The digital era has also ushered in a new kind of journalism in which ordinary citizens play a greater role in the process of news making, with the rise of citizen journalism being possible through the Internet. Using video camera equipped smartphones, active citizens are now enabled to record footage of news events and upload them onto channels like YouTube, Meanwhile, easy access to news from a variety of online sources, like blogs and other social media, has resulted in readers being able to pick from a wider choice of official and unofficial sources, instead of only from traditional media organizations.
Traditional understanding of journalism as a profession has changed significantly, mostly due to the fact that digital media environment has brought new opportunities but also challenges related to the journalistic practice
The most visible aspects of this form of journalism include websites of the ‘traditional’ media but also media existing exclusively on the Internet. Online journalism uses various multimedia and interactive elements containing texts, photographs, videos, hyperlinks and users’ comments that are often simultaneously published on social networks in order to be exposed to for larger groups of target audiences
Considering the influence of the Internet on the press, i.e. on those media that process information and publish news in textual forms predominantly, it is, on the one hand, visible in the sphere of reception activities related to accessing information; on the other hand, the Web also significantly determines the ways today’s journalists and editorial staffs do their work.
Simply making information available is not enough for today’s public. Today’s audiences expect to be able to choose what they read, and most believe they should be able to contribute content and opinions, too
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