ABSTRACT
Enthusiasm for user-generated content (UGC) and citizen contributions to news was founded on the ideal of an increased range of voices, and also had a commercial motivation. This chapter considers how citizens armed with smartphones actively contribute to news journalism through photographs, video, opinion and information, and that of a corrective while the event is unfolding. It discusses how this is changing the relationship between the citizen and the news industry to which they are now a contributor rather than a recipient. Interest in the topic was kick-started by Gillmor’s We The Media, which described how control of the news was moving away from mainstream media to be shared with bloggers and grassroot Internet journalists. The Arab Spring and the Occupy protests gave UGC a boost thanks to the limitations on journalists being physically present, and the widespread ownership of smartphones among the citizens who were there.
