JOURNALISM AFTER WIKILEAKS EXPERIENCE

Year 2011, Volume: 3 Issue: 1, 49 - 57, 01.06.2011

Aydın Çam

Abstract

In November of 2010, the correspondences between US Foreign Office and US
Embassies were leaked to the sensational web site, WikiLeaks and a little while
after they begun to be published. This case, that was named as the 11th September
of the diplomacy by Franco Frattini, who is the Italian foreign minister, caused a
shock as strong as 9/11 at least. It not only triggered off series of hard and
important security precautions in short term, but also seems to change all
diplomatic dynamics in mid and long term. The political and international
relations area is not the only domain on which this “cable-gate” had a significant
impact; the global media (especially journalism) is another area that has to be
considered as reshaping after WikiLeaks. Many scholars frequently argue that the
new communication technologies and the exchanges that WikiLeaks brought out
in the area of media will evoke the end of the conventional press. However, this
study aims to argue a different point of view; that WikiLeaks experience has
shown how the conventional press and new media technologies would co-operate.
An activist named Julian Assange founds WikiLeaks – it’s rather to say hacktivist
- on December 3rd, 2006 as a global act movement. In his first manifest
(Authoritarian power is maintained by conspiracy) Assange identifies an opengovernment
idea. According to this idea, governments all around the world must
be open and non-despotic. To gain this open government idea, the new
communication technologies and the new media is extremely important. But the
new media is not enough itself, it also requires the old conventional press, so the
new media and conventional press have to co-operate to be more effective and
powerful. While WikiLeaks was only depending on the power of global net at the
beginning, especially after the big leaks in 2010, it seems that Assange and his
web-phenomenon will collaborate tightly with conventional press. It thus seems
that all these changes will give to conventional journalism a new path in the era of
new media.

Keywords

Communication Technologies, New Media, WikiLeaks, Journalism

References

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