(BAJM) SEMV

Understanding New Media

School of
Journalism &
Mass
Communication
(SOJMC)
 BMCJ SYLLABUS- SEM-V
ASMS BMCJ - Understanding New Media

Course Objective
New Media is interactive in nature and has the ability to produce media products using digital
technology (computers) integrating image& sound. In a way it empowers a common user to
create products of his choice, converting imagination to virtual reality.

Some of the New Media products are streaming audio & video, 2D & 3D Animation,
Blogging, Websites, Gaming, Cartoons, Web-Advertising, DVD & CD ROM Media, post-
production & special effects software.

Teaching Methodology
A mix of conceptual lectures, case studies, group discussions and presentations.

Course Outline

Content
Unit 1: Basics of Computers

Computers: Introduction
Components of Computer System
Hardware and software

Unit 2: Introduction to New Media

New Media: Meaning & Concept

Principles, Significance and prominence

Unit 3: Impact of New Media on Journalism and Mass Communication

Convergence and Journalism

Changing role of Journalist
News on the Web: Newspaper, magazine, radio and TV newscast on the web

Unit 4: Social Media and Citizen Journalism

Social Networking, Virtual Communities and Blogging

Citizen Journalism: Concept, Limitations and case studies
Social Activism: Case Studies.
Digital Divide

Unit 5 E-Services

Ecommerce trends: Introduction, benefits and impact

Application in education, financial, auction and news
E-Governance
Mobile Commerce
Case Studies

Unit 6

Digital Marketing
Advantages and Disadvantages
Techniques
Case Studies

Unit 7

New Media & Cinema

New Media & Branding

Unit 8 Cyber Security

Introduction to Cyber Security

Cyber Crimes- Phishing, Cyber squatting, Spamming.
Remedies and Laws

Suggested Readings
1. New Media, A critical Introduction by Martin Lister, Jon Dovey & Seth Giddings
2. Media Promotion & Marketing for Broadcasting, Cable & Internet (5th edition) by
Susan Tyler Eastman, Douglas A. Ferguson
Unit 1: Basics of Computers

Computers: Introduction

Computers are rapidly changing and changing the world we live in. We used to talk about the
changes made in one generation. Now we see changes from year to year. However, all
computers have several parts in common:

 input devices which allow data and commands to be entered into the computer
 a means of storing commands and data
 a central processing unit which controls the processing
 a means of returning the processed information in the form of output

In general, a computer is a machine which accepts information, processes it and returns new
information as output.

Computers can be connected to multimedia, such as sound graphics, photographs, and video
equipment to manipulate, input, and generate output, but special software is required.

If a personal computer is within 1,000 feet of another computer, a cable can directly connect
it. If the devices are more than 1,000 feet, the electrical signal weakens. Then a modem is
used. A computer is designed to process data as digital signals, individual electrical pulses
grouped together to represent characters. Telephone equipment was designed to carry voice,
which is made up of a continuous electrical wave called an analog signal. The purpose of a
modem is to send the converted digital signals of a computer to analog signals to send and
then convert the analog signals it receives to digital to send the message back to the
computer. A modem may be a part of the computer or a stand-alone device that is connected
to the computer and phone line.

Modems can transmit data at rates from 1,200 to 56,200 bits per second (bps) for the personal
user.

Components of Computer System & Hardware and software

Hardware
Computer hardware is made up of the equipment used to make up you computer unit. These
parts include your monitor, central processing unit (CPU), keyboard, mouse, printer, and
modem.

The computer is an electronic machine that performs the following four general operations:

 Input
 Storage
 Processing
 Output.

Input
The input hardware allows you to enter data into the computer. The primary devices used are
the keyboard and mouse.

Keyboard - The keyboard looks like the typewriter. A numeric keypad is located to the right
of the keyboard. Numeric keys have the same placement as a 10-key calculator, which allow
the operator to enter data rapidly.

Mouse - The mouse is a device that allows you to control the movement of the insertion point
on the screen. The operator places the palm of the hand over the mouse and moves it across a
mouse pad, which provides traction for the rolling ball inside the device. Movement of the
ball determines the location of the I beam on the computer screen. When the operator clicks
the mouse the I beam becomes an insertion point which indicates the area you are working on
the screen. You can also click the mouse and activate icons or drag to move objects and select
text. There are other input devices, such as touch screen, joystick, modem, scanner, and voice
recognition systems.

Processing
The central processing unit or (CPU) is the "brain" of your computer. It contains the
electronic circuits that cause the computer to follow instructions from ROM (read only
memory) or from a program in RAM (random access memory). By following these
instructions information is processed. The CPU contains three parts.
 1. Arithmetic Logic Unit - ALU is where the "intelligence" of the computer is located.
It can add and compare numbers. To multiply 2 x 4 the computer would add 2 + 2 + 2
+ 2. The ALU makes decisions by determining if a number is greater, less, or equal to
the other number. Processing is completed in nanoseconds, which is a billionth of a
second.

2. Memory - Two types of memory contained on a chip are RAM (Random Access
Memory) or ROM (Read Only Memory). ROM memory has been installed on your
computer by the manufacturer and can not be altered. ROM is the memory that
determines all the basic functions of the operation of your machine, such as startup,
shut down, and placing a character on the screen. RAM is temporary memory, which
displays the information you are working on. RAM remembers what you see on your
screen while you are working. Today's applications required large amounts of
temporary memory, which may require you to upgrade and add more RAM memory.

3. Control Unit - This is the part of the unit, which directs information to the proper
places in your computer, such as calculation of information by the ALU unit or to
store and print material.

Output
Output devices such as a monitor or printer make information you input available for you to
view or use.

A monitor's front is called a screen with a cathode ray tube (CRT) attached to the screen.
Portable computers use a (LCD) liquid crystal display. Today's super video graphics array
(SVGA) monitors display 256 sharp and clear colors.

Printers used with computers fall into two categories, impact or nonimpact. Impact printers,
such as dot matrix print by contact against a ribbon making imprint on paper. Inkjet printers
print images by not touching the paper. Ink jet printers spray ink onto the page while a laser
printer works like a copying machine. Laser printers print a higher quality product but cost
from $500 to $10,000 whereas an ink jet produces better quality than a dot matrix and can be
purchased from $150 to $300. The personal computer user most commonly purchases an ink
jet printer for home use.
Storage
Auxiliary storage devices, also called secondary storage devices, are used to store instructions
and data when they are not being used in memory. Two types of auxiliary storage more often
used on personal computers are floppy disks and hard disks. Also, CD-ROM drives are
common.

Floppy Disks - A floppy disk is a circular piece of oxide-coated plastic that stores data as
magnetic spots. Personal computers most commonly use floppy disks that are 3 � inches in
diameter.

To read data stored one floppy disk or to store data on a floppy disk, you insert the floppy
disk in a disk drive. If the disk is unused, you must format or initialize it before your
computer will allow you to store data on it. Formatting organizes the tracks around the disk
into pie like slices called sectors which make it possible for your computer to save and
retrieve information. The density of the bits on the track and number of tracks on a disk
determine the number of characters that can be stored.

Floppy disks are identified as being double density or high density. Most machines purchased
after 1993 will use a high-density disk. A machine that has a double density drive can't
process a high-density disk. Note the chart below for disk information.

Floppy Disk Capacity

Description Bytes
5 � inch disk
Double-sided, double-density 360 KB
Double-sided, high-density 1.2MB
3 � inch disk
Double-sided, double-density 720 KB
Double-sided, high-density 1.4 MB
1.4 MB is equal to 500 pages of text.

Floppy disks must be handled with care to preserve data. Follow the suggestions to protect
your floppy disk.

1. Store in box or disk storage container.

2. Protect disk from dust.
3. Keep disk out of sunlight and away from extremes of hot or cold.
 4. Don't press hard when writing on labels. Use a felt tip pen.
5. Insert metal side into drive first with the hub of the disk down.
6. Don't store disk near magnetic sources.

Hard Drive - Much like a floppy, the hard disk located inside the computer case is made of a
stack of rotating disks, called platters. Data is recorded on a series of tracks that have been
divided into sectors. Most computers have one hard drive, located inside the computer case.
If a computer has one hard drive, it is called drive C. If a computer has additional hard drives,
they are called drives D, E, and so on. A hard drive stores your programs. When you buy a
new program, you must install the program files to your hard drive before you can use the
program. A hard drive stores your data files such as documents spreadsheets, and graphics.

CD-ROM Storage - Since each CD-ROM can store 600 million bytes of data or 300,000
pages of text, they are today's answer to make you computer feel like a machine twice its
size. Because of its external storage, you can use your machine to access an encyclopedia,
games, graphics, and a variety of sources that use large amounts of memory.

Software 

Computer productivity is determined by programs which are step by step instructions telling
the computer how to process data. Software can be divided into two groups, system and
application.

System software - The operation of your computer is controlled by system software. As you
boot the computer, the system software is stored in the computer's memory which instructs
the computer to load, store, and execute an application.

Examples of system software are Windows 95 and Windows 98 which use a graphical user
interface (GUI) that provides visual clues (icons) to help the user. DOS, another disk
operating system, is text based and not user friendly.

Professional programmers write a variety of application software to satisfy needs of the

public who wants to perform specific tasks on their computers. The basic types of application
software are word processing, database, spreadsheet, desktop publishing, and communication.
Word Processing - Word processing is the most commonly used software in schools, home,
and business. A key advantage of word processing software is that users can make changes
such as spelling, margins, additions, deletions, and movement of text. A beginning computer
student should learn word processing, as it is the basis of most software. Once you have
learned how a word processor functions, you will be able to learn other software quicker.

