Classifying Citizen Media: In-Class Assignment

In this article, JD Lasica classifies citizen journalism under the following six categories:

1) Audience participation (such as user comments attached to news stories, personal blogs, photos or video footage captured from personal mobile cameras, or local news written by residents of a community).
2) Independent news and information Websites
3) Full-fledged participatory news sites
4) Collaborative and contributory media sites
5) Other kinds of "thin media." (mailing lists, email newsletters)
6) Personal broadcasting sites

1. In groups, classify each the following sites under one of the above categories.
2. Present each site to the class giving us:
a) A brief description of the site.
b) Which category of citizen journalism does it belong under? Why? Should there be a different category for this?

Group 1

http://www.backfence.com/
http://blogs.reuters.com/us/
http://lifehacker.com/

Group 2

http://digg.com/
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/


Group 3

http://www.regrettheerror.com/
http://www.ibrattleboro.com/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/mingram


Group 4

http://www.midnightpoutine.ca/
http://english.ohmynews.com/
http://w5.montreal.com/mtlweblog/


Group 5

http://www.habsinsideout.com/
http://yulnews.com/blog/about/
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page