Is reality becoming more real? The rise and rise of UGC
Sara Mills explores the rise of the citizen journalist and considers the impact of user-generated content on news stories, the news agenda, and the role of the professionals.
Once, it was all quite simple…the big institutions created the news and broadcast it to a variously passive and receptive audience. Now new technologies mean that the audience are no longer passive receivers of news. The audience have become ‘users’ and the users have become publishers. Audiences now create their own content. We are in the era of user generated content (UGC) where the old divide between institution and audience is being eroded.
Key to this change has been the development of new technologies such as video phones and the growth of the internet and user-dominated sites. Both who makes the news and what makes the news have been radically altered by this growth of media technologies and the rise of the ‘citizen journalist’.
We first felt the effects of the new technologies way back in 1991. Video cameras had become more common and more people could afford them…unfortunately for four Los Angeles police officers! Having caught Rodney King, an African-American, after a high speed chase, the officers surrounded him, tasered him and beat him with clubs. The event was filmed by an onlooker from his apartment window. The home-video footage made prime-time news and became an international media sensation, and a focus for complaints about police racism towards African-Americans. Four officers were charged with assault and use of excessive force, but in 1992 they were acquitted of the charges. This acquittal, in the face of the video footage which clearly showed the beatings, sparked huge civil unrest. There were six days of riots, 53 people died, and around 4000 people were injured. The costs of the damage, looting and clear-up came in at up to a billion dollars. If George Holliday hadn’t been looking out of his apartment window and made a grab for his video camera at the time Rodney King was apprehended, none of this would have happened. King’s beating would be just another hidden incident with no consequences. The film footage can be still be viewed. Try looking on YouTube under ‘What started the LA riots.’ But be warned – it makes for very uncomfortable viewing, and even today, it is easy to see why this minute and half of blurry, poor-quality film had such a huge impact.
This was one of the first examples of the news being generated by ‘ordinary people,’ now commonly known as ‘citizen journalists’, ‘grassroots journalists’, or even ‘accidental journalists’. As technology improved over the years, incidents of this kind have become more and more common. Millions of people have constant access to filming capability through their mobiles, and footage can be uploaded and rapidly distributed on the internet. The power to make and break news has moved beyond the traditional news institutions.
It is not only in providing footage for the news that citizen journalists have come to the forefront. UGC now plays a huge role in many aspects of the media. Most news organisations include formats for participation: message boards, chat rooms, Q&A, polls, have your says, and blogs with comments enabled. Social media sites are also built around UGC as seen in the four biggest social networking sites: Bebo, MySpace, YouTube and Facebook. People also turn to UGC sites to access news: Wikipedia news, Google news and YouTube score highly in terms of where people go to get their news.
The natural disaster of the Asian Tsunami on December 26th 2004 was another turning point for UGC. Much of the early footage of events was provided from citizen journalists, or ‘accidental journalists,’ providing on-the-spot witness accounts of events as they unfolded. Tourists who would otherwise have been happily filming holiday moments were suddenly recording one of the worst natural disasters in recent times. In addition, in the days after the disaster, social networking sites provided witness accounts for a world-wide audience, helped survivors and family members get in touch and acted as a forum all those involved to share their experiences.
A second terrible event, the London bombings on July 5th 2005, provided another opportunity for citizen journalists to influence the mainstream news agenda. No one was closer to events than those caught up in the bombings, and the footage they provided from their mobile phones was raw and uncompromising. This first-hand view, rather than professionally shot footage from behind police lines, is often more hard-hitting and emotive. An audience used to relatively unmediated reality through the prevalence of reality TV can now see similarly unmediated footage on the news.
The desire for everyone to tell their own story and have their own moment of fame may explain the huge popularity of Facebook, MySpace and other such sites. It also had a more negative outcome in the package of writings, photos and video footage that 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, mailed into NBC News. Between his first attack, when he shot two people, he sent the package from a local post office, before going on to kill a further 30 people. In his so-called ‘manifesto’ Cho showed his paranoia and obsession, likening himself to Jesus Christ. The reporting of the terrible events at Virginia Tech that day was also affected by citizen journalism, and the footage that student Jamal Albarghouti shot on his mobile phone video camera. Rather than concentrate on saving his own life, he recorded events from his position lying on the ground near the firing. The footage, available on YouTube and CNN brought events home to a worldwide audience. We now expect passers by, witnesses, or even victims, to whip out their camera phones and record events, an instinct almost as powerful as that to save their own or others’ lives. Perhaps the news now seems old-fashioned and somehow staged if it lacks the raw, grainy low-quality footage provided by citizen journalists.