Database Software - Database software allows us to store and manipulate large quantities of
data using the computer. For example, a database can sort the names, addresses, grades and
activities for all of the students in a school. It would be possible to add or delete data and
produce printed reports using the database.

Spreadsheet Software - Spreadsheets store numeric data that can be used in calculations. A
spreadsheet is used to store a teachers grades and then calculate student averages. The
primary advantage of a computerized spreadsheet is its ability to redo the calculations should
the data it stores be changed. Calculations can be made automatically as formulas have been
preset into the spreadsheet.

Desktop Publishing - Desktop publishing applications allow the user to create newspapers,
newsletters, brochures, and similar types of publications. It is similar to word processing
except it allows the user to use text, graphics, pictures, lines, shapes, patterns, and borders.
Desktop publishing requires more skill and computer knowledge of design and layout.

Presently a user can purchase an integrated program. This means that a single program
performs all applications and allows data to be transferred from one application to another.
Microsoft Office 97, Works, and ClarisWorks are examples of integrated software. Each
application includes a word processing, data base and spreadsheet section of the software.

There are numerous other applications available. There are software programs that can be
used by musicians to produce musical scores and play them on a synthesizer, programs that
assist an architect in designing a building, programs that produce the special effects that you
see in movies, and programs that allow e-mail or electronic mail. Every line of work you can
think of has had applications developed, which can ease or enhance its effectiveness and
consistency.

Unit 2: Introduction to New Media

New Media: Meaning & Concept
There has been much written in the trade and popular press –and quite a bit in scholarly
publications – about specific new media technologies and their use in business (see, e.g.,
Manyika 2007) and in other arenas. The so-called new media technologies – often referred to
as Web 2.0 – encompass a wide variety of web-related communication technologies, such as
blogs, wikis, online social networking, virtual worlds and other social media forms.

In the past, much was made of the supposed "death" and decline of old media – say,
newspapers, magazines, television, radio – after all, the news in newspapers is very old
compared to news over the Internet. Life magazine died for that very reason; it was replaced
by television. Some even compared old media to the telegraph, which was virtually replaced
by telephone – and, of course, more recently by email. However, we usually see that, rather
than replacing old media, new media serve to supplement old media, often working side by
side to further the organization's goals. For example, the New York Times is available at
newsstands as well as at their Internet site. News items at NYTimes.com are updated
throughout the day and readers are encouraged to comment in real time. Columnists often
have their own blogs on the site as well.

People in a specific area will often see only the partial effect of the new media revolution.
Thus, for example, a newspaper reporter might note the importance of blogs; a television
producer might be interested in the movement away from network television to online TV
(e.g., watching a full episode on nbc.com); and so on. This brings to mind the Indian parable
of the six blind men who went to "see" the elephant. Each blind man analyzed only that
portion of the creature which he touched: The side was like a wall; the tail was like a rope;
the trunk was like a snake, etc. Each of them was right and, of course, each was completely
wrong.

The term new media is used ubiquitously in many different ways. Lievrouw and Livingstone
(2002) focus on the message (i.e., the communication and its practices), the technology (i.e.,
the medium), and the social context in which it is used. These three aspects of the new media
show up repeatedly in the literature along with other more specific technologies and practices
such as collaboration, digitization, telecommunication. Gitelman and Pingree (2003) take the
temporal approach, using the term "media in transition" to describe a period of time during
which a medium is emergent and thus a sort of contrast to and competitor for the old media.
Manovich (2002) has defined new media as cultural objects "which use digital computer
technology for distribution and exhibition."

Clearly, new media may be characterized using a variety of different approaches. In large
part, the confusion – such as it is – among various definitions of the new media is due to an
inherent confusion of the object of study – the message, the medium, the technology, the time
period, the social context. In fact, today, the term media itself may sometimes refer to the
technology – i.e., the medium of communication – but increasingly to the message itself. This
appears to be the inverse of what Marshal McLuhan (1964) famously argued – that the
medium (i.e., the technology) is more important to society than the content of the message –
but perhaps those just shows how far we've come.

The use of the word "new" implies a time factor, so it may seem reasonable to define the term
in a temporal context. However, this is a never-ending enterprise. There will always be
something "new" on the horizon. In would probably be a good thing to retire the word new in
this context – a better choice would be networked media – but, as of now, it is meaningful.

Principles, Significance and prominence

“New Media‟ is a hybrid practice involving a wide range of practical skills and intellectual
resources, refers to as essential components of practice in associative terms with new media
like „New territory‟, „Emerging fields‟, „Uncharted space‟, „New frontiers‟. If we tend to
travel in cyberspace we should choose internet rather than any material form of knowledge is
what new media is all about. The power of new media guides us through a space of no end.
New media is a way to map something for example air currents or air routes which are in a
state of flux (unreal). Anything that is „new‟ always draws attention as if its a time lapse of
the present and past or what the future might withhold.
Print media in the year 1450 in Europe was new, from then the journey started and every
discovery or invention at that present time was new. What is new today will be old tomorrow.
Today is the age of convergence and digitization of all other forms of media into one most
powerful of all other forms. This form of communication will bring development in each and
every sphere today and may be in the future to come.

New Media defined

New media cannot be defined on black and white or compartmentalize in a very small
domain because it is a conception arising from various other fields which added together
produce a humongous domain. Thus new media is nothing but the amalgamation of all types
of media into one new form, all the conceptions, ideas and theories of the original media are
embedded into the new form. The definition of New media can be divided into three distinct
aspects as follows:-

Technological aspect
New Media is both techno-based and techno-bias as it is techno-based it can be defined from
the technological point of view as New Media is nothing but a new technology which helps in
sustainable development in the field of communication. New Media is not without the
blessings of the technological advancements in fields of communication (Information
Communication Technology), computer technology (Silicon Chip), Physics (Quantum &
nanoTechnology) this new advancement has brought about New Media '

Cultural and Social aspect

New Media is also Techno-bias there has to be biasness because of the fact that everyone
cannot use the technology only the one capable of doing so has the upper hand over the
others and hence he/she tries to monopolize the new form of media and control the
developmental process in the developing nations. One basic fact is that technology is
developed by human beings for a reason. And the reason is development. But the question is
what kind of development? And the answer to that is social development. Only mere
technology does not possess the power to induce developmental change in the society so we
can define New Media as a new technological advancement to induce socio cultural change
in the developing society. To justify the statement it can be said that as communication is the
vehicle for development .

Environmental aspect

When we hire new technology or think of social change we tend to look towards the pros side
of New media while uncontrolled development of technology brings about the dark side
where advancement of technology like adaptation of non renewable power energy source has
wounded the environment greatly and threatens our existence. So we can define new media
as a media which works not only for technological, social or cultural development but also
for sustainable environmental development. In a nut shell analysis we can define “New
Media as a new technological advancement not only for the field of social or cultural aspect
but also working hand in hand with environment for sustainable development.”

THE FIVE C'S

Yet another perspective one might take in the study of the new media technologies is to
examine the unique character of the new media technologies, especially the features that unite
these seemingly disparate technologies under a single umbrella. The wide range of
characteristics of these new media technologies can be summarized by the 5 C’s:
communication, collaboration, community, creativity, and convergence.

COMMUNICATION

By and large, new media technologies are concerned with communication in one form or
another. After all, what are media if not communication modalities? Blogs may be viewed as
an alternative or a complement to publishing, but they may also be an alternative to personal
webpages. Furthermore, bloggers do not only engage in one-way posting. Many will cite and
link to other blogger's posts; enough of this cross linking and the result is "conversational
blogging" (Efimova and de Moor 2005). Communication supported by the new media may be
categorized as unidirectional, collaborative, or networked. In our highly interconnected age,
communication is extremely rapid, whether asynchronous or synchronous. The term viral –
as in viral marketing or viral videos – is used to imply a rapid speed of transmission
throughout networked society.

COLLABORATION
Many, if not all new media technologies enable collaboration over the Internet. The primary
and definitive example of this sort of medium is the wiki. Much Internet collaboration of the
past (and present) has been done using email. When we use email for collaboration on a
document, we tend to forward the collaborative document as an attachment repeatedly, at
each iteration, to all members of the group. This is a tremendous waste of resources in terms
of time, inbox capacity, bandwidth, hard drive space, etc. and also limits the size of the
group. With this sort of redundancy, there is always the potential that different copies of the
document will contain different sets of information. In addition, with all this forwarding of
attachment, there is increased potential for viruses and other malware. That the size of the
collaborative group is not limited by wiki technology may be illustrated by what is probably
the most well known example of a wiki – Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. For more on
the use of wikis, see Tapscott and Williams (2006) and Sunstein (2006).

Blogs in general have limited collaboration. However, a single blog may be shared among a
group of individuals and sometimes a blog may be used for group work. Online special
interest groups often share documents and, more recently, Google Docs enables groups of
users to work on the same document. The social networking technologies like Facebook have
a collaborative aspect and virtual communities like SecondLife are used for virtual
conferencing. Skype facilitates conference calls and chats.
COMMUNITY

A key feature of many of the new media – community – is fostered in a variety of ways and
in a number of diverse new media technologies, for example, social networking sites like
myspace and facebook; virtual universes like SecondLife and Webkinz; social bookmarking
technologies like that of del.icio.us. even older technologies like listservs, discussion boards,
Yahoo (or Google) groups – or, even, Usenet – fostered a sense of community among like-
minded folks who might be disconnected in terms of geography or time zone, but can meet
synchronously or asynchronously by was of Internet connectivity. Even among the new
media technologies that do not seem at first to incorporate this sense of community, many
eventually do. YouTube and Craigslist, for example, both have social networking aspects for
users who login. Many of the web technologies we may not even associate with new media
now have a social networking component (for example, visit eBay and HowStuffWorks).
This aspect of the new media technologies, to a great extent, is responsible for the sense of
the world as a smaller place than it used to be. Our new media communities reach all over the
globe, and are democratic and inclusive. In essence, the new media technologies foster a
leveling of the playing field (Johnson, 2007). Technology has become the great equalizer.

