Online journalism “by the people”

The anatomy of online media where regular people can practically bring into discussion and view subjects they consider intriguing both from their perspective and from the perspective of the community they represent has added (fairly recently) a significant extension. This “new limb” has taken the shape of video uploads. A mobile video upload, for instance, is another form of citizen news in images.

Thus, brief films caught on video cameras or on mobile phones are turned into a succinct illustration of what’s new or shocking or out of the ordinary or beautiful (and the enumeration could go on endlessly) around us. Most frequently, a short commentary accompanies such instances of hot clips, a commentary communicating, first of all, the opinion or the attitude of the “upload generator” toward the uploaded image. Then follow the viewers’ commentaries (if any, but most of the times intriguing pictures are completed by remarks).

We have called them hotclips with the sole purpose of putting an emphasis on the value and the newness (at times, even strangeness) that a mobile video upload of the kind reveals in most of the cases. Therefore, there is no reason to associate hot clips (at least not in our case) with improper or vulgar notions or scenes. Rather we associate hotclips with the special connotations that certain moments elicit.

These are the connotations that, ultimately, give birth to this particular online community which opts for the mobile video upload or for any other kind of video upload in order to communicate issues of common interest. In fact, these are the connotations which turn citizen journalism (in any other form as well) into such an active system. The real Hotclips are here.

More in the next part - maybe later in the day.