STOMP: citizen journalism, my foot

i’m quite disgusted by the rubbish that appears nowadays in the name of “citizen journalism”. seriously. exposing couples kissing on the mrt is considered journalism? people not giving up their seats on the bus? smokers at the zoo?

i read on a forum about a STOMP post that featured a couple sleeping on the train “as if it is their own home”, and a picture with their faces was there for everyone to see. the couple only took up two seats and were not like slobbering all over the place or anything. ok, i do love to complain a lot too. and i think some people deserve to be humiliated, like aunties who block train entrances to try to get a seat…and yes i hate smokers too. but it’s not really possible for anybody to decide who deserves to be “STOMPed”, and who doesn’t…for example, i don’t see anything wrong with couples kissing in public, though i draw the line at making out/groping around. but others might think that couples should not show any display of affection at all. therefore, this arbitrary public finger-pointing and humiliation should not even be allowed in the first place…or at least pixellate the faces! what is this man…big brother is watching you? total intrusion of privacy. nowadays, anybody can take a picture of you if they feel like it without you even knowing. and ST is actively encouraging this practice and providing a place for such ridiculousness to proliferate.

how ST handles the whole concept of citizen journalism and trying to make it look like the media is liberalising and adapting to the changing media landscape (ugh, COM401) has always disgusted me. just look at the STOMP website. it’s covered with bright colours and flashy headlines. people use it to talk about all kinds of trivial matters. citizen journalism is thus debased and turned into kpo-mania. in other democratic countries, citizen journalism is actually practiced to fact-find, discuss and examine issues that the mainstream media choose to ignore for various reasons…like how a bunch of conservative political bloggers in the US point out the problems and make noise about obama’s birth certificate, because they genuinely feel that the mainstream media is not doing so (i disagree with the bloggers, btw). another example would be that of people getting live footage of disasters as they unfold, before the journalists get on the scene. citizen journalism thus actively supplements traditional journalism to report news. in singapore, it seems like the other way round…STOMP harnesses the natural kpo and complaining instinct of humans to create a pseudo-news portal that caters to some of the worst elements of society…intolerant people, voyeurs, etc…

and at the same time, what of actual citizen journalism in singapore and the news they could be creating? it’s no secret that the media in singapore is very pro-government. but for those concerned about seeking out an alternative voice…where can they find it? think citizen journalism, and does the drivel on STOMP come to mind? (i can’t help thinking that this is SPH’s sneaky way to stamp out true citizen journalism…)

anyway i find this topic interesting because i did a paper a year ago on how newspaper companies are adapting to the use of new media. maybe i’m reading too much into this, but i thought it was quite significant how ST actually created 2 online portals…one for the so-called citizen journalism aka kpo-heaven, and the other a serious, prosaic news website. in this way, ST can show that it has harnessed the power of web 2.0 and facilitated lots of online discussions and citizen fact-finding, while at the same time distancing its professional journalism from the chaos and sensationalism at STOMP. in the meantime, the real discussions by informed, thoughtful citizens about issues in singapore that was bound to surface sometime with the advent of the internet age are sidelined.

also, like most of you i believe, this issue hits close to my heart too! i really hope to not end up on STOMP someday for some inane reason. (though i probably wouldn’t know about it cos i don’t read it.)