Any new project on the scale of NewAssignment is going to come saddled with a glossary of labels. Now seems as good a time as any to hash out the semantic debates of pro-am journalism, while the whole project is still in its semi-verbal infancy.

One neologism in particular seems to be raising some hackles: crowdsourcing, a word popularized this June in a Wired article by Jeff Howe. While Howe wasn’t Credit: Gabyu — Flickrwriting specifically about citizen journalism, the sorts of open source production he discusses (Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk, open source corporate R&D at InnoCentiveetc) are based on the same model of harnessing the contributions of a crowd of volunteers.

But as long as it’s been around, crowdsourcing – as a word to define the practice — has come under scrutiny. Even before Howe’s article appeared, ValleyWag.com, a gossip blog on the Silicon Valley beat, was already tagging it a euphemism for exploiting unskilled labor. (“‘Crowdsourcing’ is sexy and totally not an idea as old as serfdom!”).

At issue here isn’t just a debate over semantics, although that’s important, too. The question of what we end up calling these emerging forms of journalism is tied up with the role that contributors—who may often be untrained and unpaid—will play. What motivation do they have to participate if the process feels exploitative or if media conglomerates co-opt the language of crowdsourcing as a way to justify torrential newsroom layoffs?

Some in the open source movement see the term as a perversion of open source and all of its optimistic egalitarianism. “Crowdsourcing”—with its apparent contempt for individual contributors and its unpleasant connotations of outsourcing—strikes these commentators as little more than corporate doublespeak for “now you can work for free.”

“You may have not intended things to go this way when coining the word, but, hell, ‘the enterprise’ always has a brilliant way of exploiting every buzzword and phenomenon to their own profit,” wrote Tara Hunt of HorsePigCow.

Chris Messina, a well-known open source evangelist who happens to be dating Hunt, shares her irritation with the spread of “crowdsourcing” and worries that it could serve as so much semantic fluff with which corporations will pad their bottom line. “The problem is what happens when business discover that term and instantly see a way to cut costs, cut jobs and tap into the brainstem of its ‘target audience,’” he wrote.

For one thing, says Jeff Howe, the word itself is less loaded than all that, and is simply a neutral way of describing a new phenomenon. “We can call this emerging form of production anything we like, but that won’t affect its robustness and rate of growth,” he said. “The Internet and the rise of intelligent networks that utilize it have enabled a highly efficient system of matching labor demand to supply. My editor and I thought that crowdsourcing was a pretty apt term for that. I’d argue that it’s still a fairly neutral, descriptive term.”

Howe takes more seriously the charge that crowdsourcing is unfair to its participants, but sees little evidence so far that it’s being used to exploit. People take part voluntarily, whether they’re poring over sewer blueprints in a citizen investigation for the Ft. Myers News-Press or designing T-shirts for Threadless.com. Even projects like Mechanical Turk, which, with its 4-cent payments for the most menial tasks imaginable, has raised some eyebrows, are only able to function because people want to take part.

And there are lots of reasons that people want to participate, Howe says. Open source projects like iStockphoto.com can give people an outlet for their creativity, bring in a little money for contributors, and often serve as the basis for the emergence of online communities. And, in the case of citizen journalism, people’s efforts will be helping to build a new form of more effective, more open muckraking—making their efforts more like calling in a hot tip than slaving in the mines. “In a world rife with exploitation,” said Howe, “it just seems that crowdsourcing is an ill-considered contender for the charge.”

The question of crowdsourcing and what to call it should remind us that the rhetoric of this project is important and will help determine who and how many take part.

Ultimately, pro/am journalism, crowdsourcing, or whatever other monikers get tacked on, it’s ordinary people who will decide whether to participate or not. And here’s betting they’ll be the ones who ultimately choose what to call themselves.

Kevin Friedl is a writer living in New York. He has worked at The Atlantic Monthly, Columbia Journalism Review, and Seed magazine. He is currently an assistant news editor at Forbes.com.

Jeff Howe of Wired will be involved in a future collaboration with NewAssignment.Net.