Twitter and flickr came to the forefront during the Mumbai bombings in India in late November 2008. As bombs exploded across the city, the world’s media got up-to date with events through reports on Twitter and Flickr. There were questions raised, however, that by broadcasting their tweets, people may have been putting their own and others’ lives at risk.
It was on Twitter again that the story of the Hudson River plane crash on January 15th 2009 was broken to the world. With a dramatic picture of a plane half sinking in the river, and passengers crowded on the wing awaiting rescue Janis Krun tweeted:
There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.
The picture is still available on Twitpic, under ‘Janis Krun’s tweet.’ While national news organisations quickly swung into action, it was the citizen journalist, empowered by social networking sites that first broke the story.
So who’s keeping the gate?
Are the gatekeepers still fulfilling their old function of deciding what is and isn’t news and what will and won’t be broadcast? In some ways, yes. You can send in as much UGC to the major news organisations as you want, with no guarantee that any of it will ever be aired. In fact, last year a BBC spokesperson reported that a large proportion of photos sent in to the news unit were of kittens. While this may represent the interest of the audience, or users, it still doesn’t turn the fact that your kitten is really cute into ‘news.’
The way around the gatekeepers is with the independent media on the web. The blogosphere, for example, provides an opportunity for independent, often minority and niche views and news to reach a wide audience. In fact uniting disparate people in ‘micro-communities’ is one of the web’s greatest abilities. How else would all those ice fans communicate without the ‘Ice Chewers Bulletin Board?’ And the only place for those who like to see pictures of dogs in bee costumes is, of course, ‘Beedogs.com: the premier online repository for pictures of dogs in bee costumes.’
On a more serious note, the change in the landscape of the news means that groups who had little access to self-representation before, such as youth groups, low income groups, and various minority groups may, through citizen journalism, begin to find that they too have a voice.
What about the professionals?
Do journalists fear for their jobs now everyone is producing content? It is likely that in future there will be fewer and fewer permanent trained staff at news organisations, leaving a smaller core staff who will manage and process UGC from citizen journalists, sometimes known as ‘crowd sourcing.’ Some believe that the mediators and moderators might eventually disappear too, leaving a world where the media is, finally, unmediated. This does raise concerns however. Without moderation sites could be overrun by bigots or fools, by those who shout loudest, and those who have little else to do but make posts The risk of being dominated by defamatory or racist or other hate-fuelled content raises questions about unmoderated content: ‘free speech’ is great as long as you agree with what everybody is saying!
If there will be fewer jobs for trained journalists, will there also be less profit for the big institutions? This seems unlikely. Although how to ‘monetarise’ UGC – how to make money for both the generator and the host of the content – is still being debated, bigger institutions have been buying up social networking sites for the last few years. Rather than launch their own challenge, they simply buy the site. Flickr is now owned by Yahoo!, YouTube was bought by Google, Microsoft invested in Facebook, and News Corp., owned by Murdoch, bought MySpace.
There is a whole new world out there. With it comes new responsibility. There is enormous potential to expand our view of the world and our understanding of what is happening. Our collective knowledge, and wisdom, should grow. On the other hand, in twenty years time, the news could be overrun by pictures of people’s kittens and a few bigots shouting across message boards at each other.
Sara Mills teaches Media Studies at Helston Community College, Cornwall, and is an AQA examiner.
This article first appeared in Media Magazine 30, December 2009.
Sunday 30 October 2011
Wednesday 19 October 2011
learner response
Google are an influential institution, they are a big media institution on the internet. They are a massive institution which account for a great number of people who visit their site. Google are one of the or if not the best search provider therefore this is the reason why it is so attractive. According to a source Google account for 93% of searchers. Therefore showing a huge amount of control in their favour. Google make great a great amount of revenue. This is received from the institutions whose website it is. Google charge a huge amount for being the first results on their webpage’s as it is so popular the website is likely to get many people visiting their website. Google’s revenue was $29.321 billion in 2010. This is a huge amount of money suggesting this is a powerful media institution and has a great control on people. They ware also estimated worth 163.2 billion in 2010.
