Journal articles on the topic 'Capitalists and financiers – France – History'

ABSTRACT This paper discusses distribution and the historical phases of capitalism. It assumes that technical progress and growth are taking place, and, given that, its question is on the functional distribution of income between labor and capital, having as reference classical theory of distribution and Marx’s falling tendency of the rate of profit. Based on the historical experience, it, first, inverts the model, making the rate of profit as the constant variable in the long run and the wage rate, as the residuum; second, it distinguishes three types of technical progress (capital-saving, neutral and capital-using) and applies it to the history of capitalism, having the UK and France as reference. Given these three types of technical progress, it distinguishes five phases of capitalist growth, where only the second is consistent with Marx prediction. In the final phase, corresponding to financier-rentier capitalism and neoliberalism, the profit rate recovered from the fall of the 1970s, while wages have been growing below the growth of productivity.

This article argues that popular revolution was closely tied to the establishment of capitalism. Contrary to the revisionist George V. Taylor’s view that the Revolution had nothing to do with the advance of capitalism because financial and productive capital were divided from one another, this article contends that the Revolution played a critical role in tying them together. Prior to the Revolution financiers began to make limited investments in wholesale trade, manufacturing and mining. But during the revolutionary crisis the sans-culottes pushed the Jacobins to create a national money and to curb speculation in order to foster production and exchange and reduce unemployment. With speculative activity blocked by popular resistance and state interference, bankers and other capitalists increasingly turned to productive investments and forged a link between financial and productive capital which proved crucial to further capitalist accumulation.

This is an exhaustive study of French economic interests in Egypt, the development of a particular type of capitalism in Egypt, and Franco-British relations in Egypt between the British Occupation in 1882 and World War I. It is based on an extraordinarily wide range of sources from Belgium, Britain, Egypt, and France, including British, Egyptian, and French diplomatic documents and material from a variety of banks and business enterprises, such as the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, Crédit Lyonnais, La Compagnie du Canal de Suez, and La Société Générale. The book was published in 1997, but—and this is the only negative remark I shall make—it is a matter of some regret that (apart from some of the author's own more recent papers) its very wide-ranging bibliography stops somewhere around the end of the 1980s, possibly because the doctorat d'État, of which this book is “une version réduite” (p. xi) was defended in 1991. There is a warmly appreciative preface by Saul's maître, Jacques Thobie, author of Intérêts et impérialisme français dans l'Empire ottoman (1895–1914), and Saul expresses his own debt to Thobie and other French historians of overseas investments in Morocco, Russia, and Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Allain, Girault, Guillen, Poidevin).

Scholars still disagree about why unions in different countries are radical or conservative. The differences between unions in France and America can be traced to the different requirements for success in strikes before 1914. In France radical unions could win large-scale strikes by involving state officials. In contrast, American unions, facing a more hostile government, avoided state intervention and learned to win strikes by providing financial support to small groups of critically positioned workers. The divergence between American and French union strategy reflected the greater success of American capitalists in winning state support against labor.

Le bilan économique de la France apparaît singulièrement contrasté : côté face, le rétablissement (fragile ?) des grands équilibres financiers et même une réévaluation du franc par rapport à la lire et au dollar ; côté pile, l’aggravation du chômage, le ralentissement durable de la croissance et l’absence de perspective du problème de l’emploi. Mais l’évaluation de la situation économique d’un pays ne devrait pas se réduire à l’interprétation des dernières statistiques publiées. Elle exige au contraire que l’on prenne la mesure des évolutions tendancielles et des règles du jeu international qui déterminent la nature de la contrainte extérieure s’exerçant sur les politiques nationales.

Le bilan économique de la France apparaît singulièrement contrasté : côté face, le rétablissement (fragile ?) des grands équilibres financiers et même une réévaluation du franc par rapport à la lire et au dollar ; côté pile, l’aggravation du chômage, le ralentissement durable de la croissance et l’absence de perspective du problème de l’emploi. Mais l’évaluation de la situation économique d’un pays ne devrait pas se réduire à l’interprétation des dernières statistiques publiées. Elle exige au contraire que l’on prenne la mesure des évolutions tendancielles et des règles du jeu international qui déterminent la nature de la contrainte extérieure s’exerçant sur les politiques nationales.

AbstractThe thesis of a ruling class in France, today or yesterday, is not validated by the empirical evidence. The arguments against such a thesis are the following: the overwhelming proportion of elite positions are not transmitted hereditarily; the elite circulation at the highest level is considerable; the professionalization of political careers, which is widespread, is incompatible with the concept of a ruling class; the recruitment of elites is marked by a shift from notables to a meritocracy; the elite configuration consists in multiple spheres and sector partitioning; the selective schools, based on academic competition, generate new elites at each generation; there is fault line between capitalists and the other elite categories; the number of entrepreneurs who have built themselves their company is enormous; the isolation of the cultural elite is astonishing; the subordination of the military elites is an historical fact; the periodical beheading of the ruling elites marks French history. Nonetheless, at the apex of power, a triad, composed of outstanding polictical leaders, of corporate managers and of highers State administrators — called "mandarins" — operates the wheelwork of the heterogeneous and complex French society and State

Abstract In the last decades of the nineteenth century the Paris Exchange was the second largest in the world, and engagement in financial markets had become popular on a previously unknown scale. How ordinary people encountered, thought about, and navigated this new financial landscape has nevertheless proved elusive. This article analyzes everyday financial practice in the first age of global capital from the vantage of letters written by ordinary individuals concerning their investments. As the numbers of investors and bondholders in France grew, “investor letters”—missives to financial, legal, and governmental authorities—proliferated. Their existence and concerns offer rich insights into how and with what effect France's financial markets were evolving at the end of the nineteenth century. These letters prompt us to reconsider the place of routine business correspondence in our studies of epistolary culture and allow reflection on economic life as modest investors “wrote upwards” and across the wealth gap of late nineteenth-century France. Vers la fin du dix-neuvième siècle, la Bourse de Paris était la deuxième place financière la plus importante au monde, et ses marchés étaient devenus « populaires » à une échelle sans précédent. La manière dont les gens ordinaires ont réussi à s'orienter dans ce nouveau paysage se révèle difficile à saisir. Cet article analyse la pratique financière quotidienne de l’âge d'or de la globalisation du capital selon les particuliers écrivant à propos de leurs investissements. A mesure que le nombre d'investisseurs et d'obligataires a augmenté, ces « lettres d'investisseurs » adressées aux autorités financières, juridiques et gouvernementales se sont multipliées. Leur existence et leurs sujets de préoccupation offrent de riches informations sur l’évolution des marchés financiers français de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle. Ces lettres nous incitent à reconsidérer la place de la correspondance commerciale dans la culture épistolaire, et en nous montrant comment de modestes investisseurs écrivent « vers le haut » de la hiérarchie économique et sociale, nous permettent d'accéder à des aspects méconnus de la vie économique de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle français.