CREATIVITY
A key feature of the new media is user-generated content. Users are no longer the passive
receivers of the message. The couch potato is already an outdated image. Today's "audience"
members create and edit videos, post to blogs, post product reviews, and contribute content in
a host of ways.

What motivates this active innovation in the new media? In large part this is due to the
digitization of media. Is digital media that different from non-digital (that is, analog) media?
For one thing, digitization makes editing extremely easy. Therefore, it also promotes
creativity,
since we are not burdened by the limits of the medium we are working with. Remember
making changes to a large document using a typewriter? The size of the page severely limited
any changes we were willing to make. With digitization and the right software our editing
capabilities are limited only by our capacity for thinking.

Today, consumers of digital media do not simply, read, listen, view, or play it. The also edit,
mod, and create mashups. This sort post-purchase behavior means that a product is no longer
necessarily "finished" when it goes into production and distribution.

CONVERGENCE
In years to come, the mashup may be viewed as the metaphor of choice for today's new
media phenomenon. Indeed, if anything can be said to be the driving force behind the new
media, it is the notion of convergence. The past decades have witnessed a convergence of
technology more fantastic than fiction. This is primarily due to widespread digitization and to
the Internet, which itself can be seen as the convergence of digitization and telephony. Some
of the results of this trend are: companies that produce printers are now in the camera
business; long distance telephone calls use a broadband internet connection; photographs are
transmitted via e-mail using a cellular telephone; several companies are competing for video-
on-demand; computer manufacturers are in the music business; and many more. There are
many different types of convergence in the new media phenomenon, including convergence
of technology, convergence of media, convergence of consumption, and convergence of
roles.

CONVERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGY:

One of the most obvious recent trends is the convergence of computer technology and
entertainment: for example, Tivo. The marketers use one name for both industries:
infotainment. With the national move to digital TV, will TV sets become obsolete, to be
replaced by computers? A special kind of mashup is the convergence of software applications
into a web application hybrid, like applying Google Maps to real estate
data to map the available homes in a particular community.

One counter trend seems to be the divergence of technology. For example, with mobile
technology we can do the same thing over different platforms. We want to be able to, say, get
our email and edit our Facebook site at home, at work, on the train, in the coffeeshop, etc. It
is interesting to note that this divergence of technology appears to a special case or, perhaps,
a consequence of the convergence of technology.

CONVERGENCE OF MEDIA: The old media – newspapers, magazines, radio, television –

were fairly distinct and separate. Now we are seeing convergence of media due to technology
-e.g., a newspaper must have an online presence and probably a few blogs. On the other hand,
most of the old media producers have "converged" into a few large corporations. All the more
reason to enjoy the entrepreneurial, democratic, and inclusive nature of the new media.

CONVERGENCE OF CONSUMPTION: We see convergence of consumption in consumers

using several media simultaneously, e.g., computer, Internet, music, newspapers, telephone,
camera, etc., and in consumers who produce mashups using several different forms of media.
Hynes 2003). One interesting question that arises: Does technological convergence drive
consumer convergence? Or, is technological convergence a market response to the impetus of
consumers towards multimedia multitasking?
CONVERGENCE OF ROLES: With the new media technologies, we have seen a blurring of
the line among users, developers, distributers, producers, and consumers. New media
encourages user-generated content; supports entrepreneurs, provides distribution channels for
aspiring artists, and creates communities of consumers for these user-generated goods.

Unit 3: Impact of New Media on Journalism and Mass Communication

Convergence and Journalism

New media is a broad term that emerged in the later part of the 20th century to encompass the
amalgamation of traditional media such as films, images, music, spoken and written word,
with the interactive power of computer also called convergence, computer-enabled consumer
devices and most importantly the internet. New media holds out a possibility of on-demand
access to content any time, anytime, on any digital device, as well as interactive user
feedback, creative participation and community formation around the media content. Digital
code is the technological basis for media convergence, enshrined in Nicolas Negroponte‟s
(1995) phase, „from atom to bits‟, in which he recognized the transformative power of
converting words, sounds and images into bits of electrical information. The potential of
digitally converged media technologies has been an object of widespread attention for over a
decade and has been most specifically focused on convergence of broadcast Television and
the networked computer meaning to merge TV and Computer. This triggered the dream ticket
for media conglomerate giants to grip the new form into its own clutches and AOL-Time
Warner merger controlled the major U.S market and thus started monopolization of new
media in the broader sense. Convergence of the new media includes both technological and
social advancement electronic development of telecommunication, development in
interactivity with computers has helped in the development of communication in the past and
will do so in the future.
For example AOL-Time Warner merger brands included: AOL, Time, CNN, CompuServe,
Warner Bros, Netscape, Sports Illustrated, people, HBO, ICQ, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network,
Digital City, Warner Music Group, Spinner, Winamp, Fortune This is an example of New
media convergence of Television in U.S later on it stirred quiet a lot of TRP attention and
foreign media intervention creating monopolization, privatization, Cultural hegemony, and so
on.

Convergence will bring about changes in the social political structure of the society as
companies will harness the power of new media convergence „buy 1 (new media) get all
forms of media free‟

Changing role of Journalist

The introduction of new media has challenged the traditional form of journalism as global
emphasis shifts to online, real-time reportage of events. Today, news is delivered in a unique
manner, combining audio and visual in such a way that its impact can never be over-
emphasized. New media has silently, but steadily, become a force to be reckoned with in
today’s world. Saving journalism will not in itself save the world. That should be left to
people and politicians. But a healthier local and global news media is a necessary
precondition for international development and security. The media realm is ever-changing
and journalism has to adapt. Professionals in journalism, public relations, advertising,
broadcasting, and mass communications have to confront with a new and still evolving media
landscape. Today the environments in which journalists work—across various media
platforms of print, radio, television, and online—have begun to rapidly change in response to
innovations in technology, increasingly competitive and fragmenting markets for readers and
audiences, government media policy, and changing audience requirements for news and the
ways in which it is presented and delivered. The high-tech revolution has significantly altered
the way the public obtains its news and information, and has deprived mass media of its
traditional monopoly.
The media and the practice of journalism, however, have been slow to adjust to the Internet
and the global ramifications produced by the new information technology. While major
media companies have become multinational operators, their news product still remains
substantially unchanged. Journalists throughout the world still separate “domestic” from
“foreign,” while their audiences casually chat between continents. Such are the key
lamentations on the fate of journalism today.

The demise of the existing business model of the local and regional press and of broadcast
news together with the struggle for survival of many national newspapers demands critical
consideration. Many scholars blame technological convergence as the main culprit and
lament the dismantling of demarcations between journalists and technicians and between
print, radio, and television journalism. They argue the ongoing conversion of technologies
undermines the basic skills and standards of journalism and foster so-called “multiskilling” in
newsrooms, which may be result of economic pressures that can lead to cut backs on
resources while increasing workloads. Even though, the impact of new technologies in the
news industry is varied, two general conclusions can be drawn: The process increases
demand for and pressures on journalists, who have to retool and diversify their skill set to
produce more work in the same amount of time under ongoing deadline pressures for one or
more media. A second conclusion is technology is not a neutral agent in the way news
organizations and individuals do their work; hardware and software tend to amplify existing
ways of doing things, are used to supplement rather than radically change whatever people
were already doing, and take a long time to sediment into the working culture. The
contemporary drive toward some kind of convergence across two or more media thus tends to
offer little in terms of radically different forms of journalism or ways in which to gather,
select, or report the news.

The technology once handled by specialists and consultants is becoming part of all media
professionals’ jobs. Magazines, television programs, and newspapers are publishing on the
Internet in an attempt to "cross benefit" by having two media products [4]. Media
professionals must also understand some practical theory of new media technology. As an
example print and broadcast journalism are evolving, as story length becomes less of an issue
due to the incorporation of hyperlinking [5].  Media professionals of today and the future will
need to be able to work in and produce multiple media. Those who work only in one medium,
such as print, will be too highly specialized. Likewise, advertising and public relations firms
that cater solely to Internet business also stand to suffer from being too highly specialized. In
either case, there is no "jackpot" in media specialization. Instead, the roles played by media
professionals continue to evolve to include new characteristics that operate in a new
landscape. However, most media professionals can expect their job duties to rely more and
more heavily on experience in and knowledge of practical uses of technology (technical
literacy) in producing both traditional and new media.
Now that the playing field is level in the online world of journalism, journalists may spend
hours wading through vast amount of information to find the relevant material.  Suddenly the
skill of filtering information in a crowded domain takes on added importance.  As
information transfers quickly on the Internet it can be very easy for disinformation to be
spread.  Breaking news stories are now produced online.  If information is incorrect there are
not enough checks and balances to stop the flow of this misinformed news.  It is a large
competitive space and being first with the story may override publications standards of
accuracy.   

