The Application Research Of Crowdsourcing Mode In The Internet Era In News Production

Crowdsourcing refers to the industry practice in which a company or an organization outsources the work tasks which used to be performed by the employees to specific social networks(which usually can be of large scale) on a basis of freedom and willingness. The theory of outsourcing has been recognized by the public for a long time. Enterprises can enjoy the advantages of lowering the research and operation cost and increasing the innovativeness and the acceptability levels among the audiences by utilizing the functions of the public social networks.It shall be acknowledged that news media does not equal to business enterprise due to the fact that news production belongs to knowledge production of the ideological sphere with its inherent distinct features. However, against the tough backdrop of the industry principle of “survival of the fittest” and the increasingly intense media development situation, some media pioneers of the mobile times import the idea of crowdsourcing into the field of news production by dint of the Internet and turn the “consumers” into “producers” of the news media, which does not only keep up with the trend of Internet era but also develop a feasible method for the evolution of the traditional news production models. In view of this, the author puts forward the core question of the thesis-how does the theory of crowdsourcing get applied in news production?The thesis could be divided into five sections as follows.In the introductory part, the author expounds on the research background and significance of utilizing crowdsourcing model in the field of news production. The author tries to come up with the concept of “crowdsourcing of news” after differentiating and analyzing the concept of crowdsourcing and other confusing concepts. With a sound analysis of the research status quo of the crowdsourcing, the author makes clear the research orientation and put forwards the innovation points of the thesis.As one “transplanted” production method, “crowdsourcing of news” does not elicit any extreme reactions, which might benefit from historical origins of “citizen journalism”. Chapter One relates and analyzes the theoretical logic underlying the model of crowdsourcing from the perspective of the development of the subjects and objects of news production against the background of the Internet era.Due to the diversity of news media development and the differentiation of medium environment, there might be slight model differentiation under the same core idea when thecrowdsourcing model is applied to the specific news practice. In Chapter Two, the author disentangles several news crowdsourcing cases(most of which are from the Occident)that are relatively mature and can be representative and then put the cases into different categories based on their matrix, which leads to the deduction of the development rules and the orientation of the news crowdsourcing.In Chapter Three, the author refers to Huffington Post as an example and puts an emphasis on the productive features of the news crowdsourcing from three perspectives of news, namely production subject, production technology and production organization. The author provides some realistic basis for the interpretation of utilizing the model in the field of news production by carrying out analysis regarding the effects of the model.In the last chapter, the author looks back at the status quo of the crowdsourcing model in the domestic news environment and then comes up with the standpoint that “crowdsourcing of news does exist in China” as a response to the argument of “Authenticity or Falsity” in the news industry. This model has shown distinct “Chinese features” when it is practiced in domestic media industry, which can be seen as one kind of breakthrough of the traditional news production models on the one hand and might turn out to be the stumbling blocks on the other hand due to some violations of the crowdsourcing principles to different degrees. Consequently,the author puts forward some specific proposals on the development routes of crowdsourcing model in the media industry of China.