RESUMENEl objetivo de este artículo es reflexionar sobre los mecanismos de financiación y de control de las instituciones religiosas por los laicos en las primeras décadas de la conquista y colonización de Hispanoamérica. Investigar sobre la inversión laica en lo sagrado supone en un primer lugar aclarar la historiografía sobre laicos, religión y dinero en las sociedades de Antiguo Régimen y su trasposición en América, planteando una mirada desde el punto de vista de las motivaciones múltiples de los actores seglares. A través del ejemplo de restituciones, donaciones y legados en losAndes, se explora el papel de los laicos españoles, y también de las poblaciones indígenas, en el establecimiento de la densa red de instituciones católicas que se construye entonces. La propuesta postula el protagonismo de actores laicos en la construcción de un espacio cristiano en los Andes peruanos en el siglo XVI y principios del XVII, donde la inversión económica permite contribuir a la transición de una sociedad de guerra y conquista a una sociedad corporativa pacificada.PALABRAS CLAVE: Hispanoamérica-Andes, religión, economía, encomienda, siglos XVI y XVII.ABSTRACTThis article aims to reflect on the mechanisms of financing and control of religious institutions by the laity in the first decades of the conquest and colonization of Spanish America. Investigating lay investment in the sacred sphere means first of all to clarifying historiography on laity, religion and money within Ancien Régime societies and their transposition to America, taking into account the multiple motivations of secular actors. The example of restitutions, donations and legacies inthe Andes enables us to explore the role of the Spanish laity and indigenous populations in the establishment of the dense network of Catholic institutions that was established during this period. The proposal postulates the role of lay actors in the construction of a Christian space in the Peruvian Andes in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when economic investment contributed to the transition from a society of war and conquest to a pacified, corporate society.KEY WORDS: Hispanic America-Andes, religion, economics, encomienda, 16th and 17th centuries. BIBLIOGRAFIAAbercrombie, T., “Tributes to Bad Conscience: Charity, Restitution, and Inheritance in Cacique and Encomendero Testaments of 16th-Century Charcas”, en Kellogg, S. y Restall, M. 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Di Stefano (eds.), Invertir en lo sagrado: salvación y dominación territorial en América y Europa (siglos XVI-XX), Santa Rosa, EdUNLPam, 2018, cap. 1, mobi.Colmenares, G., Haciendas de los jesuitas en el Nuevo Reino de Granada, siglo XVIII, Bogotá, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1969.Comaroff, J. y Comaroff, J., Of Revelation and Revolution. Vol. 1, Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991.Costeloe, M. P., Church wealth in Mexico: a study of the “Juzgado de Capellanias” in the archbishopric of Mexico 1800-1856, London, Cambridge University Press, 1967.Croq, L. y Garrioch, D., La religion vécue. Les laïcs dans l’Europe moderne, Rennes, PUR, 2013.Cushner, N. P., Farm and Factory: The Jesuits and the development of Agrarian Capitalism in Colonial Quito, 1600-1767, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1982.Cushner, N. P., Jesuit Ranches and the Agrarian Development of Colonial Argentina, 1650-1767, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1983.Cushner, N. P., Why have we come here? The Jesuits and the First Evangelization of Native America, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006.De Boer, W., La conquista dell’anima, Turin, Einaudi, 2004.De Certeau M., “La beauté du mort : le concept de ‘culture populaire’», Politique aujourd’hui, décembre 1970, pp. 3-23.De Certeau, M., L’invention du quotidien. T. 1. Arts de Faire, Paris, Gallimard, 1990.De la Puente Brunke, J., Encomienda y encomenderos en el Perú. Estudio social y político de una institución, Sevilla, Diputación provincial de Sevilla, 1992.Del Río M., “Riquezas y poder: las restituciones a los indios del repartimiento de Paria”, en T. Bouysse-Cassagne (ed.), Saberes y Memorias en los Andes. In memoriam Thierry Saignes, Paris, IHEAL-IFEA, 1997, pp. 261-278.Van Deusen, N. 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M., De rosa y espinas: economía, sociedad y mentalidades andinas, siglo XVII. Lima, IEP, BCRP, 1998.Godelier, M., L’énigme du don, Paris, Fayard, 1997.Goffman, E., Encounters: two studies in the sociology of interaction, MansfieldCentre, Martino publishing, 2013.Grosse, C., “La ‘religion populaire’. L’invention d’un nouvel horizon de l’altérité religieuse à l’époque moderne», en Prescendi, F. y Volokhine, Y (eds.), Dans le laboratoire de l’historien des religions. Mélanges offerts à Philippe Borgeaud, Genève, Labor et fides, 2011, pp. 104-122.Grosse, C., “Le ‘tournant culturel’ de l’histoire ‘religieuse’ et ‘ecclésiastique’», Histoire, monde et cultures religieuses, 26 (2013), pp. 75-94.Hall, S., “Cultural studies and its Theoretical Legacy”, en Grossberg, L., Nelson, C. y Treichler, P. (eds.), Cultural Studies, New York, Routledge, 1986, pp. 277-294.Horne, J., “Démobilisations culturelles après la Grande Guerre”, 14-18, Aujourd’hui, Today, Heute, Paris, Éditions Noésis, mai 2002, pp. 45-5.Iogna-Prat, D., “Sacré’ sacré ou l’histoire d’un substantif qui a d’abord été un qualificatif”, en Souza, M. de, Peters-Custot, A. y Romanacce, F.-X., Le sacré dans tous ses états: catégories du vocabulaire religieux et sociétés, de l’Antiquité à nos jours, Saint-Étienne, Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2012, pp. 359-367.Iogna-Prat, D., Cité de Dieu. Cité des hommes. L’Église et l’architecture de la société, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 2016.Kalifa, D., “Les historiens français et ‘le populaire’», Hermès, 42, 2005, pp. 54-59.Knowlton, R. J., “Chaplaincies and the Mexican Reform”, The Hispanic American Historical Review, 48.3 (1968), pp. 421-443.Lamana, G., Domination without Dominance: Inca-Spanish Encounters in Early Colonial Peru, Durham, Duke University Press, 2008.Las Casas B. de, Aqui se contienen unos avisos y reglas para los que oyeren confessiones de los Españoles que son o han sido en cargo a los indios de las Indias del mas Océano (Sevilla : Sebastián Trujillo, 1552). Edición moderna en Las Casas B. de, Obras escogidas, t. V, Opusculos, cartas y memoriales, Madrid, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 1958, pp. 235-249.Lavenia, V., L’infamia