Another massive institution which has taken the internet by storm are social networks. Facebook and twitter are the biggest social networks and are very well known. They also account for a mass population. More than 800 million active users use facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day. Users of website check news and other stories and groups. More than 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages). The popularity is so high that More than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices. This suggests the addiction facebook has on its users. This suggests that facebook are a strong media institution in manipulating people. Twitter is also a have huge interaction from people. 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month. This shows people are able to communicate with each other over anything. News stories, are commented on by people allowing people to express their views and opinions.
Another massive institution which has taken the internet by storm are social networks. Facebook and twitter are the biggest social networks and are very well known. They also account for a mass population. More than 800 million active users use facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day. Users of website check news and other stories and groups. More than 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages). The popularity is so high that More than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices. This suggests the addiction facebook has on its users. This suggests that facebook are a strong media institution in manipulating people. Twitter is also a have huge interaction from people. 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month. This shows people are able to communicate with each other over anything. News stories, are commented on by people allowing people to express their views and opinions.
Monday 17 October 2011
What do you think has been the impact of the explosion in the many different ways and formats we can now receive news?
The audience receive the news in different ways; news is available on the three different media platforms which are print, broadcasting and emedia. This allows the audience use a variety of different ways to gain access to news. This allows it to be easier and offers more freedom to audiences as they are able to voice their opinions easily over a particular story.
Broadcast allows you to watch 24 hour news channels also known as rolling news, examples of this are sky news and bbc news. Which both offer 24 hour news.
Print is in the form of newspapers examples are the sun which is one of or if not the most popular newspaper with readership of nearly 10million a day.
E media are news on the internet which can be normal news channels which also have news websites furthermore social networks have a big impact on news creating discussions about particular stories.
Mobile applications allow people to stay up to date with news on the go. Making this easy and much more accessible to different audiences.
20 years ago this was a lot more different as you could only receive news from TV’s which were not available for 24 hours. The most popular way was probably from newspapers. And radio also referred to as the wireless was also a way of receiving news. Furthermore as people went to the cinema often news was shown in the cinema “news reels” this allowed people to know what was going on while going out to watch a film. Also word and mouth where people will just tell one another about major headlines.
This differs from as the news is becoming more user generated and audiences are becoming their own news reporters and in the olden days this was restricted because of technology advancements.
I feel the explosion of many different ways and formats people receive the news is much more beneficial as I feel people are more aware of what is going on around them. They are able to voice their opinions allowing people to know a majority of views then receiving news which is biased and is loyal to the institutions which create the news.
NEWS DIARY
Emedia- I looked at the CNN news on the internet and this is full of real truthful stories and this represent a hard news institution whose beliefs can be biased as the institution. The institutions website is formal and talks about news which is intense and real “war”
Print- I looked at the Ealing gazette which is the local newspaper and this feature story of hard news as this newspaper is a paper to show people what is happening in their area therefore it is about what is going on in the London borough of Ealing.
Broadcasting- there is a news channel called e news and this comes on the channel E!Entertainm. The news is all soft news and talks about celebrities in all of their news stories. The news is informal as the way the presenters look and show the news is different to what you would associate news with.
Broadcast allows you to watch 24 hour news channels also known as rolling news, examples of this are sky news and bbc news. Which both offer 24 hour news.
Print is in the form of newspapers examples are the sun which is one of or if not the most popular newspaper with readership of nearly 10million a day.
E media are news on the internet which can be normal news channels which also have news websites furthermore social networks have a big impact on news creating discussions about particular stories.
Mobile applications allow people to stay up to date with news on the go. Making this easy and much more accessible to different audiences.
20 years ago this was a lot more different as you could only receive news from TV’s which were not available for 24 hours. The most popular way was probably from newspapers. And radio also referred to as the wireless was also a way of receiving news. Furthermore as people went to the cinema often news was shown in the cinema “news reels” this allowed people to know what was going on while going out to watch a film. Also word and mouth where people will just tell one another about major headlines.
This differs from as the news is becoming more user generated and audiences are becoming their own news reporters and in the olden days this was restricted because of technology advancements.
I feel the explosion of many different ways and formats people receive the news is much more beneficial as I feel people are more aware of what is going on around them. They are able to voice their opinions allowing people to know a majority of views then receiving news which is biased and is loyal to the institutions which create the news.
