ABSTRACT
This examines how news organizations are seeking to defend themselves against the incursions of user-generated content through the closely related strategies of cooptation and segregation. It presents specific instantiation of cooptation and segregation: the Guardian newspaper's GuardianWitness, which provides a platform for user-generated content built into the newspaper's website, just one of many such sites hosted by traditional or 'legacy' news media. The chapter shows how legacy news media negotiate the challenges implicit in the technological changes brought about by convergence. It discusses the ways in which the increasing role of user-generated content has been managed. The chapter focusses on the epistemology of journalism, in terms of the rules, routines and institutionalized procedures that operate within a social setting and decide the form of the knowledge produced and the knowledge claims expressed. It argues that the increased prevalence of user-generated content presents a series of unique challenges to the authority of journalists.