e il perdono: tributi, pene e confessione nella teologia morale della prima età moderna, Bologne, Il Mulino, 2004.Lempérière, A., Entre Dieu et le Roi, la République: Mexico, XVIe-XIXe siècle, Paris, les Belles Lettres, 2004.Lenoble, C., L’exercice de la pauvreté: économie et religion chez les franciscains d’Avignon (XIIIe-XVe siècle), Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2013.León Portilla, M., Visión de los vencidos: relaciones indígenas de la conquista, México, Universidad nacional autónoma, 1959.Levaggi, A., Las capellanías en la argentina: estudio histórico-jurídico, Buenos Aires, Facultad de derecho y ciencias sociales U. B. A., Instituto de investigaciones Jurídicas y sociales Ambrosio L. Gioja, 1992.Lohmann Villena, G., “La restitución por conquistadores y encomenderos: un aspecto de la incidencia lascasiana en el Perú”, Anuario de Estudios americanos 23 (1966) 21-89.Luna, P., El tránsito de la Buenamuerte por Lima. Auge y declive de una orden religiosa azucarera, siglos XVIII y XIX, Francfort, Universidad de navarra-Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2017.Macera, P., Instrucciones para el manejo de las haciendas jesuitas del Perú (ss. XVII-XVIII), Lima, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1966.Málaga Medina, A., “Los corregimientos de Arequipa. Siglo XVI”, Histórica, n. 1, 1975, pp. 47-85.Maldavsky, A., “Encomenderos, indios y religiosos en la región de Arequipa (siglo XVI): restitución y formación de un territorio cristiano y señoril”, en A. Maldavsky yR. Di Stefano (eds.), Invertir en lo sagrado: salvación y dominación territorial en América y Europa (siglos XVI-XX), Santa Rosa, EdUNLPam, 2018, cap. 3, mobi.Maldavsky, A., “Finances missionnaires et salut des laïcs. La donation de Juan Clemente de Fuentes, marchand des Andes, à la Compagnie de Jésus au milieu du XVIIe siècle”, ASSR, publicación prevista en 2020.Maldavsky, A., “Giving for the Mission: The Encomenderos and Christian Space in the Andes of the Late Sixteenth Century”, en Boer W., Maldavsky A., Marcocci G. y Pavan I. (eds.), Space and Conversion in Global Perspective, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2014, pp. 260-284.Maldavsky, A., “Teología moral, restitución y sociedad colonial en los Andes en el siglo XVI”, Revista portuguesa de teología, en prensa, 2019.Margairaz, D., Minard, P., “Le marché dans son histoire”, Revue de synthèse, 2006/2, pp. 241-252.Martínez López-Cano, M. del P., Speckman Guerra, E., Wobeser, G. von (eds.) La Iglesia y sus bienes: de la amortización a la nacionalización, México, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 2004.Mauss, M., “Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques (1923-1924)”, en Mauss, M., Sociologie et anthropologie, Paris, Presses universitaire de France, 1950, pp. 145-279.Mendoza, D. de, Chronica de la Provincia de San Antonio de los Charcas, Madrid, s.-e., 1665.Mills K., Idolatry and its Enemies. Colonial andean religion and extirpation, 1640-1750, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1997.Mörner, M., The Political and Economic Activities of the Jesuits in the La Plata Region: The Hapsburg Era, Stockholm, Library and Institute of Ibero-American Studies, 1953.Morales Padrón, F., Teoría y leyes de la conquista, Madrid, Ediciones Cultura Hispánica del Centro Iberoamericano de Cooperación, 1979.“Nuevos avances en el estudio de las reducciones toledanas”, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology, 39(1), 2014, pp. 123-167.O’Gorman, E., Destierro de sombras: luz en el origen de la imagen y culto de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Tepeyac, México, Universidad nacional autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1986.Pompa, C., Religião como tradução: Missionários, Tupi e Tapuia no Brasil colonial, São Paulo, ANPOCS, 2003.Prodi, P. Una historia de la justicia. De la pluralidad de fueros al dualismo moderno entre conciencia y derecho, Buenos Aires-Madrid, Katz, 2008.Ragon, P., “Entre religion métisse et christianisme baroque : les catholicités mexicaines, XVIe-XVIIIe siècles», Histoire, monde et cultures religieuses, 2008/1, n°5, pp. 15-36.Ragon, P., “Histoire et christianisation en Amérique espagnole», en Kouamé, Nathalie (éd.), Historiographies d’ailleurs: comment écrit-on l’histoire en dehors du monde occidental ?, Paris, Karthala, 2014, pp. 239-248.Ramos G., Muerte y conversión en los Andes, Lima, IFEA, IEP, 2010.Rodríguez, D., Por un lugar en el cielo. Juan Martínez Rengifo y su legado a los jesuitas, 1560-1592, Lima, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 2005.Romano, R., Les mécanismes de la conquête coloniale: les conquistadores, Paris, Flammarion, 1972.Saignes, T., “The Colonial Condition in the Quechua-Aymara Heartland (1570–1780)”, en Salomon, F. y Schwartz, S.(eds.), The Cambridge History of theNative Peoples of the Americas. 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Capitalist-style reforms were an important factor in the economic and social evolution of the Late Ottoman Empire. This research investigates how foreign governments and financiers, and especially Britain, influenced these various financial reforms implemented in the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century. The chief purpose of such reforms was to integrate the Empire into the capitalist world-economy by imposing, both directly and indirectly, the adoption of rules, institutions, attitudes and procedures amenable to exploitation on the part of foreign and also local capitalists. Drawing on primary sources, mainly from the United Kingdom’s National Archives, the article argues that foreign pressure for financial reforms was instrumental in the Empire’s economic subjection to the rules and norms that regulated the capitalist world-economy, most notably in the field of public finance, banking and the monetary sector. It takes a long-term view and largely adheres to the scholarly evolution of Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and world-systems theory and methodology developed by Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallerstein and Giovanni Arrighi, adopting a multidisciplinary and macro-scale perspective. Special attention is paid to the correlation between secondary and primary sources in support of empirical evidence. More broadly, this research contributes to the literature on the capitalist world-economy and brings a set of theoretical frameworks to bear on defining the role of financial reforms induced mainly by Britain in peripheral and semi-peripheral countries.