NEWS DIARY
Emedia- I looked at the CNN news on the internet and this is full of real truthful stories and this represent a hard news institution whose beliefs can be biased as the institution. The institutions website is formal and talks about news which is intense and real “war”
Print- I looked at the Ealing gazette which is the local newspaper and this feature story of hard news as this newspaper is a paper to show people what is happening in their area therefore it is about what is going on in the London borough of Ealing.
Broadcasting- there is a news channel called e news and this comes on the channel E!Entertainm. The news is all soft news and talks about celebrities in all of their news stories. The news is informal as the way the presenters look and show the news is different to what you would associate news with.
Monday 10 October 2011
Who are the major players in terms of news providers in the UK and what do they exactly own?
Who are the major players in terms of news providers in the UK and what do they exactly own?
The main major players of news providers in the UK are:
BBC
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organization and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 44 foreign news bureaux and has correspondents in almost all of the world's 240 countries. Since 2004, the Director of BBC News has been Helen Boaden.
The department's annual budget is £350 million; it has 3,500 staff, 2,000 of whom are journalists. Through the BBC English Regions, BBC News has regional centres across England as well as national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. All regions and nations produce their own local news programmes and other current affairs and sport programmes.
Radio and television operations are broadcast from BBC Television Centre in West London, though they will move to the newly refurbished Broadcasting House in Central London in 2012. Television Centre houses all domestic, global, and online news divisions within one main newsroom. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London.
ITV
ITV News is the branding of news programmes on the British television network ITV. Since 1955, ITV's news bulletins have been produced by Independent Television News (ITN). ITV News has the second-largest television news audience in the United Kingdom, second only to BBC News
The ITV Network is made up of 15 regional licences, providing television to viewers across the UK. 11 of the licences in England and Wales are owned by ITV Plc, formed in 2004 following the merger of Carlton and Granada. SMG owns the two Scottish licences, Scottish Television and Grampian; UTV and Channel Television own the licences for Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands respectively.
News Corporation
News corp have many different newspapers, the main well known and popular newspaper is The SUN
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow (The Scottish Sun) and Dublin (The Irish Sun). It has the tenth-largest circulation of any newspaper in the world and the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the United Kingdom.
In July and December 2010 it had an average daily readership of approximately 7.6 million, of whom approximately 2.65 million were in the ABC1 demographic and 4.9 million in the C2DE demographic.
The Sun has been involved in a number of controversies in its history
The Suns online news website is worth £4, 689, 508, and 69 and receives daily page views of 2,141,348 with daily advertisement revenue of £6, 423, and 28.
BSkyB
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.
The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localized versions of the channel in Australia and in New Zealand, as well as their previously operated version in Ireland. Sky News is also offered in an international version without the British adverts under the name Sky News International available in Europe and Asia.
Based at a news centre in London, Sky News started broadcasting on 5 February 1989 as part of the then four-channel Sky Television service. Sky News provides an hourly news radio service to multiple radio networks in the UK and Ireland. The channel currently has seven UK bases each with their own correspondents, and the channel can also call upon a wide range of resources and global bureaux provided by its parent company News Corporation such as reporters from Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network (its sister news and business channels).
Sky News has built its schedule around the main anchors with appointment to view broadcasts regularly being supplemented by landmark broadcasts. Although most of its programmes feature one main presenter, when major breaking news reaches the channel it has recently started to revert to the old double-headed style with two presenters anchoring. Sky News is known for its innovations in news broadcasting and regularly wins awards for this and also for its broadcasting in general.
Channel 4 News
Channel 4 News is the name of the flagship evening news programme. Channel 4 News is noted for its extensive coverage of international news and good background reports on current affairs. It is edited by Jim Gray who was previously Deputy Editor of Newsnight. It is anchored by Jon Snow and is on the air Monday to Friday from 19:00-19:55 on Channel 4. Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Alex Thomson are the main presenters when Snow is absent.
Channel 4 News is well regarded as a serious news programme, most recently winning a record five Royal Television Society Television Awards in February 2006. These included TV Journalist of the Year for Jon Snow, Home News Award for the Attorney General leak, and the International News Award for Congo's Tin Soldiers.
It won the News Coverage British Academy Television Award in 2004 and the 2004 International Emmy for the best news programme produced and aired outside the United States. Jon Snow won the Richard Dimbleby British Academy Television Award in 2005 for outstanding contribution to the world of news and current affairs.
