SA news site embraces citizen journalism

South Africa's Mail & Guardian Online, launched The News in Photos earlier this week, a new service which leverages what Web 2.0 technologies. Allowing readers to submit their own photographs and comment and interact with each other, the website organises news photographs into galleries accessible via a multimedia interface.

“This is our most visible step so far to embracing audience participation in the news,” says Vincent Maher, the newly appointed digital media strategist at the Mail & Guardian Online.

“As the power to crystallise reality shifts away from traditional media towards social construction by users of the Web, our role as a media company is shifting from one as a provider to one as a facilitator,” continues Maher.

... To help their readers understand the Web 2.0 phenomenon and how it is being embraced, they offer a feature called “The Swarm”, which shows how readers swarm around photos in real-time."

[via BizCommunity]

emily | 4:25 PM | Citizens as Camera Phone Reporters |
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/picturephoning/archives/2007/02/015034.htm