A blog entry on the BBC Website by Matthew Eltringham (their assistant editor of interactivity) shows an expansion in the BBC’s commitment to converse with the audience. They have not only added new areas for “conversations” by branching out to non BBC platforms, they have appointed a correspondent to specifically investigate and report on viewers’ stories. It is clear to me that the audience are becoming more and more valuable to the content of a news program in this increasingly technical age. Yet, it is the replies to his blog post which seem to demonstrate the areas of debate. At the time of writing this there are some fairly welcoming comments to the recent developments and some others nervous of this part of this increasing part of the media. It will take time for people to understand how useful user generated stories will become and many press organisations seem to be increasingly incorporating UGC into their output.
So that is UGC being used to inform news providers of the news covered, but of course there is more to UGC than this. Arguably the most obvious examples of UGC are video, pictures and witness statements related to news stories. An example which remains in my mind is the viewers’ statements and pictures after the Buncefield Refinery fire in December 2005. From where I live I heard the explosion but had no idea what caused it, within a few minutes pictures from the general public and witnesses who had phoned in were on various news services. To me the uses of this type of UGC are obvious, although various faked images have been seen as real (for example a picture posted on CNN’s IReport claiming to show a fire in Scotland), yet I imagine when information is checked viewers’ pictures and comments are essential in this rolling news world.
Although a recent lecture about user generated content by Dr Andy Williams of Cardiff University made me think about the potential of UGC to help democratise the news media. He mentioned that some websites are appearing around the world where news reports can be written on the site by anyone. Whatever you think of greater involvement of viewers/consumers in reporting news there is a sence that the news is being democratised. However to realise how democratic this twenty-first century news media is there must be some investigation into what percentage of the population contact news organisations and what backgrounds they’re from.
UGC seems here to stay although how far can it go? Will editors still have control of what makes the news? Or will hoax stories become easier to break?
The Internet and Web2...a whole new journalistic world?
After just two and a bit weeks at Cardiff Journalism School it is becoming increasingly clear that journalism is (and I guess media and communication in general are) changing. Before arriving in Cardiff I thought I was fairly computer literate; however I have found that not to be the case. What with Twitter, Wikis, blogging, social book marking and the rest I found myself sinking in the ever changing world of the World Wide Web.
I had heard of some of these web tools, yet never thought I would find myself blogging or sitting in a newsroom having a discussion about how similar Facebook status updates and Twitter are and whether we need to have both. What brought it home to me that it is necessary for a potential journalist to be web aware is the realisation that newspapers started appearing in the UK during 1700’s with many examples still around today, yet the Internet is seen to have continually evolved and changed in my life time let alone since its arrival in 1969.
I fully appreciate the need in this modern age for consumers to have news and analysis brought to them as soon as is possible and more often than not it is done through the Internet; hence why for example the BBC News editor’s blogs are so popular as is the daily Snowmail from Channel 4 News). These seem staple parts of the modern media and news organisations and even though there are so many websites, email newsletters and blogs out there we all have our trusted and favourite ones.
Although I remain ‘open-mindedly’ sceptical (if I can invent that term) about the use of Twitter and other services I hadn’t heard of until last week, I do understand the need to use them especially after June. I am still unsure why hundreds of people, let alone people on my course, would care about what I was doing. I guess I shall just have to wait and see whether I get used to them in the coming few weeks, after all the move from MySpace to Facebook wasn’t fully embraced by many of my friends last year let alone the recent simple changes to the look of Facebook.
All in all journalism seems to need the web in order to survive as whoever writes news stories they are more than likely to end up on the net first, so why shouldn’t it be journalists? I assume the next few weeks will prove to me the uses of Twitter, social book marking and the rest I shall just have to wait and see.
Well that’s my first blog and it has not been half as painful and confusing as I thought it would be! So till the next time…
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