The rise and rise of UGC

• What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?

Citizen journalists is based upon citizen having an active role in collecting analysing and reporting the news such as creating blogs.

• What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?

The first example of UGC news was in 1991 when an person liking from their windows saw an attack on an African American man named Rodney King after a high speed chase. This was to do the rise of technology, at the time it was more common to have a video camera as more people were able to afford them. The video then received mass publicity as it was featured in prime-time news and became and international media sensation.

• List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.

Apps

Blogs

Polls

Facebook

Twitter

Phones

Tablets

• What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?

UGC is a more believable source of the truth because it was filmed by a normal person like us although the professionally shot videos are too the UGC is more emotive.

• What is a gatekeeper?

Gate keeper are the big institutions consisting of professional Editors and Producers that control what is being shown on their news channels.

• How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?

Gatekeeper have lost some of the power they had over the audience because the UGC content such as blogs on the Internet are much more convenient for the user.

• What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?

One of the biggest concern for them is their jobs, if they are being taken by citizen journalist producing this content for the institution probably for a lower price then journalist are boys to lose their jobs.

Examples:

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.

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.

The London bombings on July 7th 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.

Theory (Audience Reception etc.): 

Benefits to Institutions:

The more the uses of online platforms grow the more the big institutions gain revenue due to the amount of visits to the page. Also, the larger the ratings on the site the more money would be brought in from advertising as companies would pay to advertise on the site.

Benefits to Audience:

Using Social Media and blogs the audience is able to Post their views and opinion on specific subject with-out having to use big media institution, using media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogger, which may receive mass amount of publicity for free by the platforms ability to share, retweet or repost the views and opinions of the audience.

Wider issues and Debates:

What effect does this have of professional journalist of the citizen journalist are able to post their footage online

Social:

The audience are able to use social media as the main platform for

Historical:

Economical:

Political: