Read all about it! Read all about it! People make the news!

Citizen or participatory journalism ensures that we now hear more voices and get to hear the views of ‘Joe Public’, that is those who are truly affected by what is happening in the news. This contrasts with a previous age where newspaper owners and large media organisations were the sole gatherers of news content and tailored it to promote their own beliefs and self-interests. People can now share their thoughts, their opinions and their real life experiences. However, participatory journalism is not as straight forward as it first seems.

In the last few years, User Generated Content has taken gigantic steps towards allowing this more conversational style and as a result a more democratised media. UGC is now a huge part of the media industry, and is clearly being embraced by most if not all traditional media sources to differing extents. The flood gates have obviously opened especially in terms of the internet and instead of being told the news, all and sundry can now play their part in shaping it. However, there are two aspects that concern me in this debate. The first is the forgotten voices of society, and secondly, how trustworthy and informed are UGC sites in terms of news.




It is thanks to advances in technology, to web 2.0 in particular that audience interaction has exploded, especially in terms of the internet. However, not everybody has access to the internet. Is it not just the voice of the more affluent and the computer literate that fill our web pages? Until there is universal access for people of all social classes and ages to have a means to express their views the media cannot claim to be completely conversational or fully reflective of a democratic state.

In terms of news content, I have some reservations about UGC. Blogs for instance have no or very few checks to ensure their accuracy let alone their impartiality. Ordinary people may be making the news but how accurate and reliable is it? In this respect how trustworthy can theses sites really be? Referring back to Rupert Murdoch's Speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors he makes the point that what ‘Joe Public’ wants is news on demand and a participatory element in the process of news gathering and broadcasting.

I know I run the risk of seeming to be a luddite, being adverse to the advances of technology but this is not the case. I believe there is a place for UGC to work alongside the traditional media sources. News sites such as the BBC have struck the right balance between allowing freedom for public conversational debate whilst at the same time through monitoring and checking the content being displayed by the 'prosumer' the reader can be assured that the facts are accurate.

To my mind User Generated Content adds colour and realism to the media. It is something which should be encouraged and nurtured in order to allow the media to become fully democratised.

Remember you read it here first!!!

Network Journalism

Definition of ‘Network’ - an association of individuals having a common interest, formed to provide mutual assistance, helpful information, or the like. So adding the word ‘network’ before the word ‘journalism’ does not sit paradoxically against one and other at all in fact it’s something which actually fits rather nice and neatly together.

Traditional journalism always relied upon building up information networks and contacts. Ok, at one time it possibly meant pounding the streets to find the contact with the specific subject knowledge you needed, or in more recent times picking up the phone, then the mobile phone, then more recently still being able to send an email. Now thanks to the wonder of web 2.0, things have progressed and our list of contacts and sources has increased beyond belief, our network has increased way beyond the newsroom.

Recently, we were asked in the lecture “What will be the media organisations job in the future if network journalism kicks off?” and “what will be the role of the news room?”

Without a crystal ball, who can say but I think what has already become clear is that news has and must continue to be a process of collaboration. Take a look at Jeff Jarvis’ diagram of the ‘new news process’ just to fully appreciate how much network journalism has opened up a much more conversational style of journalism and the multitude of layers which now exist in the process making. I can’t see any reason why UGC and journalists can’t work together to help one another, expanding the newsroom into the community. In a time of financial insecurity, and constant cut backs in media organisations surely it just makes sense. If members of the public are in a particular place when an incident occurs then let them get involved in news making. The images we all saw of 7/7 have taught us how important it is that the public get involved and share things with media organisations. These people were there at the scene long before the reporters and camera crews, and were able to capture the immediacy of the event.

Social networking sites, wikis, twitter and message boards and forums are communities. At first I was a bit pessimistic about them, not really fully understanding how they could be of benefit in terms of news. However, within the short space of time I’ve been using them I now see the scope they offer. They are in many ways just an active and extra large extension of the traditional contacts book - an extra means of accessing information.

In order to ensure accuracy and reliability I hope journalists always remain as gatekeepers of news but that they allow the public to contribute in the production of it. As Charlie Beckett warns, it is after all in the interest of the media to embrace network journalism and to stop seeing ourselves as owners but instead as collaborators.