USER-GENERATED CONTENT

“We are surely moving towards a situation in which relatively small ‘core’staffs will process material from freelances and/or citizen journalists, bloggers, whatever (and there are many who think this business of ‘processing’ will itself gradually disappear too in an era of what we might call an unmediated media).”– Roy Greenslade blog , 25 October 2007.

The relationship between the media and the audience has radically changed over the past few years, with the dividing line between the two becoming more blurred. Some, like Professor Greenslade, seem to think that the line will disappear in the future, with professional staff reporters replaced by poorly paid freelances and enthusiastic amateurs.

User-generated content (UGC) has been used by all media since long before the internet became a worldwide phenomenon. One of the most famous examples was the Rodney King beating by Los Angeles police in 1991 – captured by a member of the public on a camcorder and seen all over the world.

But it was the development of software that allowed greater user participation and interaction with the web by the end of the 90s that had such an impact that it fundamentally changed the media landscape. The Battle of Seattle protests and riots were accompanied by the launch of Indymedia in December 1999. It was now possible for individuals and activists to create and publish their own media with greater ease than ever before.

Indymedia ’s slogan – “Don’t hate the media, be the media” – fed into a new era of blogs and social networking software as the phenomenon of so-called “citizen journalism”emerged.The ease of self-publishing blogs led many to start their own, particularly in countries with less than free media. Ohmynews in South Korea quickly became one of the most important sites in this movement, as it accepted news submissions from its readers on a large scale. Blogs in China, Iran and other countries became an important outlet for political activists, though soon censorship and persecution of bloggers increased worldwide.

The blogosphere and “citizen journalism”presented an important challenge to the established media. Journalists could now receive instant feedback from their readers, whether they wanted it or not, and mistakes or flaws in their pieces were quickly pointed out. This led to commenting systems being adopted by most major online publications and the development of a feedback loop that presented the opportunity for journalists to better learn what their audiences wanted.

These new developments could also augment the media as well as challenge what was and was not covered. This was, of course, most stark in countries without free media, but it was a factor elsewhere. Indymedia tended to present a left-wing perspective on the news, while the blogosphere presented a myriad of perspectives, many of which felt, fairly or unfairly, that they were unrepresented in the media.

The challenge to the media was one that the media could have used to improve itself, refocusing on the audience and its needs and improving its coverage. In the UK and US, however, rather than rising to the challenge, some of the media, for instance Trinity Mirror, has ceded ground to the“citizen journalism”sector and has come to regard it as a source of free content while cutting professional journalistic capacity to the bone.

THE CURRENT POSITION

For the mainstream media in the UK, it wasn’t until the bombings of 7 July 2005 that the question of UGC really became an issue for NUJ members.

The implications of the technology had previously been highlighted in 2002 in Dublin, when Indymedia and RTÉ camerapersons, filming a Reclaim the Streets riot that was attacked by the police, found the video that they had been filming for web use appearing as part of the top story on the 6 o’clock news. The possibility that this might happen had been pre-empted by the recently negotiated RTÉ Interactive House Agreement.

However, it was the London bombings and the appearance of footage filmed on camera-phones by members of the public all over the media that highlighted a fundamental change in the relationship between the media and its consumers. Reader’s contributions moved from the letters page to the front page and UGC was a reality across the media spectrum.

In the months following the attacks, much of the media started touting for user contributions. From the BBC to the smallest local newspapers, the media was asking for people to send in photos and videos. There was no mention of copyright or health and safety, the implications of which became clear during the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal fire later the same year. The situation of people taking photos of the fire brought the very real possibility that people might be badly hurt trying to get photos.

Many in the industry quickly recognised the value of UGC. As the submission to the Commission from the broadcasting sector put it, “Developments such as user-generated content (in radio these are called phone-ins) will add value to the news experience mostly as a first eyewitness or personal account.”Andy Collinson, former FoC at ITV Wales, told the Commission, “I think where the only eyewitness report of a major event was filmed on someone’s mobile phone; it would be foolish to ignore it and not work it into a larger news item.”

CODE OF PRACTICE ON WITNESS CONTRIBUTIONS

However, the union also recognised that there were also challenges and issued a proposed Code of Practice for the industry in January 2006. The Code attempted to address issues related to UGC that ranged from defending the rights of originators to defending professionalism and the interests of the union’s members. Some of the key recommendations in the Code are:

• The need to uphold section 1 of the Press Complaints Council Code of Practice.
• That material produced by NUJ members should be used when such alternatives to witness contributions are available.
• That the copyright and moral rights of contributors work should be respected, that they should be legally protected, their safety considered and that appropriate and agreed payment should be made.

The report received some negative feedback from those who misinterpreted it as an attack on “citizen journalism”and the blogosphere. However, in November, the BBC introduced its own guidelines, “Video, audio and stills contributions from members of the public in BBC News output“, covering issues identified in the union’s Code such as copyright, health and safety, fact checking and payment related to submissions from the public.

