Citizen Journalism
From the Wikipedia article:
URL = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism
Definition
"Citizen journalism, also known as Participatory Journalism is the act of citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information," according to the seminal report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information, by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis. They say, "The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires."
Citizen journalism should not be confused with Civic Journalism, which is practiced by professional journalists. Citizen journalism usually involves empowering ordinary citizens -- including traditionally marginalized members of society."
More Information
Interview with Jay Rosen on Open Source Journalism, at http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/03/open-source-journalism.html
Steve Outing distinguishes 11 layers of citizen journalism at http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=83126
See the video From Pamphlet to Blog