The present day railway system in West Africa is the result of the transportpolicy developed by the colonial powers (France, Great Britain and Germany) at the end of the 19th century. lt is remarkable that no network of railways, like in Southern Africa, was brought about. The colonial railways in West Africa were built by the State or by a joint-stock company within the borders of one colony to export the raw materials from the production centres to the harbours. Nevertheless railways were built for more than economical grounds only, in West Africa they had to accomplish a strategic and military role by "opening Africa for the European civilization". Hargreaves calls railways the "heralds of new imperialism" and Baumgart speaks of the own dynamics of the railways, to push the European colonial powers further into Africa... The construction of a railway needed a very high capital investment and the European capitalists wouldn't like to take risks in areas that were not yet "pacified". It is remarkable how many projects to build a Transcontinental railway right across the Sahara desert largely remained on paper. Precisely because such plans did not materialize, however, the motive force they provided to such imperialist actions as political-territorial annexations can be traced all the more clearly.The French built the first railway in West Africa, the Dakar - St-Louis line (Senegal), between 1879 and 1885. This line stimulated the production of ground-nuts, although the French colonial-military lobby has had other motives. The real motivation became very clear at the construction of the Kayes - Bamako railway. Great difficulties needed the military occupation of the region and the violent recruitment of thousands of black labourers, all over the region. The same problems transformed the building of the Kayes-Dakar line into a real hell. Afterwards the Sine Saloum region has been through a "agricultural revolution", when the local ground-nuts-producers have been able toproduce forforeign markets. The first British railways were built in Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast-colony (Ghana). In Nigeria railway construction stimulated the growth of Lagos as an harbour and administrative centre. Lugard had plans for the unification of Nigeria by railways. The old Hausa town of Kano flourished after the opening of the Northern Railway, for other towns a period of decline had begun. Harbour cities and interior railwayheads caused an influx of population from periphery regions, the phenomenon is called "port concentration". Also the imperial Germany built a few railwaylines in theirformer colony Togo, to avoid the traffic flow off to the British railways. If s quite remarkable that the harbours at the Gulf of Guinea-coast developed much later than the harbours of Senegal and Sierra Leone.After the First World War only a few new railways were constructed, the revenues remained very low, so the (colonial) state had to take over many lines. The competition between railways and roadtransport demonstrated the first time in Nigeria, it was the beginning of the decline of railways as the most important transportsystems in West Africa. Only multinational companies built specific railways for the export of minerals (iron, ore and bauxite) after the Second World War, and the French completed the Abidjan - Ouaga-dougou railway (1956).The consequences of railway construction in West Africa on economic, demographic and social sphere were not so far-reaching as in Southern Africa, but the labour migration and the first labour unions of railwaymen organized strikes in Senegal and the Ivory Coast mentioned the changing social situation.The bibliography of the West African railways contains very useful studies about the financial policy of the railway companies and the governments, but only afew railways were already studied by economic historians. KEY WORDS : bibliographical survey, colonial history, economic and demographic consequences, railway development, West Africa

According to Oscar Wilde, the problem with socialism was that it took up too many evenings. Wilde’s aphorism alludes to a major issue that bedevils all attempts to influence the public sphere: the fact that public activities encroach unduly on citizens’ valuable time. In the 21st century, the dilemma of how to deal with “too many evenings” is one that many citizen journalists face as they give their own time to public pursuits. This paper will look at the development of the public citizen and what it means to be a citizen journalist with reference to some of the writer’s own experiences in the field. The paper will conclude with an examination of future possibilities. While large media companies change their change their focus from traditional news values, citizen journalism can play a stronger role in public life as long as it grasps some of the opportunities that are available. There are substantial compensations available to citizen journalists for the problems presented by Wilde’s evenings. The quote from Wilde is borrowed from Albert Hirschman’s Shifting Involvements, which among other things, is an examination of the disappointments of public action. Hirschman noted how it was a common experience for beginners who engage in public action to find that takes up more time than expected (96). As public activity encroaches not only on time devoted to private consumption but also on to the time devoted to the production of income, it can become a costly pursuit which may cause a sharp reaction against the “practice of citizenship” (Hirschman 97). Yet the more stimuli about politics people receive, the greater the likelihood is they will participate in politics and the greater the depth of their participation (Milbrath & Goel 35). People with a positive attraction to politics are more likely to receive stimuli about politics and participate more (Milbrath & Goel 36). Active citizenship, it seems, has its own feedback loops. An active citizenry is not a new idea. The concepts of citizen and citizenship emerged from the sophisticated polity established in the Greek city states about 2,500 years ago. The status of a citizen signified that the individual had the right to full membership of, and participation in, an independent political society (Batrouney & Goldlust 24). In later eras that society could be defined as a kingdom, an empire, or a nation state. The conditions for a bourgeois public sphere were created in the 13th century as capitalists in European city states created a traffic in commodities and news (Habermas 15). A true public sphere emerged in the 17th century with the rise of the English coffee houses and French salons where people had the freedom to express opinions regardless of their social status (Habermas 36). In 1848, France held the first election under universal direct suffrage (for males) and the contemporary slogan was that “universal suffrage closes the era of revolutions” (Hirschman 113). Out of this heady optimism, the late 19th century ushered in the era of the “informed citizen” as voting changed from a social and public duty to a private right – a civic obligation enforceable only by private conscience (Schudson). These concepts live on in the modern idea that the model voter is considered to be a citizen vested with the ability to understand the consequences of his or her choice (Menand 1). The internet is a new knowledge space which offers an alternative reading of the citizen. In Pierre Lévy’s vision of cyberculture, identity is no longer a function of belonging, it is “distributed and nomadic” (Ross & Nightingale 149). The Internet has diffused widely and is increasingly central to everyday life as a place where people go to get information (Dutton 10). Journalism initially prospered on an information scarcity factor however the technology of the Internet has created an information rich society (Tapsall & Varley 18). But research suggests that online discussions do not promote consensus, are short-lived with little impact and end up turning into “dialogues of the deaf” (Nguyen 148). The easy online publishing environment is a fertile ground for rumours, hoaxes and cheating games to circulate which risk turning the public sphere into a chaotic and anarchic space (Nguyen 148). The stereotypical blogger is pejoratively dismissed as “pajama-clad” (Papandrea 516) connoting a sense of disrespect for the proper transmission of ideas. Nevertheless the Internet offers powerful tools for collaboration that is opening up many everyday institutions to greater social accountability (Dutton 3). Recent research by the 2007 Digital Futures project shows 65 percent of respondents