With the rise of the Internet and social media outlets like twitter and Reddit, citizen journalism has taken off in leaps and bounds, or should I say tweets and bounds.

One of the things I found most interesting about the topic was the emerging process of Twitter becoming a genuine source for global news. I say this as the handy Twitter #hashtag has been utilised to easily follow and discuss a topic. It is in my opinion one of the fastest ways to get the news of the world.

A great example is the #OccupyBoston hash tag which got quite a workout on October 11. Reason being because Boston police had started to use excessive force on protesters. As I was conveniently looking at the Occupy_Boston Twitter account at the time, I observed scores of comments relating to police brutality and the minimal media coverage associated with it.

Here is a tweet that I thought summed the situation up perfectly (from what I gathered from Twitter).

 

My point is this would not have been so easily identifiable and accessible without both Twitter and the Twitter hashtag.

It should also be noted, shortly after I noticed all the comments about police brutality I searched the Internet for news results and more information of the violence. I found nothing, apart from an article a few days prior that said there was no police brutality. The only place I did find anything was Youtube, another handy website for citizen journalism and the dissemination of actual news.

All I can say is I hope more online outlets of this type begin to emerge. I only wonder if pictures like the one above are for the good of the people or big corporations.

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