Overall, journalists tend to embrace new technology as long as they perceive it to enhance
their status, prestige, and the way they did their work before. Resistance to a wholehearted
embrace of innovative communication technologies as an instrument to foster community-
generated content or connectivity tends to be grounded in reluctance by management to lead
towards adoption, lack of resources to invest in new technology, lack of training, little or no
access to the new technology. The success or failure of journalists to deal with the new role
of new technologies in their work must therefore also be set against the history of their
professional identity, the changes in the institutional structure of the industry and the
fragmentation and even disappearance of their audiences.

Unit 4: Social Media and Citizen Journalism

Social Networking, Virtual Communities and Blogging

Social Networking

A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on facilitating
the building of social networks or social relations among people who, for example, share
interests, activities, backgrounds, or real-life connections. A social network service consists
of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of
additional services. Most social network services are web-based and provide means for users
to interact over the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Online community
services are sometimes considered as a social network service, though in a broader sense,
social network service usually means an individual-centered service whereas online
community services are group-centered. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas,
activities, events, and interests within their individual networks.

Virtual Communities

A virtual community is a group of people who share common interests, feelings or ideas, or
pursue similar goals over the Internet or over any collaborative network. Social media is the
most common vehicle for this sharing and interaction, which can potentially transcend
geographical boundaries, race, culture, political views and religion when people are
connected by another common interest or agenda.

This term is originally attributed to Howard Rheingold’s book "The Virtual Community,"
which was published in 1993. In it, Rheingold describes the virtual community as social
aggregations that emerge from the Internet when people continue discussions long enough
and with enough emotion to form real human relationships within cyberspace. For whatever
other reason, virtual communities are built around certain needs and goals. Here are some
common examples of virtual community types: Forums, online chat rooms, specialized
information communities, email groups These are made up of people who either discuss or
share about a common topic/theme. They may also act as a place to ask experts in a
specific field for help. Virtual worlds The people in virtual worlds share the common
interest of the world itself. These worlds are often massively multiplayer games like "World
of Warcraft." Social networks Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are the most common
social networking hubs, and they all allow people to form smaller communities based on
other interests. Other communities in this category, such as Pinterest and YouTube,
focused on media sharing.

Blogging
Blogging is an interactive form of publishing content on the web. It comes from the term
"web log." The act of blogging dates back to the late 1990s, and has become a dominant way
of self-publishing in the 2000s.

Citizen Journalism: Concept, Limitations and case studies

Technology has facilitated an undeniable media shift; it has changed the news gathering
process and resulted into one more phenomena- participatory news. It has increased the
public participation that involves various activities like local people breaking news, citizens
capturing events with mobile phone cameras and commenting or likening the post on a news
portal.

The main feature of citizen journalism is emergence of user-generated content on social

media like Facebook, Twitter and blogs. This had allowed people to easily distribute and
share it. I have drawn two basic features of citizen journalism, first was user generated
content and other is participatory nature. Jay Rosen (a media critic, a writer, and a professor
of journalism at New York University) defined it as “When the people formerly known as the
audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another, that’s
citizen journalism.” He has been one of the earliest advocates and supporters of citizen
journalism, encouraging the press to take a more active interest in citizenship, improving
public debate, and enhancing life.  Rosen is often described by the media as an intellectual
leader of the movement of public journalism.

Citizen journalism is defined as citizens “playing an active role in the process of collecting,
reporting, analysing and (distributing) news and information” (Bowman & Willis, 2003,
p9).Citizen journalism is often equated with the concept of participatory journalism, but in
reality theses two are different concepts though overlapping and intertwined with each other.
Participatory journalism includes audience interactions with journalistic content such as
commenting on an existing story, engaging with an interactive multimedia feature,
involvement with a Wikipedia, or large-scale collaborative open-source production. While
citizen journalism mirrors journalistic production processes, with citizens responsible for
creating individual articles, photos, videos or audio content with the intent for it to be used by
the public in the same way it uses the mainstream media.
Citizen journalism had emerged as a “Social Revolution” all around the world. Dan Gillmor,
a prominent advocate of citizen journalism and author of one of the content, wrote about this
revolution. “It is a story, first, of evolutionary change. Humans have always told each other
stories, and each new era of progress has led to an expansion of storytelling. It is also a story
of a modern revolution, however, because new technology has given us a communications
toolkit that allows anyone to become a journalist at little cost, and, in theory, with global
reach. Nothing like this has ever been remotely possible before. (Gillmor, 2006, xii).

The practice of citizen journalism has not only introduced citizens to media producing role
but had changed the medialanscape and has also opened dialogue that has created a way back
to Socratic Method where people learn by asking questions and discussing, rather than being
presented with information.

To further understand the concept of citizen journalism, we need to acknowledge the “Uses
and Gratification” theory. It is an approach to understand why and how people actively seek
out specific media to satisfy specific needs. Uses and gratifications perspective is build
around the audience as an active communicator, and thus, as a potential producer of media
content. Citizen journalism is very much a social development, produced and shaped by the
“former audience,” (Gillmor, 2004) which now chooses to produce journalistic content. By
studying the motivations they feel and gratifications they seek, the process of participation,
the reasons for its popularity and current and future state of the media can be understood.

Recent research  has looked at social networking services, personal and subject-based blogs,
and internet forums put together to study the U&G in posting social content, the relationship
between gratifications and narcissism, and the effects of age on this relationship and these
gratifications. Users have motivations of the following overall:

a. Social and affection

b. Need to vent negative feelings
c. Recognition
d. Entertainment
e. Cognitive need

American sociologist Herbert J. Gans said almost 30 years ago said t “the news may be too
important to leave to the journalists alone” (1980, p322). While this statement may be even
truer in the current mediascape, citizen journalism plays a vital role in reclaiming the
balance of power between news organizations and audiences. By changing the relationship
from a top-down lecture to a two-way conversation “news audiences have begun to reclaim
their place in the news cycle” (Bruns, 2005, p9).
The definition presented in the (2003) thinking paper “We Media”, is most effective. Here, it
is presented in its complete form: “The act of citizens playing an active role in the process of
collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news of information...the intent of this
participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant
information that a democracy requires” (Bowman & Willis, Chapter 1). This description
highlights some of the main advantages of the use of citizen journalism, and allows for both
citizen journalism and participatory journalism.

2.2 Evolution of Citizen Journalism

The idea that average citizens can engage in the act of journalism was the basis for the
growth the citizen journalism. Its rise can be trace back to 1960s where we do it ourselves,
which news media could not do it for citizens. But the major setback was the cost of
producing and distributing which is beyond ones reach. It was after thirty years when
mainstream news media embraces public inputs into their news making process.

United States provided fertile land for the growth of citizen journalism in 1990s when the
readers were involved in the news making process as well as use of news. The main
characteristics were polling of readers, arranging public, meetings, surveys were
commissioned and readers were invited to express themselves on issues like crime, politics,
education and development. At this stage it was more of the advisory role than the
participatory role. The early American press laid the foundation for modern citizen
journalists. And this further led to the current model. The basic difference between the earlier
model and current model was the technology factor.

The earlier relationship between audiences and news media was marked by one being a
consumer and producer. And in the current relationship difference between producer and
consumer has got blurred.

The concept of citizen journalism is associated with the rapid rise of internet – as a medium
of communication. Citizens have certainly participated in news making from the start of
modern news, but journalism's industrialization in the mid-nineteenth century and later its
professionalization marginalized that involvement.

It was in the era of 90’s when liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation forces were
invading the world all around. This term emerged in 2000’s as a way of challenging the role
of journalism and other dominant institutions in shaping public debate.
It was during the coverage of 11 September 2001 when news media brought saturation,
destroyed images and in-depth news stories, but what media couldn’t do was to give voice to
anyone who wants to cry, mourn, shout, comment, express and share their feelings in public
domain. Blogs however could do that and made it possible to express and comment across the
internet.

Another tragedy was Asian Tsunami of 26 December 2004 in Indonesia and Thailand where
in first 24 hour image and videos of destruction came from tourists who used their mobile
phones, camorders and digital camera. Most of the photos came from amateurs present there.

Then another event which provides fertile land for the growth of citizen journalism is Iran
elections in 2009. In Iran, information posted on Facebook and Twitter and videos on
YouTube told the world of the government crackdown following the disputed election of
June 2009. Most notably, the death from a single bullet of a protesting student, Neda Agha-
Soltan, was posted on YouTube, turning her into a martyr and potent symbol for the cause of
democracy.

A George Polk Award went to the anonymous bystander who took the video of her death
that shocked the world. However, such citizen journalism seemed to have no lasting impact in
the so-called “Green Revolution” against the country’s regime and President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. This was a decisive movement and citizen journalism becomes a prominent
phenomenon on the journalistic landscape. The news media became dependent on the
amateurs. Since then this practice gain importance in the field of journalism and acquired an
important aspect to be studied and debated.

2.3 Fuelling Factor for Citizen Journalism

The rise of Citizen Journalism is primarily attributed to “technology” as in the past there were
very few ways that people could make known, beyond the sound of their own voices, facts
they uncovered or opinions they held.

While early interactivity occurred through the use of “Letters to the Editor” or “Man on the
Street” interviews, it was typically in reaction to a story that had already been published, and
was filtered through the existing editorial screening process (Jayaram, 2005, p.291).As
technology makes every citizen a publisher, journalism is no longer restricted to journalists.
Morris says that beyond the simple changes caused by the introduction of technology into
news production and the allowance for increased interactivity, the Internet is “fuelling a
cultural ideological shift towards social construction of meaning” (2002, p15-6).

(Figure 1: Change in the Communication Process due to Technology)

(Source: Google Images)

By introducing the phrase “Cosmopedia,” Levy presents the idea that the future new media
environment, where collaboration, audience participation and open-source projects are used
to their full extent, will create an “achievable utopia” (Jenkins, 2006, p136).Earlier Due to
lack of access to technology and publication platforms, interaction with the public was
merely at an advisory level, especially in broadcast mediums (Rushton, 1993, p76). As
technology has become more available and the public has become more capable at operating
consumer versions of the technology used to create content, they have rapidly switched from
consumers to producers.

The amateur recordings that reported the 9/11 attacks to the world, citizen reporters who
covered the 2009 Iran elections for the world, the Mumbai terror attacks and the Arab spring
has already made it clear that the use of social media and active citizen reporting can extend
to a level where it can, in certain circumstances, become the only and primary source of news
and information. Even in countries like China that do not entertain freedom of expression
and the free flow of social media, we can see new experiments leading to a gradual shift
towards citizen media.

2.4 Reasons for the Rise of Citizen Journalism

The most important reason for the rise of this phenomenon is to create accountability in the
government’s day to day functioning. People are using this tool to raise their voice and get
what they are entitled to, in this democratic functioning. Corruption and lack of
accountability has gradually percolated through the functioning of all of government
activities, involving politicians, government officials, legal officers and ordinary citizens.
Despite the high rate of loss, those responsible have rarely been charged. The masses in rural
India remain the worst sufferers with social benefit and welfare schemes worst affected by
corruption. A large section of the media in India has never been under the ownership of the
government, and has been free to operate under its own terms. However, it is equally
imperative to know how the urban centric, market driven media in India has consistently
overlooked systematic corruption and issues affecting the masses.
This can be understood with the study of CGNet Swara. How the issue of corruption and lack
of accountability forced citizen to come forward raise their voice and thus find solution to
these problems, especially in rural area. CGNet Swara is a news service of Central Gondwana
region of India accessible on mobile phones where tribal people can know the news related to
them or their surrounding regions which don’t get reported in mainstream media. The news
service can be accessed online or on mobile phones by simply dialling a number and one can
hear the messages from the citizen journalists or voice their own opinions and concerns
which receive a lot of amplification due to the deep penetration of service in the regions.

Another reason for the emergence of citizen journalism is failure of the mainstream media to
address people issues and problems. And thus failed at providing a efficient as well as
effective platform to people to raise their voices. It has been a result of media vacuum created
between common man and media. There was abundance of media but however does not
guarantee representation of the public voice and expression of the plurality of issues.

Commenting on the state of media in India Justice Markandey Katju, the current Chairman of
the Press Council of India (PCI) said that while the nation was “sitting on a volcano, the
media was offering four kinds of opium to the masses in the shape of religious bigotry, films,
cricket and falsehood: “The intent is clear. Keep the people drugged so they do not revolt
against poverty and the terrible mess created for them.”

In the last 65 years of independent India even as newspapers were learning to get into the
business of journalism, the advent of television news in the late 90s increased the
consumption of news with 24X7 News Channels. But the real issues still rest on the
periphery. During these years while citizen media was taking shape around the world, India
was empowered by a historic legislation that was bound to change the way Indian democracy
had been working.

The implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2005 came after much official
reluctance and massive activism by rights groups and civil society. The Act was aimed at
empowering people with information to put a check on corrupt practices and initiate a culture
of accountability. Little had the bureaucracy itself realized that the Act would soon turn out to
be a revolution in bringing government machinery to account.
Manish Sisodia, a former journalist and an active member of the anti-corruption movement in
India that started in 2011 says, “RTI empowered citizens of India like never before. They
could now access information from government offices about public projects, day today
dealings, government tenders and public services by filing RTIs.”

In the years that followed, RTI as a tool has been pro-actively utilized by activists and
ordinary people to expose corruption, seek answers to delayed official proceedings and to get
evidence of anything that was going wrong anywhere. While many such RTI-generated
stories went into mainstream media, blogs - the only form of social media prevalent then -
came to the rescue to those who had information they wanted to share in public interest, but
had no access to mainstream media. People created web forums and personal blogs to bring
the information into the public domain and generate discussions around it.
Citizen Journalism has been further encouraged by the explosion of 24 hour television news
channels and the consequent hunger for new stories and perspectives. The Citizen Journalist
Show (CJ), an initiative of CNN IBN, is a half hour television capsule that broadcasts stories
by ordinary citizens. It looks to raising and investigating an issue and bringing about a
positive change in society.
2.5 Business Model of Citizen Journalism
Profit sharing with producers is the main crux of citizen journalism. There are a growing
number of websites that are sharing revenue generated through advertising and syndication
with their community. The distribution of the funds is systematically organized by the
number of items a user produces and their relative quality.
2.6 Impact of Citizen Journalism
Citizen journalism has emerged as an alternative mode of civic participation. The main
motive of this form is to give voice or opportunity to mango man to express themselves in the
public domain. It comes with that tag line –‘Do It YOURSELF JOURNALIM’. From mobile
apps to traditional media companies it appears that everyone is supporting this media sharing
platform. Journalism is all about informing people and citizen journalism gives power to the
people. Citizens are able to provide raw, real life material that can never be filtered.

Democracy is all about people and in this era of global democracy, citizen journalism has
emerged a powerful phenomenon for grassroots people to express and raise their voices to
achieve a common goal. It also allows marginalized people to reclaim their voices and
express, comment, debate or discuss the variety of issues concerning them. “The great thing
about citizen participation is you can publicize stuff that formerly wouldn’t get publicized,
and in a medium that is mass distributed.”— James Breiner. This can be seen by various
examples.

OhmyNews, launched on February 22, 2000, with the mantra “Every Citizen Is a Reporter,”
is widely credited with influencing the 2002 presidential election in South Korea. The citizen
journalist website provided an alternative news source, and successful candidate Roh Moo-
Hyuan benefitted from counter-arguments his supporters posted on OhmyNews.

In 2010 and 2011 hundreds of videos and photographs surfaced just as the conflicts in the
Middle East and North Africa was gaining momentum. The videos came from ordinary sons,
daughter, mothers, and fathers experiencing the devastating problems firsthand; they were in
a sense documenting a historical moment. The world became much smaller and communities
more connected.

The same happened in India, during the protest in the wake of Delhi gang rape. There was
outburst of emotions – anger against the government’s failure to provide security to women.
This protest was not confined to Delhi, it spread to other states as well as global level.
Feminist all around the world were raising their voices. It also saw the formation of online
communities to form a protest or public gathering at India gate. Citizen Journalism in India is
acting as a catalyst for change forcing greater transparency and pressurizing government
officials to deliver. The online world was booming with countless tweets and pictures from
eyewitnesses during demonstration. These images would later be published in blogs,
newsrooms, and newspapers. There’s no doubt that because of these citizen journalists people
across the nation were informed. Citizen journalists help “‘capture the moment, not the
aftermath.’”

Citizen journalism is sweeping the world with new technology giving ordinary people more
power to get their voices heard and hold politicians and corporations to account.

Benefits of Citizen Journalism:

a. Increased trust in media-citizen journalism provides media companies with the

potential to develop a more loyal and trustworthy relationship with their audiences.
This can happen, for example, with a reporter who writes a weblog, asking the
audience to fuel her efforts by providing tips, feedback and first-hand accounts that
confirm a story’s premise or that take it in a different direction. We Media can also
provide the audience a deeper level of understanding about the reporting process by
illustrating, for example, how a reporter must balance competing interests. This
communication can lead to a lasting trust.
b. Shared responsibility in informing democracy-An audience that participates in the
journalistic process is more demanding than passive consumers of news. But they
may also feel empowered to make a difference. As a result, they feel as though they
have a shared stake in the end result.
c. Memorable experiences created- Online interactive experiences are more memo-
rable than relatively static experiences such as newspapers, according to Web
usability expert Jakob Nielsen. “Moving around is what the Web is all about,” Nielsen
explains. “When analyzing the ‘look-and-feel’ of a web site, the feel completely
dominates the user experience. After all, doing is more memorable and makes a
stronger emotional impact than seeing
 d. The next generation of news consumers-Increasing interactivity and enabling
audience participation have an additional benefit — attracting a younger audience, the
next generation of news consumers.
e. Better stories — and better journalism-Journalism researcher Mark Deuze
explains: “The Internet as it wires millions of individuals as potential information
experts into a global communications infrastructure provides an ideal platform for
improving journalism by incorporating the expertise of people ‘outside of the
Rolodex.
f. A scalable virtual staff-An involved audience can play the role of a scalable virtual
staff — a massive pool of grassroots writers, commentators, photographers and
videographers. Collaborating with them enables media to be and go where they
normally cannot, due to geography or cost.
g. Fostering community- Participatory journalism helps develop real community
around reporters, stories, and the media company’s brand experience. With a weblog,
for example, a reporter has a place to extend reporting, interact with readers, exercise
personal conscience, and share some level of personality that might be absent from his
“unbiased” reports. These are elements that attract real community.

2.7 Citizen Journalism and Mainstream Media

There are two schools of thought about the place of citizen journalism in contemporary
media. First, some believe that user-generated content is sub-standard and threatens other
media formats, especially the newspaper industry. Since its practitioners are not trained
professional journalists, these critics think that each person who posts a video or writes an
article diminishes the overall quality of journalism.

In his book “The Cult of the Amateur: How the internet is killing our culture” (2007) Andrew
Keen writes that “citizen journalists have no formal training or expertise, yet they routinely
offer up opinion as fact, rumour as reportage and innuendo as information” (p37).

David Simon, a former Baltimore Sun reporter and writer-producer of the popular television

series, "The Wire," criticized the concept of citizen journalism—claiming that unpaid
bloggers, who write as a hobby cannot replace trained, professional, seasoned journalists.