5 News
5 News is the news programme of British broadcaster Channel 5, produced by Sky News. From 1 January 2005, Sky News was awarded the contract to provide the news for Channel 5, replacing ITN, which had provided the channel's news service from the channel's launch in 1997. On 14 February 2011, the service was rebranded back to its original name, 5 News having been called "Five News" from 2002 until 2011.
The main major players of news providers in the UK are:
BBC
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organization and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 44 foreign news bureaux and has correspondents in almost all of the world's 240 countries. Since 2004, the Director of BBC News has been Helen Boaden.
The department's annual budget is £350 million; it has 3,500 staff, 2,000 of whom are journalists. Through the BBC English Regions, BBC News has regional centres across England as well as national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. All regions and nations produce their own local news programmes and other current affairs and sport programmes.
Radio and television operations are broadcast from BBC Television Centre in West London, though they will move to the newly refurbished Broadcasting House in Central London in 2012. Television Centre houses all domestic, global, and online news divisions within one main newsroom. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London.
ITV
ITV News is the branding of news programmes on the British television network ITV. Since 1955, ITV's news bulletins have been produced by Independent Television News (ITN). ITV News has the second-largest television news audience in the United Kingdom, second only to BBC News
The ITV Network is made up of 15 regional licences, providing television to viewers across the UK. 11 of the licences in England and Wales are owned by ITV Plc, formed in 2004 following the merger of Carlton and Granada. SMG owns the two Scottish licences, Scottish Television and Grampian; UTV and Channel Television own the licences for Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands respectively.
News Corporation
News corp have many different newspapers, the main well known and popular newspaper is The SUN
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow (The Scottish Sun) and Dublin (The Irish Sun). It has the tenth-largest circulation of any newspaper in the world and the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the United Kingdom.
In July and December 2010 it had an average daily readership of approximately 7.6 million, of whom approximately 2.65 million were in the ABC1 demographic and 4.9 million in the C2DE demographic.
The Sun has been involved in a number of controversies in its history
The Suns online news website is worth £4, 689, 508, and 69 and receives daily page views of 2,141,348 with daily advertisement revenue of £6, 423, and 28.
BSkyB
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.
The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localized versions of the channel in Australia and in New Zealand, as well as their previously operated version in Ireland. Sky News is also offered in an international version without the British adverts under the name Sky News International available in Europe and Asia.
Based at a news centre in London, Sky News started broadcasting on 5 February 1989 as part of the then four-channel Sky Television service. Sky News provides an hourly news radio service to multiple radio networks in the UK and Ireland. The channel currently has seven UK bases each with their own correspondents, and the channel can also call upon a wide range of resources and global bureaux provided by its parent company News Corporation such as reporters from Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network (its sister news and business channels).
Sky News has built its schedule around the main anchors with appointment to view broadcasts regularly being supplemented by landmark broadcasts. Although most of its programmes feature one main presenter, when major breaking news reaches the channel it has recently started to revert to the old double-headed style with two presenters anchoring. Sky News is known for its innovations in news broadcasting and regularly wins awards for this and also for its broadcasting in general.
Channel 4 News
Channel 4 News is the name of the flagship evening news programme. Channel 4 News is noted for its extensive coverage of international news and good background reports on current affairs. It is edited by Jim Gray who was previously Deputy Editor of Newsnight. It is anchored by Jon Snow and is on the air Monday to Friday from 19:00-19:55 on Channel 4. Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Alex Thomson are the main presenters when Snow is absent.
Channel 4 News is well regarded as a serious news programme, most recently winning a record five Royal Television Society Television Awards in February 2006. These included TV Journalist of the Year for Jon Snow, Home News Award for the Attorney General leak, and the International News Award for Congo's Tin Soldiers.
It won the News Coverage British Academy Television Award in 2004 and the 2004 International Emmy for the best news programme produced and aired outside the United States. Jon Snow won the Richard Dimbleby British Academy Television Award in 2005 for outstanding contribution to the world of news and current affairs.
5 News
5 News is the news programme of British broadcaster Channel 5, produced by Sky News. From 1 January 2005, Sky News was awarded the contract to provide the news for Channel 5, replacing ITN, which had provided the channel's news service from the channel's launch in 1997. On 14 February 2011, the service was rebranded back to its original name, 5 News having been called "Five News" from 2002 until 2011.
Monday 3 October 2011
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