How many users actually generate content?
The new DCMS/BERR Convergence Think Tank holds its first seminar today. The subject is : Why does convergence matter? This seminar will seek to set the scene for the CTT programme and establish the key challenges and goals.
In its submission, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) expresses concerns about user generated content (UGC):
“While the NUJ welcomes the access to online media afforded by Web 2.0, we do have concerns about the effect on standards of unlimited and unedited contributions. Publishers welcome the availability of “user-generated content” – or “citizen journalism” as it is known in the context of news – principally because it comes free of charge. Some commentators like to dress it up as a great advance in democracy and pronounce that professionally produced news will become a thing of the past.
However, Peter Horrocks, head of the multimedia news department within BBC News, recently talked about the fact that only one per cent of the audience engage with the BBC in any way, whether through traditional audience feedback or via text, phone or email and that people should remember that the BBC is for everyone, not just the participative 1%.”
I write a monthly column on Internet matters and devoted one article to the issue of user generated content.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
UGC could threaten journalist jobs as newsrooms seek to do more with less, but there is one advantage newspapers have over the blogs, for example. That is we either comment on issues news agencies have already reported on, or on experiences and happenings not covered my the media. There is an opening for journalism to actually go out and do original researching and reporting. I imagine most journalists would love that, but the media’s owners are wedded to lowest common denominator news. They are the root of newspapers’ current malaise.