Citizen Journalism

Dan Gillmor is doing good work with his new Center for Citizen Media. This is one of the directions that civically-minded media has gone in the past few years. New technologies seem to put the citizen in the driver’s seat. But what does this mean for the profession of journalism? What is the meaning of a profession in a digital age, when nearly anyone can find out anything and distribute this information globally? Are professions defunct? Or is there something more to a profession than a monopoly on some select sort of knowledge? I still think we need the editor’s judgment. Still I think Dan Gillmor’s work is terribly imporatant. Check it out.

By Noelle McAfee

I am professor of philosophy at Emory University and editor of the Kettering Review. My latest book, Fear of Breakdown: Politics and Psychoanalysis, explores what is behind the upsurge of virulent nationalism and intransigent politics across the world today. My other writings include Democracy and the Political Unconscious; Habermas, Kristeva, and Citizenship; Julia Kristeva; and numerous articles and book chapters. Edited volumes include Standing with the Public: the Humanities and Democratic Practice and a special issue of the philosophy journal Hypatia on feminist engagements in democratic theory. I am also the author of the entry on feminist political philosophy in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and well into my next book project on democratic public life.

%d bloggers like this: