Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Citizens, Get Ready to Aim, Click, and Send News Footage to WABC-TV
News organizations have always encouraged its viewers to provide information about stories they have witnessed. But new technological devices like cellphone cameras have made it easy for citizens to become journalists and assist reporters in the newsgathering process.
This new phenomenon of viewer participation is made easy with these portable, hand held devices. It all began when terrorist attacked the
This event sparked this new demand for viewers to take pictures or record any event that occurs. They are encouraged to report and send this information to television news broadcasting companies like WABC-TV. The news station’s anchors are requesting its viewers to send in any pictures or video clips but “caution people not to endanger themselves to get a good shot and warn that their cellphone carrier may charge them for sending data.”
Our news media is awash in spontaneous imagery. The professionals use digital cameras to take thousands of images and the online media flood us with galleries of snapshots.
Does the ability to capture every event live increase our understanding of an increasingly complex world? Or are we simply flooding our conciousnesses with a tsunami of powerful imagery that threatens to drown out rational thought?
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