1. Dan Gillmor: We the Media
• Published 2004
• Subtitled: ‘Grassroots
Journalism by the
People, for the People’
• Available for free on the
internet at:
http://oreilly.com/catal
og/wemedia/book/

2. We the Media: key ideas
• citizenship doesn't just happen – 'being a
citizen' has to be learned or developed
• 'Big Media' – News
corporation, CNN, BBC, Emap, Google, eg, hav
e controlled who gets to produce and share
media

3. We the Media: key ideas
• concentrated choice of media, leading to profits
for an oligopoly (small cluster) of companies
• ownership and control of the companies in the
hands, largely of white males with a private
school education.
• Why does this matter? - large groups of people
only ever get represented by other groups.
• Gillmor sees the internet as a catalyst for a
challenge to this establishment hegemony, as
ordinary citizens use blogs and other online
communication tools to share their own news –
'citizen journalism'.

4. We the Media: key ideas
• Bloggers – 'the former audience'. News blogs
a new form of people's journalism.
• Gillmor wrote his book before the creation of
social media such as YouTube and Twitter.
These now also play a key role in the
democratisation of the media.

5. We the Media: key ideas
‘The spreading of an item of news, or of
something much larger, will occur – much more so
than today – without any help from mass media as
we know it. The people who’ll understand this best
are probably just being born. In the meantime, even
the beginnings of this ‘shift’ are forcing all of us to
adjust our assumptions and behaviour.’
- Gillmor, We the Media p42 - 43