consider the Internet “to be a very important or extremely important source of information” (Cowden 76). By 2006, Roy Morgan was reporting that three million Australians were visiting online news site each month (Cowden.76). Crikey.com.au, Australia’s first online-only news outlet, has become a significant independent player in the Australia mediascape claiming over 5,000 subscribers by 2005 with three times as many non-paying “squatters” reading its daily email (Devine 50). Online Opinion has a similar number of subscribers and was receiving 750,000 page views a month by 2005 (National Forum). Both Crikey.com.au and Online Opinion have made moves towards public journalism in an attempt to provide ordinary people access to the public sphere. As professional journalists lose their connection with the public, bloggers are able to fill the public journalism niche (Simons, Content Makers 208). At their best, blogs can offer a “more broad-based, democratic involvement of citizens in the issues that matter to them” (Bruns 7). The research of University of North Carolina journalism professor Philip Meyer showed that cities and towns with public journalism-oriented newspapers led to a better educated local public (Simons, Content Makers 211). Meyer’s idea of good public journalism has six defining elements: a) the need to define a community’s sense of itself b) devotion of time to issues that demand community attention c) devotion of depth to the issues d) more attention to the middle ground e) a preference for substance over tactics and f) encouraging reciprocal understanding (Meyer 1). The objective of public journalism is to foster a greater sense of connection between the community and the media. It can mean journalists using ordinary people as sources and also ordinary people acting as journalists. Jay Rosen proposed a new model based on journalism as conversation (Simons, Content Makers 209). He believes the technology has now overtaken the public journalism movement (Simons, Content Makers 213). His own experiments at pro-am Internet open at assignment.net have had mixed results. His conclusion was that it wasn’t easy for people working voluntarily on the Internet to report on big stories together nor had they “unlocked” the secret of successful pro-am methods (Rosen). Nevertheless, the people formerly known as the audience, as Rosen called them, have seized the agenda. The barriers to entry into journalism have disappeared. Blogging has made Web publishing easy and the social networks are even more user friendly. The problem today is not getting published but finding an audience. And as the audience fragments, the issue will become finding a niche. One such niche is local political activism. The 2007 Australian federal election saw many online sites actively promoting citizen journalism. Most prominent was Youdecide2007 at Queensland University of Technology, funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in partnership with SBS, Online Opinion and the Brisbane Institute. Site co-editor Graham Young said the site’s aim was to use citizen journalists to report on their own electorates to fill the gap left by fewer journalists on the ground, especially in less populated areas (Young). While the site’s stated aim was to provide a forum for a seat-by-seat coverage and provide “a new perspective on national politics” (Youdecide2007), the end result was significantly skewed by the fact that the professional editorial team was based in Brisbane. Youdecide2007 published 96 articles in its news archive of which 59 could be identified as having a state-based focus. Figure 1 shows 62.7% of these state-based stories were about Queensland. Figure 1: Youdecide2007 news stories identifiable by state (note: national stories are omitted from this table): State Total no. of stories %age Qld 37 62.7 NSW 8 13.6 Vic 6 10.2 WA 3 5.1 Tas 2 3.4 ACT 2 3.4 SA 1 1.6 Modern election campaigns are characterised by a complex and increasingly fragmented news environment and the new media are rapidly adding another layer of complexity to the mix (Norris et al. 11-12). The slick management of national campaigns are is counter-productive to useful citizen journalism. According to Matthew Clayfield from the citizen journalism site electionTracker.net, “there are very few open events which ordinary people could cover in a way that could be described as citizen journalism” (qtd. in Hills 2007). Similar to other systems, the Australian campaign communication empowers the political leaders and media owners at the expense of ordinary party members and citizens (Warhurst 135). However the slick modern national “on message” campaign has not totally replaced old-style local activity. Although the national campaign has superimposed upon the local one and displaced it from the focus of attention, local candidates must still communicate their party policies in the electorate (Warhurst 113). Citizen journalists are ideally placed to harness this local communication. A grassroots approach is encapsulated in the words of Dan Gillmor who said “every reporter should realise that, collectively, the readers know more than they do about what they write about” (qtd. in Quinn & Quinn-Allan 66). With this in mind, I set out my own stall in citizen journalism for the 2007 Australian federal election with two personal goals: to interview all my local federal Lower House candidates and to attend as many public election meetings as possible. As a result, I wrote 19 election articles in the two months prior to the election. This consisted of 9 news items, 6 candidate interviews and 4 reports of public meetings. All the local candidates except one agreed to be interviewed. The local Liberal candidate refused to be interviewed despite repeated requests. There was no reason offered, just a continual ignoring of requests. Liberal candidates were also noticeably absent from most candidate forums I attended. This pattern of non-communicative behaviour was observed elsewhere (Bartlett, Wilson). I tried to turn this to my advantage by turning their refusal to talk into a story itself. For those that were prepared to talk, I set the expectation that the entire interview would be on the record and would be edited and published on my blog site. As a result, all candidates asked for a list of questions in advance which I supplied. Because politicians devote considerable energy and financial resources to ensure the information they impart to citizens has an appropriate ‘spin’ on it, (Negrine 10) I reserved the right to ask follow-up questions on any of their answers that required clarification. For the interviews themselves, I followed the advice of Spradley’s principle by starting with a conscious attitude of near-total ignorance, not writing the story in advance, and attempting to be descriptive, incisive, investigative and critical (Alia 100). After I posted the results of the interview, I sent a link to each of the respondents offering them a chance to clarify or correct any inaccuracies in the interview statements. Defamation skirts the boundary between free speech and reputation (Pearson 159) and a good working knowledge of the way defamation law affects journalists (citizen or otherwise) is crucial, particularly in dealing with public figures. This was an important consideration for some of the lesser known candidates as Google searches on their names brought my articles up within the top 20 results for each of the Democrat, Green and Liberal Democratic Party candidates I interviewed. None of the public meetings I attended were covered in the mainstream media. These meetings are the type of news Jan Schaffer of University of Maryland’s J-Lab saw as an ecological niche for citizen journalists to “create opportunities for citizens to get informed and inform others about micro-news that falls under the radar of news organisations who don’t have the resources” (Schaffer in Glaser). As Mark Bahnisch points out, Brisbane had three daily newspapers and a daily state based 7.30 Report twenty years ago which contrasts with the situation now where there’s no effective state parliamentary press gallery and little coverage of local politics at all (“State of Political Blogging”). Brisbane’s situation is not unique and the gaps are there to be exploited by new players. While the high cost of market entry renders the “central square” of the public sphere inaccessible to new players (Curran 128) the ease of Web access has given the citizen journalists the chance to roam its back alleys. However even if they fill the voids left by departing news organisations, there will still be a large hole in the mediascape. No one will be doing