"I am offended to think that anyone, anywhere believes American institutions as insulated,
self-preserving and self-justifying as police departments, school systems, legislatures and
chief executives can be held to gathered facts by amateurs pursuing the task without
compensation, training or for that matter, sufficient standing to make public officials even
care to whom it is they are lying to." Keen also cites a 2006 study by the Pew Centre for
Internet and American Life, which found that 34% of America’s estimated 12 million
bloggers considered their online contributions to be a form of journalism (Keen, 2007,
pp:37).

A.J. Liebling once said, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”
Now, millions do. The process of citizen journalism has resulted into democratisation of
media. Don Gillmor, in his book “We the Media: grassroots journalism for the people, by the
people,” believes that citizen journalists provide a voice for the public and a viable alternative
to traditional journalism (2006). This has put an end to the traditional media hegemony.

A democratized media challenges the notion of the institutional press as the exclusive,
privileged, trusted, informed intermediary of the news. Many newspapers and TV stations
have had years to establish the trust of their audiences. Yet participatory news sites, with their
transparent and more intimate nature, are attracting legions of fans that contribute and
collaborate with one another.

The whole process of citizen journalism has redefined the concept of credibility. Credibility
is the basis for journalism. Practice of citizen journalism has also allowed its practitioners to
become new experts and watchdogs. They play efficient role in bringing the issue in the
limelight.

Another scholar, Rosen, doesn’t believe that the audience should have to choose between
traditional and citizen journalism, but that the two should be able to co-exist and even
complement each other. He even goes so far as to say that the advent of citizen journalism
should make society question the role of traditional media in his book “What are journalists
for?” (1999) while he still thinks there should be traditional media; he is encouraged that the
existence of citizen journalism is making society question the role and purpose of
professional journalists in our society.

Today citizen journalism has collaborated with mass media. CNN-IBN has promoted
Citizen Journalism as its extended brand entity, which has in turn resulted in positive
outcomes both for CJs and the media organization, the case of CGNet Swara, though
practically similar, has been designed differently as a concept. The Citizen Journalist
Show (CJ Show), for example, is a half-hour TV programme broadcast on one of the national
news channels CNN-IBN. The show broadcasts stories from citizens who want an issue
investigated to bring about a positive change in their local community or wider society.

One such story featured Brajesh Kumar Chauhan who lives in Delhi and turned citizen
journalist for the CJ show to report the lack of water and illegal selling of drinking water in
his district, an unauthorised slum area in the sprawling city.

He recorded interviews with his neighbours on a small camera and took pictures of the
contaminated water supply. With support from the channel, his story was broadcast on CNN-
IBN and he called for a response from the authorities. 

Shubhranshu Choudhary, founder of CGNet Swara, puts it forward as a simple calculation.

“The working model of mainstream media in India has shown that less than 2 percent of
people in India are funding 80 percent of the media. What follows is the fact that 80 percent
of the media speaks about the agendas and concerns of 2 percent of India. That’s why we
always emphasise that if you want your information to be out and heard you need to own
your media. Unfortunately the media models that we have seen so far are too expensive for
communities to own”.

2.8 Challenges
Scott (2005) provides a comprehensive analysis of the changing digital journalism landscape
by documenting challenges brought about by technology. He suggests that the Internet has
been very disruptive to traditional media, stating, “It has demanded new business models,
threatened complacency, and responded to innovation”.
Unlike in the West, where it has been primarily web based and technology driven, in India it
has its roots in the lack of an effective mechanism for redressing the grievances of ordinary
citizens. The tools of the internet and new media are still to reach the poor majority in India,
who usually lack the necessary resources to express their interests and seek accountability. In
a country of 1.2 billion people, India has only 130 million internet users, with even more
limited internet penetration in rural India.

There have been many claims to be the first citizen journalism initiative in India but few have
managed to sustain themselves and survive commercially and editorially. Web portals like
merinews.com credited with being the pioneers in the field have succumbed to the lack of
moderation and quality reporting.
Citizen journalism Lacks objectivity and journalistic ethics, which in turn leading to biased
news reporting. Many times stories of citizen journalist are questioned in the light of
accuracy. Sometimes it is also used as tool of defamation and suffers low journalistic
ethics.Sensationalism and rumours are inevitable with false reports often going viral is one of
other challenge to this practice. This could lead to riots and harm public health. Citizen
journalists could compromise security and add to risks of putting others at harm.

2.9 Citizen Journalism at Global Level

Stuart Allan (Professor of Journalism and Communication, Cardiff University, UK) in his
book Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives examines the spontaneous actions of ordinary
people, caught up in extraordinary events, who felt compelled to adopt the role of a news
reporter.

For example, eyewitness accounts and critical response of ordinary people to Hurricane
Katrina in United States, the Wenchuan earthquake in china, the use of war blogs and the
hybrid links between civil society and new social movements in protest against the political,
legal, humanitarian crisis of the Iraq war, the role citizen journalism in the fight of human
rights, democracy, dignity across regions and different countries including Brazil, India, Iran,
Palestine, china and Vietnam, the online promotion of awareness and action in Antarctica
about climate change, or the part played by citizen media in recent political crises and
contest including violent election in Kenya, the amplification of contentious campaign
remarks in Brack Obama’s US electoral campaign, the role of social networking and citizen
sourced content in Australia’s federal election.

Citizen journalism has evolved across recent year and is expressive of the surrounding
culture, organization structures and politics in civil societies. Much hang, clearly on what
exactly is meant by ‘citizenship’ and also ‘journalism’ and the plural meanings and projects
now pursued in respect of both.

More generally, citizen journalism has proved to be creatively adept by putting to work the
now constantly updating and superseding communication technologies that have become
widely available. These highly portable, low-cost, discreet, digitalised communication
technologies that are highly plugged into and uploaded to the World Wide Web have become
for many an integral part of everyday life and medium for the conduct of social relations.
Animated by differing conceptions of both citizenship and journalism and practiced under
very different political regimes around the world ,citizen journalism now assert their presence
outside ,through and within today’s mainstream media. Citizen journalism variously enters
into and informs today’s world new ecology with its overlapping formation and flow of news,
mainstream and alternative new media and new interactive technologies of news
dissemination and user generated content.

Though still in large part structured in dominance by western news corporations and news
flows from west to rest, today’s world news ecology incorporates established and emergent
non western news formations and a plethora of alternative news forms and outlets generating
news contra-flows or circulating oppositional views and voices –from rest to west and from
local to global.

Patrick Butler (2007) documents how the internet, short messages, cell phone camera have
transformed the work of journalist and citizen journalist alike. In Egypt, new technologies
were used to reveal corruption and organise protests, in Burma, cell phones were used to
organise the protest against the military in 2007, and to distribute video and photos of the
government crackdown on protestors. Egypt responded by arresting a journalist/blogger,
Burma by shutting down the internet.

Countries like china and Iran have experienced more difficulties in controlling the internet.
China leads the world in arresting people for internet uses, accounting for 50 of the 65 people
in prison for internet offences worldwide. Media Corporation have assisted governments in
their effort to censor the internet.

The liberating potential of the global diffusion of new communication technologies is

encompassed in the term mobile democracy, which Butler uses to describe events in the
Philippines and Lebanon. Text messaging led to the falloff the Philippines president in 2001
and to the end of Syria’s military presence in Lebanon. Butler cites Kuwaiti women using cell
phones to earn the rights to vote and run for office, South Koreans using cell phones to garner
enough votes for an election victory, and Chinese using cell phones to facilitate labour strike.

Despite these examples of positive political change, Butler also raises concerns that mobile
democracy can turn into mob democracy to topple good leaders as well as bad and the
terrorists’ organization such as al-Qaeda use digital media just as effectively as prodemocracy
movements. Another trend in global digital media change is the use of citizen generated
content by traditional media.

The authors called it a media revolution when witness to the terrorist bombing of the London
subway in 2005 deluged the media with 1,000 emails with videos. Other example includes
CNN’s use of student blogs and media use of cell phone videos in covering the shootings at
Virginia Tech University in the spring of 2007. The leading French newspaper Le Monde is
providing blogs to subscribers and urging readers to keep electronic travel journals that can
be posted online at the newspaper. In Chile a tabloid circulation rose to 30 percent after
editors begin using its most popular online stories to determine what to print.

Globally, Peskin and Nachison (2006) put the number of blogs at 1 million, a trend they
identify as “we media”. With more than 2 billion people possessing cell phones and more cell
phones capable of acting as still and video cameras, “global content generation” has been
created with the ability to share all aspects of life, anywhere and anytime.

We media intensify participation and change the relationship between the We media and
the traditional media. Citizen journalism has moved from periphery to the centre and the
mainstream media find their control as gatekeeper threatened. In we media the authors
contended, “the authentic, cultural expression “or voice of the individual is resurgent.

Moving toward next chapter, I had already discussed the different aspect of Citizen
Journalism. Now the next chapter will talk about the role of youth. It provides you with the
insight on how youth has adopted the practices of citizen journalism to get civilly engaged.

Social Activism: Case Studies.

