Citizen Journalism Gets Things Done in Singapore

User-generated content has become somewhat of a phenomenon in Singapore.

Singapore Press Holdings, the country’s main media group, launched Stomp (Straits Times online mobile and print) in June 2006 and within six months it was attracting 300,000 unique visitors a year.

*  Jennifer Lewis (then editor) and Felix Soh (SPH deputy editor, multi-media), courtesy of Quinn S., ALJ301 Multi-Media Journalism, Lecture 2, ‘Asia’s Media Innovators’

Citizen journalism constitutes 80 to 82 per cent of Stomp’s content.

Singapore academics think it’s a cultural thing unique to Singapore, where citizen reporters would rather talk to a reporter, therefore peolpe send an email or SMS about an issue or story and Stomp producers interview them and re-write the story for them.

Citizen reporters, however, have the power to clarify the story and check it for accuracy to ensure it has reflected what they were meant to say.

My favourite aspect of the Stomp site is that it focuses on social networking.

Stomp has created an online community, where they have formed their own football group, tuition groups and they have outings they organise among themselves.

In this sense, convergence has united fragmented audiences and created a community.

Stomp is not serious journalism, however deals with journalism that affects people’s lives.

Although highly innovative and unlike anything we have seen from Australian media, Stomp is not something I would read regularly, as I have no interest in articles such as ‘How do you view unfaithful women‘ and  ’Is it important for a guy to be a gentleman?‘.

For me it screams mindless entertainment.