the hardhitting investigative journalism. This gritty work requires great resources and often years of time. The final product of investigative journalism is often complicated to read, unentertaining and inconclusive (Bower in Negrine 13). Margaret Simons says that journalism is a skill that involves the ability to find things out. She says the challenge of the future will be to marry the strengths of the newsroom and the dirty work of investigative journalism with the power of the conversation of blogs (“Politics and the Internet”). One possibility is raised by the Danish project Scoop. They offer financial support to individual journalists who have good ideas for investigative journalism. Founded by the Danish Association for Investigative Journalism and funded by the Danish Foreign Ministry, Scoop supports media projects across the world with the only proviso being that a journalist has to have an agreement with an editor to publish the resulting story (ABC Media Report). But even without financial support, citizens have the ability to perform rudimentary investigative journalism. The primary tool of investigative journalism is the interview (McIlwane & Bowman 260). While an interview can be arranged by anyone with access to a telephone or e-mail, it should not be underestimated how difficult a skill interviewing is. According to American journalist John Brady, the science of journalistic interviewing aims to gain two things, trust and information (Brady in White 75). In the interviews I did with politicians during the federal election, I found that getting past the “spin” of the party line to get genuine information was the toughest part of the task. There is also a considerable amount of information in the public domain which is rarely explored by reporters (Negrine 23). Knowing how to make use of this information will become a critical success factor for citizen journalists. Corporate journalists use databases such as Lexis/Nexis and Factiva to gain background information, a facility unavailable to most citizen journalists unless they are either have access through a learning institution or are prepared to pay a premium for the information. While large corporate vendors supply highly specialised information, amateurs can play a greater role in the creation and transmission of local news. According to G. Stuart Adam, journalism contains four basic elements: reporting, judging, a public voice and the here and now (13). Citizen journalism is capable of meeting all four criteria. The likelihood is that the future of communications will belong to the centralised corporations on one hand and the unsupervised amateur on the other (Bird 36). Whether the motive to continue is payment or empowerment, the challenge for citizen journalists is to advance beyond the initial success of tactical actions towards the establishment as a serious political and media alternative (Bruns 19). Nguyen et al.’s uses and gratification research project suggests there is a still a long way to go in Australia. While they found widespread diffusion of online news, the vast majority of users (78%) were still getting their news from newspaper Websites (Nguyen et al. 13). The research corroborates Mark Bahnisch’s view that “most Australians have not heard of blogs and only a tiny minority reads them (quoted in Simons, Content Makers 219). The Australian blogosphere still waits for its defining Swiftboat incident or Rathergate to announce its arrival. But Bahnisch doesn’t necessarily believe this is a good evolutionary strategy anyway. Here it is becoming more a conversation than a platform “with its own niche and its own value” (Bahnisch, “This Is Not America”). As far as my own experiments go, the citizen journalism reports I wrote gave me no financial reward but plenty of other compensations that made the experience richly rewarding. It was important to bring otherwise neglected ideas, stories and personalities into the public domain and the reports helped me make valuable connections with public-minded members of my local community. They were also useful practice to hone interview techniques and political writing skills. Finally the exercise raised my own public profile as several of my entries were picked up or hyperlinked by other citizen journalism sites and blogs. Some day, and probably soon, a model will be worked out which will make citizen journalism a worthwhile economic endeavour. In the meantime, we rely on active citizens of the blogosphere to give their evenings freely for the betterment of the public sphere. References ABC Media Report. “Scoop.” 2008. 17 Feb. 2008 http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2151204.htm#transcript>. Adam, G. Notes towards a Definition of Journalism: Understanding an Old Craft as an Art Form. St Petersburg, Fl.: Poynter Institute, 1993. Alia, V. “The Rashomon Principle: The Journalist as Ethnographer.” In V. Alia, B. Brennan, and B. Hoffmaster (eds.), Deadlines and Diversity: Journalism Ethics in a Changing World. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1996. Bahnisch, M. “This Is Not America.” newmatilda.com 2007. 17 Feb. 2008 http://www.newmatilda.com/2007/10/04/not-america>. 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Gurevitch (eds.), Mass Media and Society. 3rd ed. London: Arnold, 2000. Devine, F. “Curse of the Blog.” Quadrant 49.3 (Mar. 2005). Dutton, W. Through the Network (of Networks) – The Fifth Estate. Oxford Internet Institute, 2007. 6 April 2007 http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/ 5th-estate-lecture-text.pdf>. Glaser, M. “The New Voices: Hyperlocal Citizen’s Media Sites Want You (to Write!).” Online Journalism Review 2004. 16 Feb. 2008 http://ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1098833871.php>. Habermas, J. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989 [1962]. Hills, R. “Citizen Journos Turning Inwards.” The Age 18 Nov. 2007. 17 Feb. 2008 http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/citizen-journos- turning-inwards/2007/11/17/1194767024688.html>. Hirschman, A, Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1982. Hunter, C. “The Internet and the Public Sphere: Revitalization or Decay?” Virginia Journal of Communication 12 (2000): 93-127. Killenberg, G., and R. Dardenne. “Instruction in News Reporting as Community Focused Journalism.” Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 52.1 (Spring 1997). McIlwane, S., and L. Bowman. “Interviewing Techniques.” In S. Tanner (ed.), Journalism: Investigation and Research. Sydney: Longman, 2002. Menand, L. “The Unpolitical Animal: How Political Science Understands Voters.” The New Yorker 30 Aug. 2004. 17 Feb. 2008 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/30/040830crat_atlarge>. Meyer, P. Public Journalism and the Problem of Objectivity. 1995. 16 Feb. 2008 http://www.unc.edu/%7Epmeyer/ire95pj.htm>. Milbrath, L., and M. Goel. Political Participation: How and Why Do People Get Involved in Politics? Chicago: Rand McNally M, 1975. National Forum. “Annual Report 2005.” 6 April 2008 http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/documents/reports/ annual_report_to_agm_2005.pdf>. Negrine, R. The Communication of Politics. London: Sage, 1996. Nguyen, A. “Journalism in the Wake of Participatory Publishing.” Australian Journalism Review 28.1 (July 2006). Nguyen, A., E. Ferrier, M. Western, and S. McKay. “Online News in Australia: Patterns of Use and Gratification.” Australian Studies in Journalism 15 (2005). Norris, P., J. Curtice, D. Sanders, M. Scammell, and H. Setemko. On Message: Communicating the Campaign. London: Sage, 1999. Papandrea, M. “Citizen Journalism and the Reporter’s Privilege.” Minnesota Law Review 91 (2007). Pearson, M. The Journalist’s Guide to Media Law. 2nd ed. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2004. Quinn, S., and D. Quinn-Allan. “User-Generated Content and the Changing News Cycle.” Australian Journalism Review 28.1 (July 2006). Rosen, J. “Assignment Zero: Can Crowds Create Fiction, Architecture and Photography?” Wired 2007. 6 April 2008 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/assignment_zero_all>. Ross, K., and V. Nightingale. 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Young, G. “Citizen Journalism.” Presentation at the Australian Blogging Conference, 28 Sep. 2007. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Barry, Derek. "Wilde’s Evenings: The Rewards of Citizen Journalism." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/09-barry.php>. APA Style Barry, D. (Apr. 2008) "Wilde’s Evenings: The Rewards of Citizen Journalism," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/09-barry.php>.

