User-Generated Content and the Changing News Cycle

This week I read Stephen Quinn and Deirdre Quinn-Allan’s, ‘User-generated content and the changing news cycle‘, in Australian Journalism Review, volume 28, number 1, Pp. 57-60, 2006. This paper describes the blog phenomenon and a range of emerging digital journalism forms which make up the ‘personal media’ revolution.

In June 2005, the Pew Center in the USA reported that eight million Americans had created blogs and 32 million read them.

Tom Curley, CEO of Associated Press, noted that in November 2004, bloggers were creating about 16,000 posts per hour – more than his organisation’s total content. (Stephen Quinn and Deirdre Quinn-Allan, “User-generated content and the changing news cycle”, pg. 58).

Coverage of the London Bombings on July 7, 2005, was the catalyst for the emergence of a new form of reporting in the United Kingdom that is now known as ‘participatory‘ or ‘citizen‘ journalism.

The Boxing Day 2004 tsunami was a similar event in which citizens around the world contributed to a news website.

Every citizen can now be a reporter, as the emergence of blogs delivered via mobile phones (moblogs); video-based blogs (v-logs); newspapers’ use of podcasting to deliver content; and wikis, or peer-generated online content, enable anyone with access to these technologies to disseminate and share their information with a large audience.

A citizen reporter may be at the scene as an event is unfolding, therefore the raw emotion of the newsworthy situation may be captured as it is happens through technologies such as a mobile phone and then uploaded via moblogs or v-logs. 

A downside to this positive, however, is that Philips Electronics reconfigured the Nokia 3650 phones so picture resolution was of broadcast quality and members of the public may not have access to such technologically advanced equipment, therefore poor quality images may be taken. 

A further downside to citizen journalism, in my opinion, is citizens may not be aware of legal and ethical practices undertaken by professional journalists and this may result in not only the author of the content landing themselves into legal ramifications, but the quality and credibility of journalism may also be at risk.     

 

* Video courtesy of YouTube – London Bombings

* Video courtesy of YouTube – Boxing Day Tsunami