Collective Journalism Is in Formation? Common Net-Users Challenging Professional Journalism Online and Offline

With the development of social ICT (Information and Communication Technologies), the media landscape has achieved dramatically transformation. Utilizing the social ICT, common people obtain the new tool and the public space for self-expression, discussion and opinion exchange, thus exerting a practice of journalism. There are several success sites/examples of participatory journalism or citizen journalism, such as Ohmynews, Nowpublic, thus ordinary people become ‘citizen journalists’.

In China, the mass media is still strictly controlled by the state. Since the 1990’s, accepting the influence from the market economy, the mass media has changed its image from the government’s organ to a kind of enterprise, but it remains far from the perfect platform for people to participate in civil society. Compared to the mass media, the Internet is less controlled by the state and it is technologically impossible for the government to control online content as thoroughly as traditional mass media.

In recent years, some social affairs (such as ‘South China Tiger’ and ‘Black Brickfield Scandal’) had become nation-wide known public events, were the result of Internet users. During this process, the concept of ‘citizen journalist’ has also been introduced to China. There are no successful citizen news websites as Ohmynews in China, common users and several famous individual figures are utilizing websites, blogs, BBS forums to collect information and exchange opinions.

Through an interview with the ‘first citizen journalist’ in China, ZHOU Shuguang, whose online and offline identity, and performance and expertise as a journalist will be clarified in this paper. Additionally, journalism conducted by the plenteous and nameless ordinary people will be academically defined as ‘collective journalism’. Amateur journalists’ personal identity and behavior online and offline, and the similarity and difference between collective journalism and citizen journalism will also be examined through some case studies in China.