In India, online availability of information has created several new ways of communication
and interaction through Internet relay chats, messaging email, video and voice chat, file
sharing, blogging and discussion groups. Social media, particularly the Social Networking
Sites, have enabled communication anywhere in the world and to anyone who shares interests
and activities across political, social, economic and geographical boundaries. Of late, there
has been intensive discourse and debate among intelligentsia about the perceptible impact of
social media on opinion building and expression. Some civil society movements are also said
to be accelerated by social media.
Roles and Functions of Social Media for Activism
The reasons that activists deploy social media and the roles and functions networked
technologies fulfil for activists and social movements are also examined in the literature. One
of the main differences in roles and functions that has been identified is between
internal/inward roles and external/outward roles. Inward roles refer to organisation,
coordination, internal debate and decision making while outward roles relate to mobilisation,
recruitment, attack strategies and the creation of alternative or independent channels of
communication that contribute to a vibrant public sphere. Eight core logics for the use of
social media by protest movements and activists can be identified (see Jordan and Taylor,
2004; Cammaerts, 2005; Van Laer and Van Aelst, 2010; Bennett and Segerberg, 2012): ICT-
supported communicative practices to organize internally, recruit and network, moblize for
and coordinate direct action, -5- disseminate movement frames independently of the
mainstream, and discuss/debate/deliberate/decide. ICT-based communicative practices to
attack ideological enemies, surveil the surveillers, and, preserve protest artefacts.
Inward-oriented communicative action relates to the potential of social media to make
internal organisation more efficient through the mediation of internal communication. The
use of social media may lower the transaction costs of participation which, in turn, potentially
fosters recruitment and retention of recruits. Social media are seen as being instrumental in
enabling more fluid membership and asynchronous participation, although this potential
should not be exaggerated. Lower costs do not automatically lead to higher overall levels of
political participation. Furthermore, the continuing importance of face-to-face
communication for building trust and keeping information safe from state security services
has to be emphasized too in this regard. Another feature of social media is that they increase
the ability of social movements to organise across borders on a transnational level, to link up
with other organisations building large networks that overcome time/space constraints,
potentially leading to movement spill-over. Social media play an important role in facilitating
the mobilisation for, and coordination of, direct actions offline. An overemphasis on the
Internet is present in some studies and mobile technologies and text messaging often play a
very important role (Gillan, et al., 2008). For example, SMS and mobile phones played a role
in mobilisations against Philippine President Joseph – ‘Erap’ – Estrada, leading to his
resignation in 2001 illustrating a substantial change in political communication and
mobilisation in the Global South. Lowering the cost and increasing the efficiency of
mobilization and coordination with a view to offline direct action is one of the main features
of social networking sites and smart phones, enabling on-the-spot or in-realtime
communicative practices. Social media enable activists and protest movements to ‘self-
mediate’ and to distribute movement goals or frames more easily. Social movements and
activists have always done this, but social media are said to greatly increase the capacity to
transmit text and visual discourses. It is often argued that social media potentially provide
(new) opportunities for citizens and subordinate groups in society to bypass state and market
controls and the mainstream media to construct alternative collective identities. In addition,
social media tools can potentially facilitate internal debate among activists. Online forums
and mailing lists are used extensively and these tools are considered an integral part of many
movements, to the extent that some have started to use online platforms and forums for
decision-making (Gillan, et al., 2008: 157). This has been studied mainly from the
perspective of how online deliberation has the potential to strengthen the public sphere. -6- In
recent years, a number of other roles that are related more to Internetbased practices than to
Internet-supported practices, i.e. they are more constitutive than instrumental, have forcefully
asserted themselves. The network is used against the network; indeed activists are using the
Internet and social media platforms as weapons to strike at their ideological enemies. ICTs
are therefore being used as instruments of direct action as “hacktivist” tactics demonstrate
(Jordan and Taylor, 2004). An example of this is the tactic of sousveillance – surveilling the
surveillers or bottom-up surveillance by citizens/activists on the state or public figures.
Pervasive handheld cameras on mobile phones used with networked infrastructures and
platforms have made this tactic possible. Sousveillance is the result of what Mathiesen (1997)
calls the synoptic viewer society or the many watching the few. The filming and
photographing of police behaviour during demonstrations can be seen as a passive aggressive
counter-tactic to monitor and expose police or state-sponsored violence. Social media are
used to distribute content uploaded by protesters which can go viral and may be picked up by
international media. Sousveillance tactics played an important role during the student protests
in the United Kingdom in 2011 and during the Arab Spring. Closely linked to sousveillance,
social media provide an archive, a memory and a repository of text and audio-visual symbolic
content relating to protests, tactics, organisations, and ideas. The self-mediations of protesters
and activists contribute to a global archive of protest artifacts. The permanent nature of these
artifacts enables the symbols embedded in these discourses to be culturally transmitted,
feeding struggles and contributing to a collective memory of protest. In this way, social
movements transfer knowledge and can influence future movements through what is called
movement spillover. The protests in Tunisia spreading to other Arab countries such as Egypt,
Yemen, Libya and Syria are an example as is the rapid diffusion of the occupation of
symbolic public spaces as a direct action in the Arab World spreading to the indignados in
Spain, to the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere with the Occupy movement.

Digital Divide
Digital divide refers to a substantial symmetry between two or more population in the
distribution and effective use of information and communication resources. The world we
live in has been changing rapidly with the emergence of the ubiquitous Society bringing
forward extraordinary benefits and opportunities together with new challenges. The ability to
create and utilize information plays a significant role in both socioeconomic structures of our
lives. On the other hand ICT has faced serious problem of digital divide between developed
and developing countries. The digital divide affects many nations of the developing world.
The term encompasses inadequate funding, a lack of necessary computer and internet skills
and a lack of English language proficiency that hinder expansion and use of digital
information resources. (Dubey.P, 2010).Factors influencing digital divide vary from region to
region the digital divide is depending and the differences in the usage of communication
resources between countries and regions intensifying. The digital divide can be defined as the
gap between individuals, households, business and geographical areas at different socio-
economic levels with regards both to their opportunities to access ICTs and to their use of the
internet for a wide variety of activities. As internet has rapidly growth to underline almost
aspect of the global economy, the term “Digital divide” has often been referred to internet
access it is a divide that affects and reinforces fundamental economic and social divides
between and within countries and is threatening to further exacerbate these inequalities.
(Singh.k, 2012)
Dimensions of Digital Divide
The word “divide” suggests a significant barrier, one on a massive scale and hard to shift as
in “continental divide” or “great divide”. Digital divide is emphasized much on digital divide
issues of hard work, technical infrastructure and connectivity loom large but these are not the
only dimension of the digital divide. (www.lianza.org.nz). the eight Cs of success in the
internet economy formulated by Rao (2000) provide a classification that is strongly oriented
to technological and economic dimensions such as
Connectivity It is suggested that the following dimentions which modify and add to Rao’s
8cs which can be identified on the basis of barriers and their effects as described in literature
but they don’t start with the letter c- not only the telecommunications infracture but also
availability of state of the art , work state peripheral equipment and soft ware. Access to all
these by the general population, not merely technology for rural and disadvantaged
communities.

Capacity
Sufficient trained IT professionals to install and maintain h/w, s/w and networks.
Professional information workers those who are belongs to education and professional
associations of IT and library information professionals.
Content
Content not only meansn from the developed but also from the country it and communities in
vernacular language relivent to national and local issue are as far as concerned.

Community
Client base depends on literacy rate and level of groups, including rural communities,
women, children and elderly persons with disabilities.

Finance
Capital for investment in infracture and implementation ongoing revenue for sustainability of
systems. Legislation and regularly bodies impacting on telecommunication, the flow of
content, e-commerce, availability of foreign currency, flow of funds between levels of govt
budgetary constraints, producers, competitions, non-govt organization etc.

Policy frame work

National information policies, IT, knowledge society, egovt, technology transfer, rural
transfer, etc. Moral and ethical framework, Issues of information sovereignty versus
information media and cultural hegemony of the powerful western industrialized nations, use
of economic power to force principals of market capitalism on small economies. (Lor, P,
2009).
INITIATIVES OF BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN INDIA

Kissan call centre

The depth of Agriculture and co-operation (DAC) ministry of agriculture govt of India
launched Kisan call centres of Jan 21, 2004, across the country to deliver extension services.
All the queries related to agriculture and allied sectors are being addressed through these call
centres by making a single call the farmers reaches an agriculture graduate or expert who
would be able to respond to his queries and problems instantly. These services would be
available round the clock. The functioning of the levels I, 2, 3 are as mentioned in the
forthcoming specific paras. I. This would be great efforts made by the ministry of agriculture
govt in India to bridge the gap between the right information resource and the user by using
the phone. (www.manage.govt.in),(agricoop.in), (kisancallcentre.org.in).

Unit 5 E-Services

Ecommerce trends: Introduction, benefits and impact

Electronic commerce, commonly known as E-commerce, is trading in products or services
using computer networks, such as the Internet. Electronic commerce draws on technologies
such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet
marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory
management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce
typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction's life cycle,
although it may also use other technologies such as e-mail. In the simplest case, it can be
defined as doing business transactions in an electronic format. The European Commission
has defined the e-commerce in 1977 as follow: The April 1997 edition (ERCIM News No.
29) reported that "Europe has been lagging with respect to the rest of the world in its way
towards the information society". As far as electronic commerce is concerned there is strong
activity developing and a focus that is specifically European is certainly arising. This is
happening on three fronts - firstly there is serious use of electronic commerce in many
European countries, including France, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK; secondly, these
national activities are being brought together through a new user body, Electronic Commerce
Europe (ECE); thirdly the European Commission is bringing together its various actions
under a co-operative umbrella and calling for serious implementation initiatives under the
latest ESPRIT Thematic Calls. E-commerce based on data processing, including text, sound,
image. The business includes various activities such as the electronic exchange of goods and
services, instant delivery of digital content, business plans, collaborative design and
engineering, electronic stock exchange, government procurement, direct marketing, services
after the sales. E-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the
transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the Internet. These
business transactions occurs business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-
consumer or consumer-to-business. The terms e-commerce and e-business are often used
interchangeably. The term e-tail is also sometimes used in reference to transactional
processes around online retail. E-commerce is conducted using a variety of applications, such
as email, fax, online catalogs and shopping carts, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), File
Transfer Protocol, and Web services. Most of this is business-tobusiness, with some
companies attempting to use email and fax for unsolicited ads (usually viewed as spam) to
consumers and other business prospects, as well as to send out e-newsletters to subscribers .
BENEFIT OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
The benefits of e-commerce include it’s the speed of access, a wider selection of goods and
services, accessibility, and international reach. It’s perceived downsides include sometimes
limited customer service, not being able to see or touch a product prior to purchase, and the
necessitated wait time for product shipping. To ensure the security, privacy and effectiveness
of e-commerce, businesses should authenticate business transactions, control access to
resources such as webpages for registered or selected users, encrypt communications and
implement security technologies such as the Secure Sockets Layer.
Ecommerce can be divided into four main categories: B2B, B2C, C2B, and C2C.

