The production and distribution of news by ordinary people is referred to as :

Concept

In media studies, labels for kinds of journalism sit on two different axes: WHO produces the material — trained newsroom professionals or members of the public — and HOW the material is written and packaged, that is its narrative style or its market appeal.

When a definition names the identity of the people doing the reporting rather than a writing technique or an audience segment, the label being asked for is the producer-based one.

Application

The stem fixes both the actors and the activity: the actors are ordinary people, that is non-professionals, and the activity is producing and distributing news. The established term for news gathering, reporting and dissemination carried out by members of the public — typically through blogs, social platforms, community websites and mobile-phone photographs and video — is citizen journalism, also called participatory or grassroots journalism.

The practice grew with cheap digital recording devices and Web 2.0 publishing tools, which let people outside a newsroom both create a report and circulate it to an audience without a professional gatekeeper.

Cross-check against the other labels

• Popular journalism is a style-and-market label: professionally produced content pitched at a broad audience through human interest, celebrity, sensation and entertainment values. The producers remain professionals, so it does not answer a question about who reports.

• New journalism names the American movement of the 1960s and 1970s associated with Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese and Hunter S. Thompson, in which professional writers applied literary and narrative techniques to factual reporting. It is a technique label, not a producer label.

• Common journalism is not a defined category in communication studies; it is a loose everyday expression and is not tied to any particular producer group or technique.

Result

The production and distribution of news by ordinary people is citizen journalism.