ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book reviews the state-of-play in journalism and the news media taken from recent headlines—a commentary on how journalists perhaps see themselves and their future. It focuses on practical advice about how social media can be used effectively, both inside and outside the newsroom, to create forms of social journalism. The book also reviews the key publishing platforms and applications that link social media and social journalism together. It discusses the “doing” of social journalism, both inside and outside of the newsroom setting. The book also focuses on non-professionals organizing to do a form of journalism that is independent of commercial newsrooms. It explains the motivations for professional and commercial collaboration, and the more social forms of independent news gathering and reporting, are counter-posed and perhaps even in competition with each other.