9.1.B2B (BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS) Business-to-business (B2B) is commerce

transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or
between a wholesaler and a retailer. Pricing is based on quantity of order and is often
negotiable.

9.2.B2C (BUSINESS-TO-CONSUMER) Business or transactions conducted directly

between a company and consumers who are the endusers of its products or services. Business
to consumer as a business model differs significantly from the business to business model,
which refers to commerce between two or more businesses.
9.3.C2B (CONSUMER-TO-BUSINESS) Consumer-to-business (C2B) is a business model in
which consumers individuals create value and businesses consume that value. C2B model,
also called a reverse auction or demand collection model, enables buyers to name or demand
their own price, which is often binding, for a specific good or service. The website collects
the demand bids then offers the bids to participating sellers.
9.4.C2C (CONSUMER-TO-CONSUMER) Customer to Customer (C2C) markets are
innovative ways to allow customers to interact with each other. While traditional markets
require business to customer relationships, in which a customer goes to the business in order
to purchase a product or service. In customer to customer markets the business facilitates an
environment where customers can sell these goods and or services to each other

E-Governance
The term 'Governance' is wider than 'Government'. Governance may be an activity of
governing/controlling a country by its Government, controlling of an organisation or a
company by its CEO or Board of Directors or controlling of a house hold by the head of the
house, Accordingly E-governance may also involve governing of a country, organisation,
company or a household, however with the help of Information and Communication
Technology (ICT).

But when we talk of E-Governance in the popular parlance we only refer to the governing of
a Country/State using ICT. E-governance therefore means the application of ICT to transform
the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of exchange of information and
transaction:

1. between Governments,
2. between Government agencies,
3. between Government and Citizens
4. between Government and businesses

E-governance also aims to empower people through giving them access to information.

Mobile Commerce

Mobile e-commerce (m-commerce) is a term that describes online sales transactions that use
wireless electronic devices such as hand-held computers, mobile phones or laptops. These
wireless devices interact with computer networks that have the ability to conduct online
merchandise purchases. Any type of cash exchange is referred to as an e-commerce
transaction. Mobile e-commerce is just one of the many subsets of electronic commerce.
Mobile e-commerce may also be known as mobile commerce.

The steady shift of consumer behavior to online shopping from retail stores hasn't been lost
on wireless electronic device manufacturers. Mobile electronic commerce is yet another way
to purchase online items from electronic storefronts or online services from automated
service providers. Computer-mediated networks enable these transaction processes through
electronic store searches and electronic point-of-sale capabilities. Other mobile devices
include dash-top mobile devices, personal digital assistants or smartphones. 

Device vendors target younger generations who use mobile phones more than any other age
group, prompting online vendors to collaborate with big names in the telecommunications
industry to promote the advancement of e-commerce to m-commerce such that users can
shop online from their phones. Most of these advances are accomplished through
sophisticated application designs that are constantly emerging and evolving.

One of the features of m-commerce sites is the adaptation of websites to make them easier to
use with smaller screen sizes. There are a number of adaptations that can be made including
the removal of large graphics and the optimization of fonts for easier viewing and
ergonomics.

Unit 6

Digital Marketing Advantages and Disadvantages

In simplistic terms, digital marketing is the promotion of products or brands via one or more
forms of electronic media. Digital marketing differs from traditional marketing in that it
involves the use of channels and methods that enable an organization to analyze marketing
campaigns and understand what is working and what isn’t – typically in real time.

Digital marketers monitor things like what is being viewed, how often and for how long,
sales conversions, what content works and doesn’t work, etc. While the Internet is, perhaps,
the channel most closely associated with digital marketing, others include wireless text
messaging, mobile instant messaging, mobile apps, podcasts, electronic billboards, digital
television and radio channels, etc.
Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages:
1. One of the most important advantages is the fast availability of the information. The
clients/users can easily get information, by navigating the internet, about the products
that they wish to purchase, and besides that, they can check the information at anytime
of the day.
2. It allows the companies to save money, an aspect that is really taken into account by
the companies since the online marketing campaigns don’t require a large amount of
investment.
3. The previous mentioned aspect, gives less importance to the differences between large
and small companies in some way, thus increasing the competition and giving that way
advantages to the customers.
4. Presence on the Internet can help the expansion of the company from a local market
to national and international markets at the same time, offering almost infinite
expanding possibilities.
5. On the internet everything can be measured, thus it’s easier for the companies to
know almost instantly if their campaign is working or not, what company or user is
interested in their products, from what cities or countries are they, etc.
Disadvantages:
1. Slow internet connections can cause difficulties. If the companies build too complex
or too large websites, it will take too long for users to check them or download them
and they will get bored eventually..
2. The e-commerce doesn’t allow the user “to touch” the merchandise before purchasing
it. Because of this, some salesmen are starting to guarantee the possibility of returning
the product. In Germany, where a law that regulates e-commerce and guarantees the
customers the total refund of the money exists since 2000, the electronic commerce is
very popular.
3. Other factor is the payment: many users still don’t trust in the electronic methods of
paying and give up buying online because of this.
4. One of the major disadvantages may be the lack of trust of the users because of the
constant virtual promotions that appear to be frauds. This is an aspect that deteriorates
the image and reputation of quality and honest companies.
 5. Other disadvantage is the cash on delivery system, since it doesn’t guarantee the
100% purchase of the product. This is also the case of thousands of users that dedicate
themselves to daily mock big companies by ordering on the internet using false
identities.
6. Unit 7

7. New Media & Cinema- PPT slides

8. New Media & Branding

Unit 8 Cyber Security

Introduction to Cyber Security.

While rapid technological developments have provided vast areas of new opportunity and
potential sources of efficiency for organisations of all sizes, these new technologies have also
brought unprecedented threats with them. Cyber security – defined as the protection of
systems, networks and data in cyberspace – is a critical issue for all businesses. Cyber
security will only become more important as more devices, ‘the internet of things’, become
connected to the internet.
Cyber risks can be divided into three distinct areas:

 Cyber crime
Conducted by individuals working alone, or in organised groups, intent on extracting
money, data or causing disruption, cyber crime can take many forms, including the
acquisition of credit/debit card data and intellectual property, and impairing the
operations of a website or service.
 Cyber war
A nation state conducting sabotage and espionage against another nation in order to
cause disruption or to extract data. This could involve the use of Advanced Persistent
Threats (APTs).
  Cyber terror
An organisation, working independently of a nation state, conducting terrorist
activities through the medium of cyberspace.

Organisations that have to consider measures against cyber war or cyber terror include
governments, those within the critical national infrastructure, and very high-profile
institutions. It is unlikely that most organisations will face the threat of cyber war or cyber
terror.

Types of malware

Cyber criminals operate remotely, in what is called ‘automation at a distance’, using

numerous means of attack available, which broadly fall under the umbrella term of malware
(malicious software). These include:

 Viruses
Aim: Gain access to, steal, modify and/or corrupt information and files from a
targeted computer system.
Technique: A small piece of software program that can replicate itself and spread
from one computer to another by attaching itself to another computer file.

 Worms
Aim: By exploiting weaknesses in operating systems, worms seek to damage
networks and often deliver payloads which allow remote control of the infected
computer.
Technique: Worms are self-replicating and do not require a program to attach
themselves to. Worms continually look for vulnerabilities and report back to the
worm author when weaknesses are discovered.

 Spyware/Adware
Aim: To take control of your computer and/or to collect personal information without
your knowledge.
Technique: By opening attachments, clicking links or downloading infected
software, spyware/adware is installed on your computer.
  Trojans
Aim: To create a ‘backdoor’ on your computer by which information can be stolen
and damage caused.
Technique: A software program appears to perform one function (for example, virus
removal) but actually acts as something else.

Attack vectors

There are also a number of attack vectors available to cyber criminals which allow them to
infect computers with malware or to harvest stolen data:

 Phishing
An attempt to acquire users’ information by masquerading as a legitimate entity.
Examples include spoof emails and websites. See ‘social engineering’ below.
 Pharming
An attack to redirect a website’s traffic to a different, fake website, where the
individuals’ information is then compromised. See ‘social engineering’ below.
 Drive-by
Opportunistic attacks against specific weaknesses within a system.
 MITM
‘Man in the middle attack’ where a middleman impersonates each endpoint and is
thus able to manipulate both victims.
 Social engineering
Exploiting the weakness of the individual by making them click malicious links, or by
physically gaining access to a computer through deception. Pharming and phishing
are examples of social engineering.