Dave Averill and I were chatting about the relationship between citizen-driven internet media (“grassroots journalism”) and the mainstrem media over the water cooler this morning. As soon as I turned back to my computer, I noticed that Ed Batista had just posted about the same issue. And as usual Ed cuts straight to the chase:
Nonprofits are still thinking like the mainstream media were three years ago. The media saw themselves as the professionals, the experts, and everyone else was part of the audience–they were readers or viewers. Nonprofits also see themselves as experts on their particular set of issues, and everyone else is part of their audience–they’re donors or voters or petition-signers, or some variation on that them.
But the mainstream media (and other major corporations) have finally realized three things:
- It’s a big world out there, and the Web brings together a lot of smart, dedicated people–including plenty of amateurs who know as much as the experts on any given subject.
- Those smart, dedicated amateurs now have the tools at their disposal to generate copious amounts of polished, compelling and essentially free content.
- If you’re a gatekeeper in some way (because of your audience, your brand, or your expertise), and you don’t involve those amateur self-publishers in your operation, they will bypass you and render you increasingly irrelevant. If you do get them involved, they will be an incredibly cost-efficient and powerful resource–but you can’t control them, you can only hope to enlist them in your cause.
Nonprofits need to wise up to these realities as well, and engage people not merely as donors or voters, but as citizen advocates, as brothers- and sisters-in-arms who in many cases know as much about the issues as nonprofit staff and who have the desire and the means to do more than write a check or pull a lever.
Still skeptical? Think it’s a flash in the pan? Well, Ed links to Jeff Jarvis, who takes note of Fox News’ new efforts to incorporate citizen media into their content streams. Jeff and Ed think we’re at a tipping point. I think they’re right.
Update: Steve Andersen passed me this multimedia presentation on the past — and future? — of citizen journalism.