According to Oscar Wilde, the problem with socialism was that it took up too many evenings. Wilde’s aphorism alludes to a major issue that bedevils all attempts to influence the public sphere: the fact that public activities encroach unduly on citizens’ valuable time. In the 21st century, the dilemma of how to deal with “too many evenings” is one that many citizen journalists face as they give their own time to public pursuits. This paper will look at the development of the public citizen and what it means to be a citizen journalist with reference to some of the writer’s own experiences in the field. The paper will conclude with an examination of future possibilities. While large media companies change their change their focus from traditional news values, citizen journalism can play a stronger role in public life as long as it grasps some of the opportunities that are available. There are substantial compensations available to citizen journalists for the problems presented by Wilde’s evenings. The quote from Wilde is borrowed from Albert Hirschman’s Shifting Involvements, which among other things, is an examination of the disappointments of public action. Hirschman noted how it was a common experience for beginners who engage in public action to find that takes up more time than expected (96). As public activity encroaches not only on time devoted to private consumption but also on to the time devoted to the production of income, it can become a costly pursuit which may cause a sharp reaction against the “practice of citizenship” (Hirschman 97). Yet the more stimuli about politics people receive, the greater the likelihood is they will participate in politics and the greater the depth of their participation (Milbrath & Goel 35). People with a positive attraction to politics are more likely to receive stimuli about politics and participate more (Milbrath & Goel 36). Active citizenship, it seems, has its own feedback loops. An active citizenry is not a new idea. The concepts of citizen and citizenship emerged from the sophisticated polity established in the Greek city states about 2,500 years ago. The status of a citizen signified that the individual had the right to full membership of, and participation in, an independent political society (Batrouney & Goldlust 24). In later eras that society could be defined as a kingdom, an empire, or a nation state. The conditions for a bourgeois public sphere were created in the 13th century as capitalists in European city states created a traffic in commodities and news (Habermas 15). A true public sphere emerged in the 17th century with the rise of the English coffee houses and French salons where people had the freedom to express opinions regardless of their social status (Habermas 36). In 1848, France held the first election under universal direct suffrage (for males) and the contemporary slogan was that “universal suffrage closes the era of revolutions” (Hirschman 113). Out of this heady optimism, the late 19th century ushered in the era of the “informed citizen” as voting changed from a social and public duty to a private right – a civic obligation enforceable only by private conscience (Schudson). These concepts live on in the modern idea that the model voter is considered to be a citizen vested with the ability to understand the consequences of his or her choice (Menand 1). The internet is a new knowledge space which offers an alternative reading of the citizen. In Pierre Lévy’s vision of cyberculture, identity is no longer a function of belonging, it is “distributed and nomadic” (Ross & Nightingale 149). The Internet has diffused widely and is increasingly central to everyday life as a place where people go to get information (Dutton 10). Journalism initially prospered on an information scarcity factor however the technology of the Internet has created an information rich society (Tapsall & Varley 18). But research suggests that online discussions do not promote consensus, are short-lived with little impact and end up turning into “dialogues of the deaf” (Nguyen 148). The easy online publishing environment is a fertile ground for rumours, hoaxes and cheating games to circulate which risk turning the public sphere into a chaotic and anarchic space (Nguyen 148). The stereotypical blogger is pejoratively dismissed as “pajama-clad” (Papandrea 516) connoting a sense of disrespect for the proper transmission of ideas. Nevertheless the Internet offers powerful tools for collaboration that is opening up many everyday institutions to greater social accountability (Dutton 3). Recent research by the 2007 Digital Futures project shows 65 percent of respondents consider the Internet “to be a very important or extremely important source of information” (Cowden 76). By 2006, Roy Morgan was reporting that three million Australians were visiting online news site each month (Cowden.76). Crikey.com.au, Australia’s first online-only news outlet, has become a significant independent player in the Australia mediascape claiming over 5,000 subscribers by 2005 with three times as many non-paying “squatters” reading its daily email (Devine 50). Online Opinion has a similar number of subscribers and was receiving 750,000 page views a month by 2005 (National Forum). Both Crikey.com.au and Online Opinion have made moves towards public journalism in an attempt to provide ordinary people access to the public sphere. As professional journalists lose their connection with the public, bloggers are able to fill the public journalism niche (Simons, Content Makers 208). At their best, blogs can offer a “more broad-based, democratic involvement of citizens in the issues that matter to them” (Bruns 7). The research of University of North Carolina journalism professor Philip Meyer showed that cities and towns with public journalism-oriented newspapers led to a better educated local public (Simons, Content Makers 211). Meyer’s idea of good public journalism has six defining elements: a) the need to define a community’s sense of itself b) devotion of time to issues that demand community attention c) devotion of depth to the issues d) more attention to the middle ground e) a preference for substance over tactics and f) encouraging reciprocal understanding (Meyer 1). The objective of public journalism is to foster a greater sense of connection between the community and the media. It can mean journalists using ordinary people as sources and also ordinary people acting as journalists. Jay Rosen proposed a new model based on journalism as conversation (Simons, Content Makers 209). He believes the technology has now overtaken the public journalism movement (Simons, Content Makers 213). His own experiments at pro-am Internet open at assignment.net have had mixed results. His conclusion was that it wasn’t easy for people working voluntarily on the Internet to report on big stories together nor had they “unlocked” the secret of successful pro-am methods (Rosen). Nevertheless, the people formerly known as the audience, as Rosen called them, have seized the agenda. The barriers to entry into journalism have disappeared. Blogging has made Web publishing easy and the social networks are even more user friendly. The problem today is not getting published but finding an audience. And as the audience fragments, the issue will become finding a niche. One such niche is local political activism. The 2007 Australian federal election saw many online sites actively promoting citizen journalism. Most prominent was Youdecide2007 at Queensland University of Technology, funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in partnership with SBS, Online Opinion and the Brisbane Institute. Site co-editor Graham Young said the site’s aim was to use citizen journalists to report on their own electorates to fill the gap left by fewer journalists on the ground, especially in less populated areas (Young). While the site’s stated aim was to provide a forum for a seat-by-seat coverage and provide “a new perspective on national politics” (Youdecide2007), the end result was significantly skewed by the fact that the professional editorial team was based in Brisbane. Youdecide2007 published 96 articles in its news archive of which 59 could be identified as having a state-based focus. Figure 1 shows 62.7% of these state-based stories were about Queensland. Figure 1: Youdecide2007 news stories identifiable by state (note: national stories are omitted from this table): State Total no. of stories %age Qld 37 62.7 NSW 8 13.6 Vic 6 10.2 WA 3 5.1 Tas 2 3.4 ACT 2 3.4 SA 1 1.6 Modern election campaigns are characterised by a complex and increasingly fragmented news environment and the new media are rapidly adding another layer of complexity to the mix (Norris et al. 11-12). The slick management of national campaigns are is counter-productive to useful citizen