ALJ301

WEEK 3: User-generated content and the changing news cycle

As time passes, people are consuming more news from more sources.  It is fascinating to see that many years ago people would acquire their news from newspapers, radios, and televisions.  According to Mike Game, the chief operating officer of Fairfax Digital, in today’s society, “people are turning to the internet for breaking news.” 

The internet and technology has changed the way people present news and how they obtain their daily news.  Citizen journalism emerged when the London Bombings took place in 2005.  Everyday people are contributing to news as we become more technologically advanced.

From blogs, to moblogs, to vlogs people are interacting with technology by writing online, capturing news with their mobile phones, and viewing news through online videos.

Wikipedia also encourages volunteer reporters to write articles. It then allows other people to correct their work if it needs correcting.

So should we see user-generated content in a positive ‘light’ and accept that people don’t need to be a journalist to be a journalist? Or should we see it as a detriment to the way news is produced and that it should be left up to the experts to gather and present the news?

Unfortunately, journalists can not always be where the action is. Citizen journalism is allowing journalists to obtain information without being present.  However, journalists can not always trust the content that is obtained by citizens.  There needs to be a balance between the citizen and the journalist in order to obtain quality news.

 REFERENCES

Quinn, S. and Quinn-Allan, D. (2006). “User-generated content and the changing news cycle” in Australian Journalism Review, volume 28, number 1, pages 57-60.

The e-reading, “Why and how convergence is emerging” states that time has become more scarce than money. I agree with this notion because as time passes people are becoming more impatient and they want to accomplish more things throughout the day. 

As stated in the chapter, a generation ago families would watch television together.  This is now, non-existent. People want to obtain news as quickly as possible, and if they can multi-task at the same time, it’s a bonus. Obtaining news online is not as messy as holding a newspaper, and using technology, ‘on the go’ is another way people can save time. People want news and they want it fast.

Technology has not only changed the way people obtain their news but it also means that journalists are now expected to be compositors, photographers, editors, and computer literate.  Once upon a time, commentators believed that journalists would never compromise quality through the use of mobile phone camera images or low-grade videos.  

Just recently, BBC gave 40 reporters and producers mobile phones that could record and send video. They made sure that the phones used had good picture resolution so that it could be broadcasted.  It seems that news values have become more important than production values if the story is newsworthy.  

According to Mike Henry, a director of sales for the online edition of the Journal, people who are aged 55 and older spend most of their time online.  I was fascinated by this statistic because I always thought that the youth of today would spend most of their time online as it seems they are more ‘computer handy’ thus making it more convenient for them to obtain their news online.

REFERENCES

Quinn, S. (2005). Chapter 2: “Why and how convergence is emerging” in Convergent Journalism: The fundamentals of multi-media reporting New York: Peter Lang.