Folk Journalism?

In case you missed it, the Jim Lehrer NewsHour on 11/16 had a short piece on the rise of citizen journalism. It's got some good comments from J-Lab's Jan Schaffer, and cites a experimental site in Deerfield, N.H., called The Forum.

One thing that also intriqued me was a listing of the many names under which citizen journalism does its work -- participatory journalism, community journalism, hyper-local, grassroots, do-it yourself, bottom up, open source, social media, user- generated journalism, we media. ... One that I didn't hear, but have been thinking about in recent days is "folk journalism." Here's why I like that term:

Whenever I find myself describing citizen journalism to anyone, I find myself talking alot about ordinary "folks" and how they can share what's happening in their slice of the world by making use of power web and computer powerful tools.

So I started thinking of a parallel between journalism and art -- that is, a parallel between the definitions of working/citizen journalists and those for fine/folk artists. It's no real stretch to compare what professional journalists do with what trained artists do, both using sophisticated techniques to achieve a polished end result. Why not then compare "amateur journalists" with so-called naive folks artists? Despite the lack of training in the techniques of the "pro", can't "folk" journalists, like folk artists, create works equally powerful and meaningful?

Now, I suppose some could object that the word "folk" conjures up some outdated images of lefty guitar-strummers, but I think properly understood it could help us get at what citizen journalists are all about. Here's are a few intriquing comments on folk art that I think ring true with "folk journalism" as well. The first is from art historian Arnold Hauser,

In folk art, producers and consumers are hardly distinguished, and the boundary between them is always fluid; in the case of popular art, we find on the contrary an artistically uncreative, completely passive public, and professional production of artistic goods strictly in response to the demand for them. It is indeed a striking fact that folk art, especially folk-poetry, emerges from the ranks of those who enjoy it. ...

The second from journalist/critic Dwight MacDonald:

Folk Art grew from below. It was a spontaneous, autochthonous expression of the people, shaped by themselves, pretty much without the benefit of High Culture, to suit their own needs. Mass Culture is imposed from above. It is fabricated by technicians hired by businessmen; its audiences are passive consumers, their participation limited to the choice between buying and not buying.... Folk Art was the people’s own institution, their private little garden walled off from the great formal park of their masters’ High Culture.

The Prod & Ponder blog had some thoughts on this recently, with a post on Indymedia, who says he wants more "folk media" and has this choice citation from David Clark on folk music:

Folk. Now there’s a good word. It manages to lift a burden somehow. Folk is just folks trying to tell other folks what’s happening in their heads as they try to remember or forget stories or feelings; folk is trying to tell truthfully what happened by telling it a little slant. What isn’t folk? A folk song, after all, is not an edict from on high, but often a disruptively truthful word about the way things are. It expands the sphere of sanity little by little, and it breaks into monopolies on truth. It opens the doors of perception. Will we settle for anything less than that? Do we want to be changed? Do we want release?”

Comments

[Lisa Williams]

I like that. It has a nice ring to it.

[John]

Thanks for the mention. I hope the idea of folk media or folk journalism begins to catch on and get developed more.