Democracy and the Effects of Citizen and Traditional Journalism
Lecture by Dr. Homero Gil de Zúñiga, visiting scholar at UCSB's Center for Information Technology & Society.
When: Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010, noon
Where: McCune Conference Rm., HSSB 6020, UCSB, Santa Barbara
Cost: Free
Age limit: Not available
Categories: Lectures
Description:
Please join the Center for Information Technology & Society on Thursday, November 4, at 12pm, in the McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020), for an engaging lecture by CITS Visiting Scholar Dr. Homero Gil de Zúñiga, titled Democracy and the Effects of Citizen and Traditional Journalism.
Journalism has long existed in the service of informed democracy producing knowledgeable and politically engaged citizens. Nevertheless, most of the existing research is based on professional journalism as embodied by the mainstream press which has suffered a steady decline for decades in the U.S. and elsewhere, accelerated by online news services. With the increasing popularity of so-called "citizen journalism," the time is ripe for scholarly inquiry on the contributions of this type of news content in the production of an informed citizenry. The well-established function of professional journalism in producing knowledge and motivating political participation is a benchmark by which to measure the role of citizen journalism, which has also been referred to as participatory journalism or user-centered news production.
In this talk, and based on original US national survey data, de Zúñiga will discuss the associations of using both professional and citizen news content with political knowledge and political participation. As results indicate, the answer is not completely straight forward for consuming these different media platforms have distinct consequential effects on the Democratic process.
Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Ph.D. in Politics at Universidad Europea de Madrid (2006) and Ph.D. in Mass Communication at University of Wisconsin - Madison (2008), is assistant professor at University of Texas - Austin. Prof. Gil de Zúñiga heads the CJCR research unit (Community, Journalism and Communication Research) in the School of Journalism at UT, focusing on all forms of new technologies and digital media and their effects on society. In particular, he investigates the influence of Internet use in people's daily lives as well as the effect of such use on the overall democratic process. In addition, he currently serves as appointed Nieman Journalism Lab Research Fellow at Harvard University.
Phone: 805-893-5910
Event posted Oct. 25, 2010
Last updated Oct. 25, 2010
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