[MGP-Forum Announce] MGP2006 participant Steve Anderson seeks "citizen-journalism" research answers

[Bill Densmore]

Steve Anderson, CEO of Canada's Center for Information Awareness, is asking writes that he is doing resarch at the Simon Fraser School of Communication on the political economy of "citizen media."  He is asking for help answering a series of questions. "I'm especially interested in acedemic and professional research, but any input on the above would be much appeciated."

Here are his requests for information:

1. A comprehensive defination of citizen media. What is and is not citizen media? Is citizen media only media that is autonomously produced by citizens, or would public journalism like (NewAssignment.Net) where citizens are brought into the process of professional journalism also be considered citizen journalism?

2. Studies on who owns citizen media platforms, and who controls them. -- percentage corporate or for-profit owned, and percentage non-profit/community owned?

3. Content analysis comparing commerical citizen media (like current tv) to non-commerical citizen media platforms (like ourmedia.org)

4. Content analyis of non-commercial vs. commerical citizen media platforms over time (do commercial platforms show a trend of ever growing 
commercialization of content?)

5. Demographic/ social political makeup of users commercial vs. community based entities. (do commercial platforms attract a more narrow affluent audience?)

6. Citizen empowerment levels; commercial vs. community based platforms. (do community based or commercial based platforms offer more opprotunities for citizens to participate in the development/operation of the online community?)

7.Does ownship make a difference in the level and equity of exposure provided to citizen generated content? - (Do commercial media platforms offer paying content providers (advertisers) more exposure then citizens, more often then community/non-profit media platforms?)

8. Civic participation levels of citizens using Commericial vs. community/non-profit media platforms.  (does the kind of ownership impact the level of civic participation of it users? Does one kind of ownership promote civic values more then the other?)

9. Examples of difference ownership models, and practices

Here's Anderson's  contact information:

Steve Anderson, CEO
Center for Information Awareness
384 Amberlee Court  / Newmarket	IN L3X1E8 Canada 
Phone: 905-716-1276 / Email:  steve at coanews.org


-- Posted by Bill Densmore