journalism. According to Matthew Clayfield from the citizen journalism site electionTracker.net, “there are very few open events which ordinary people could cover in a way that could be described as citizen journalism” (qtd. in Hills 2007). Similar to other systems, the Australian campaign communication empowers the political leaders and media owners at the expense of ordinary party members and citizens (Warhurst 135). However the slick modern national “on message” campaign has not totally replaced old-style local activity. Although the national campaign has superimposed upon the local one and displaced it from the focus of attention, local candidates must still communicate their party policies in the electorate (Warhurst 113). Citizen journalists are ideally placed to harness this local communication. A grassroots approach is encapsulated in the words of Dan Gillmor who said “every reporter should realise that, collectively, the readers know more than they do about what they write about” (qtd. in Quinn & Quinn-Allan 66). With this in mind, I set out my own stall in citizen journalism for the 2007 Australian federal election with two personal goals: to interview all my local federal Lower House candidates and to attend as many public election meetings as possible. As a result, I wrote 19 election articles in the two months prior to the election. This consisted of 9 news items, 6 candidate interviews and 4 reports of public meetings. All the local candidates except one agreed to be interviewed. The local Liberal candidate refused to be interviewed despite repeated requests. There was no reason offered, just a continual ignoring of requests. Liberal candidates were also noticeably absent from most candidate forums I attended. This pattern of non-communicative behaviour was observed elsewhere (Bartlett, Wilson). I tried to turn this to my advantage by turning their refusal to talk into a story itself. For those that were prepared to talk, I set the expectation that the entire interview would be on the record and would be edited and published on my blog site. As a result, all candidates asked for a list of questions in advance which I supplied. Because politicians devote considerable energy and financial resources to ensure the information they impart to citizens has an appropriate ‘spin’ on it, (Negrine 10) I reserved the right to ask follow-up questions on any of their answers that required clarification. For the interviews themselves, I followed the advice of Spradley’s principle by starting with a conscious attitude of near-total ignorance, not writing the story in advance, and attempting to be descriptive, incisive, investigative and critical (Alia 100). After I posted the results of the interview, I sent a link to each of the respondents offering them a chance to clarify or correct any inaccuracies in the interview statements. Defamation skirts the boundary between free speech and reputation (Pearson 159) and a good working knowledge of the way defamation law affects journalists (citizen or otherwise) is crucial, particularly in dealing with public figures. This was an important consideration for some of the lesser known candidates as Google searches on their names brought my articles up within the top 20 results for each of the Democrat, Green and Liberal Democratic Party candidates I interviewed. None of the public meetings I attended were covered in the mainstream media. These meetings are the type of news Jan Schaffer of University of Maryland’s J-Lab saw as an ecological niche for citizen journalists to “create opportunities for citizens to get informed and inform others about micro-news that falls under the radar of news organisations who don’t have the resources” (Schaffer in Glaser). As Mark Bahnisch points out, Brisbane had three daily newspapers and a daily state based 7.30 Report twenty years ago which contrasts with the situation now where there’s no effective state parliamentary press gallery and little coverage of local politics at all (“State of Political Blogging”). Brisbane’s situation is not unique and the gaps are there to be exploited by new players. While the high cost of market entry renders the “central square” of the public sphere inaccessible to new players (Curran 128) the ease of Web access has given the citizen journalists the chance to roam its back alleys. However even if they fill the voids left by departing news organisations, there will still be a large hole in the mediascape. No one will be doing the hardhitting investigative journalism. This gritty work requires great resources and often years of time. The final product of investigative journalism is often complicated to read, unentertaining and inconclusive (Bower in Negrine 13). Margaret Simons says that journalism is a skill that involves the ability to find things out. She says the challenge of the future will be to marry the strengths of the newsroom and the dirty work of investigative journalism with the power of the conversation of blogs (“Politics and the Internet”). One possibility is raised by the Danish project Scoop. They offer financial support to individual journalists who have good ideas for investigative journalism. Founded by the Danish Association for Investigative Journalism and funded by the Danish Foreign Ministry, Scoop supports media projects across the world with the only proviso being that a journalist has to have an agreement with an editor to publish the resulting story (ABC Media Report). But even without financial support, citizens have the ability to perform rudimentary investigative journalism. The primary tool of investigative journalism is the interview (McIlwane & Bowman 260). While an interview can be arranged by anyone with access to a telephone or e-mail, it should not be underestimated how difficult a skill interviewing is. According to American journalist John Brady, the science of journalistic interviewing aims to gain two things, trust and information (Brady in White 75). In the interviews I did with politicians during the federal election, I found that getting past the “spin” of the party line to get genuine information was the toughest part of the task. There is also a considerable amount of information in the public domain which is rarely explored by reporters (Negrine 23). Knowing how to make use of this information will become a critical success factor for citizen journalists. Corporate journalists use databases such as Lexis/Nexis and Factiva to gain background information, a facility unavailable to most citizen journalists unless they are either have access through a learning institution or are prepared to pay a premium for the information. While large corporate vendors supply highly specialised information, amateurs can play a greater role in the creation and transmission of local news. According to G. Stuart Adam, journalism contains four basic elements: reporting, judging, a public voice and the here and now (13). Citizen journalism is capable of meeting all four criteria. The likelihood is that the future of communications will belong to the centralised corporations on one hand and the unsupervised amateur on the other (Bird 36). Whether the motive to continue is payment or empowerment, the challenge for citizen journalists is to advance beyond the initial success of tactical actions towards the establishment as a serious political and media alternative (Bruns 19). Nguyen et al.’s uses and gratification research project suggests there is a still a long way to go in Australia. While they found widespread diffusion of online news, the vast majority of users (78%) were still getting their news from newspaper Websites (Nguyen et al. 13). The research corroborates Mark Bahnisch’s view that “most Australians have not heard of blogs and only a tiny minority reads them (quoted in Simons, Content Makers 219). The Australian blogosphere still waits for its defining Swiftboat incident or Rathergate to announce its arrival. But Bahnisch doesn’t necessarily believe this is a good evolutionary strategy anyway. Here it is becoming more a conversation than a platform “with its own niche and its own value” (Bahnisch, “This Is Not America”). As far as my own experiments go, the citizen journalism reports I wrote gave me no financial reward but plenty of other compensations that made the experience richly rewarding. It was important to bring otherwise neglected ideas, stories and personalities into the public domain and the reports helped me make valuable connections with public-minded members of my local community. They were also useful practice to hone interview techniques and political writing skills. Finally the exercise raised my own public profile as several of my entries were picked up or hyperlinked by other citizen journalism sites and blogs. 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