The organisation was quoted in the Guardian as saying “Our starting point is that we should aim to apply the same approach to pictures, audio and video supplied by members of the public, as we do to any other material we handle as journalists.”VickyTaylor, the BBC’s Editor of Interactivity, confirmed that the union’s policy was one of a number of influences on their new policy.

One way or another, the overt touting for user contributions declined over the next year. On one very practical level, a number of senior people in the industry noted that the vast majority of UGC was not of tube bombings or major fires. Robin Hamman, senior producer of the BBC Blogging Network, said at a journalism.co.uk event in December 2006 that a substantial number of pics sent into the BBC were pictures of kittens.

At the same event, Robin described the Manchester Blog Project , a new way of interacting with the blogosphere, which was described at launch as: “Rather than building platforms, we want to help people create their own stuff on existing third party (non-BBC) platforms. Instead of contributors sending us content members of staff here at the BBC sifting through that content in a bid to find the good bits, we’re simply going to ask contributors to tell us where they’re publishing their content online and we’ll keep an eye on it. The BBC won’t claim any rights over the content and won’t own anything.”

THE NEW MEDIA INDUSTRY

Some of the biggest names in the new media industry took a different approach. The portal approach to the web, which had been a mainstay of the output of the major organisations and generally created the most editorial jobs, was hit by the growing popularity of the blogosphere and “Web 2.0”and declined in popularity.

Their solution to this problem was to start buying the popular sites that were challenging their supremacy – Yahoo! bought Flickr, Google bought Youtube, Microsoft invested in Facebook – and soon the big media companies got in on the act, with Murdoch’s News Corporation buying Myspace and CBS buying Last FM.

In contrast, AOL, which had merged with Time Warner in 2001, is undergoing its third restructuring in as many years and recently announced plans to cut 20% of its global workforce. AOL UK, where the NUJ is recognised, has seen its focus change from news-driven editorial to advertising-led output over the past few years.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS

According to the submission to the Commission from the freelance sector: “Local news websites are springing up, replacing the role of newspapers, that have no paid-for editorial content, just listings, village corrs and user content. Journalists will disappear from local papers because professional editorial content will disappear. They will just need a couple of subs.”

The New Media Industrial Council points out that a number of these websites previously contained proper journalistic content – and NUJ members – and were bought up by the large media companies. The content and members have, in some cases, been driven out as companies like Trinity Mirror see only the potential of the sites for advertising purposes.

In January this year, Trinity Mirror launched a range of new hyperlocal news websites mixing editorial content from their newspapers with submissions from the public. In August, they began publishing free newspapers drawing material from these sites. Darren Thwaites, editor of the Teesside Gazette, told Journalism.co.uk.“The micro-sites are populated by our own content as well as user-generated content. But thanks to the stuff we are getting in from the bloggers it has allowed us to have more content and publish three weekly and three fortnightly [papers] in the most lucrative site areas.”These new initiatives follow massive cost cutting and the jettisoning of titles at the end of 2006.

These developments follow similar changes in the media in the United States. In March 2006, it was reported that Gannett, the publisher of USA Today as well as 90 other American daily newspapers, was to begin crowdsourcing many of its newsgathering functions.“The initiative emphasizes four goals: Prioritize local news over national news; publish more user-generated content; become 24-7 news operations, in which the newspapers do less and the websites do much more; and finally, use crowdsourcing methods to put readers to work as watchdogs, whistle-blowers and researchers in large, investigative features,” Wired reported.

In his contribution to Ofcom’s discussion document, “A new approach to public service content in the digital media age“, Andrew Chitty, Managing Director of Illumina Digital wrote: “Harnessing the power of UGC for Public Service Objectives will mean identifying communities with public service objectives and empowering them to create, mediate and moderate their own content and services.”

In and of itself, UGC could be a welcome addition to the range of public service broadcasting by providing alternative viewpoints to the BBC and ITV. However, seen in the light of the proposed cuts in BBC funding and ITV news regional news coverage, it has stark implications.

CONCLUSION

The issue of user-generated content is not an issue of technology; it is one of defending quality journalism. This is not to say that all user-generated content is bad or that there are no quality blogs, but professional journalism, adequately funded and resourced, plays a role in society and democracy that needs to be defended.

Few citizens, however enthusiastic, will be keen to sit through council meetings or in court all day in the hopes that they will find a story without being paid. Few bloggers, even if they manage to monetise their blogs, will have the resources to carry out major long-term investigations and research that could amount to nothing.

User-generated content, while it has a role in modern media, is not a replacement for quality professional journalism.

Recommendations

• All chapels should seek to ensure that their employers adhere to the principles outlined in the ‘Witness Contributors’: Code of Practice.

 

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