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

Why and how Convergence is Emerging

This week I read ‘Why and how Convergence is Emerging‘ in Stephen Quinn’s Convergent Journalism: The fundamentals of multi-media reporting (2005, Peter Lang, New York), which discusses the social and technological factors affecting convergence, the legal and structural factors affecting convergence and the macro to micro factors that make convergence possible.  

Convergence offers a way to satisfy the audience’s desire for news 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in multiple platforms, to reach multiple audiences.

The aim is to supply news and information whenever and wherever the audience wants it, in as many possible formats, to reach the maximum number of people.

In 2003 employed Australians averaged 1,855 work hours a year. This is at the expense of people’s leisure time, leading to a demogrphic of time poor consumers.

It seems poeple are no longer interested in, or do not have the time, to sift through pages of a daily newspaper in search of an article they find interesting. In both the United Sates of America and Australia, there has been a significant readership decline half century relative to population, as illustrated in the below graphs, hence, newspapers could become niche players by 2010.

* Graphs courtesy of Quinn S., ALJ301 Multi-Media Journalism, Lecture 2, ‘Convergence’

It seems the toughest obstacle to overcome in relation to convergence is the cultural resistance within the industry.

I believe with multiple platforms and an array of resources, as well as a team of print, radio and television journalists, convergence will benefit the viewers, users and readers.