We the Media | O'Reilly Media

BUY THIS BOOK

Safari Books Online

Looking to Reprint this content?

We the Media (Hard Cover) Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People

By Dan Gillmor
First Edition July 2004
Pages: 320
ISBN 10: 0-596-00733-7 | ISBN 13: 9780596007331
(Average of 1 Customer Reviews)

This book is OUT OF PRINT. Please consider the latest edition.

Book description

Grassroots journalists are dismantling Big Media's monopoly on the news, transforming it from a lecture to a conversation. Not content to accept the news as reported, these readers-turned-reporters are publishing in real time to a worldwide audience via the Internet. The impact of their work is just beginning to be felt by professional journalists and the newsmakers they cover. In We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People, nationally known business and technology columnist Dan Gillmor tells the story of this emerging phenomenon, and sheds light on this deep shift in how we make and consume the news.
Full Description

Consumers learn how they can become producers of the news. Gillmor lays out the tools of the grassroots journalist's trade, including personal Web journals (called weblogs or blogs), Internet chat groups, email, and cell phones. He also illustrates how, in this age of media consolidation and diminished reporting, to roll your own news, drawing from the array of sources available online and even over the phone.
Newsmakers politicians, business executives, celebrities get a wake-up call. The control that newsmakers enjoyed in the top-down world of Big Media is seriously undermined in the Internet Age. Gillmor shows newsmakers how to successfully play by the new rules and shift from control to engagement.
Journalists discover that the new grassroots journalism presents opportunity as well as challenge to their profession. One of the first mainstream journalists to have a blog, Gillmor says, "My readers know more than I do, and that's a good thing." In We the Media, he makes the case to his colleagues that, in the face of a plethora of Internet-fueled news vehicles, they must change or become irrelevant.

At its core, We the Media is a book about people. People like Glenn Reynolds, a law professor whose blog postings on the intersection of technology and liberty garnered him enough readers and influence that he became a source for professional journalists. Or Ben Chandler, whose upset Congressional victory was fueled by contributions that came in response to ads on a handful of political blogs. Or Iraqi blogger Zayed, whose Healing Irag blog (healingiraq.blogspot.com) scooped Big Media. Or acridrabbit, who inspired an online community to become investigative reporters and discover that the dying Kaycee Nichols sad tale was a hoax. Give the people tools to make the news, We the Media asserts, and they will. Journalism in the 21st century will be fundamentally different from the Big Media that prevails today. We the Media casts light on the future of journalism, and invites us all to be part of it.

Browse within this book

Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon

Featured customer reviews

Review of "We the Media", August 12 2004

Rating:

Submitted by George Woolley of Camelot.pm and Oakland.pm [Respond | View]

This book describes a shift
in the way news evolves
and in the roles of the players:
journalists, newsmakers and the former audience.
Generally the shift is characterized
by a breakdown in the roles of the players
and by a more participatory form of journalism.

This shift is largely driven by technologies
that encourage participation such as
blogs, mailing lists, and wikis.

The author does a very good job
of telling us:
(1) how this shift came about,
(2) what some of the opportunities
and challenges are and
(3) where he thinks all this is headed.

If you care about
the direction journalism is moving,
this would be a very good book to read.

For more detail, you could check out
my somewhat longer review.

Read all reviews

Media reviews "For those who have not been paying close attention to the Internet, We the Media provides a valuable tour of its most active edges, both in its technology and its culture."
--David DeJean, Nieman Reports, Spring 2005

"[Gillmor's] book, We the Media, has become something of a bible for those who believe the online medium will change journalism for the better."
--Financial Times, January 2005

"Best for All Computer Users: You need only to read my November 60-Second Window to understand how important the contents of this book are. For the first time, bloggers have been awarded press credentials to cover the national political conventions -- and herein, Gillmor presents the story of the grassroots media revolutions. Great stuff!"
--Fred Showker, Design-Bookshelf.com, January 2005

Read all reviews

See larger cover