ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how journalists and aid agencies see the use of user-generated content (UGC) in reporting humanitarian disasters. It reveals that editors and reporters have very different attitudes to the use of UGC. The journalists who were interviewed frequently expressed tensions and inconsistencies about the use of user-generated content. While editors in the main saw it as an inevitable part of journalism, reporters frequently regarded it as a threat to the journalistic norms they defined themselves by, even if—in an era of financial cutbacks and technological advances—the authority of journalistic presence was already being challenged. It details that many journalists could not articulate the idea of verifying UGC as a process, and confusion over what could be deemed ‘private’ if posted via social media, issues around consent and copyright and use of graphic imagery remained.
Aid agencies questioned saw user-generated content and the social media on which it was transmitted as being a vital part of their press operations in a post-Haiti environment. But trying to adapt to this new technology had caused them considerable confusion in applying their codes of conduct, and concern for beneficiaries in a rapid media environment.
Both groups were primarily concerned with how these potential new players in the field affected them, and the importance of demarcating the lines of journalistic authority. Neither group talked, unless specifically asked, about the UGC creators themselves.
