Prentoulis’ (2003) analyses of journalistic professionalism, the article develops the idea of journalistic objectivity as it is faced with the technological advances that support citizen journalism. The interviews focus on the ways in which the students understand the tension of the changing relationship between professional journalism and citizens, brought about by citizen journalism or User Generated Content (UGC), and focus further on the question of how the students address and react to this paradigmatic shift.