“[...] Turns out, despite the great push for citizen journalism, citizens are not, on average, great at “journalism.” But they are excellent conduits for raw material — those documents, videos, or photos. They record events digitally as an eyewitness, obtain documents through Freedom of Information requests, or have access to files through the work they do. We are seeing an important element of accountability journalism emerge.
Big Brother has long been raised as a threat of technological advancement (and certainly the National Security Agency has done its fair share of snooping). But in reality, it is the encroachment of Little Brother that average Americans are more likely to feel in our day-to-day lives — that people around us carry digital devices that can be pulled out for photo or videos, or they can easily copy digital files [...] that others would rather not have shared with the world.
One notable strength of raw material is that it has a natural viral lift for two reasons: [...]” http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/12/jennifer-8-lee-on-raw-data-apis-and-the-growth-of-little-brother/
