Abstract:

This paper focuses on how the integration of user-generated content (UGC), in news stories, is a vehicle that provides voices for citizens in a democratic movement. The usage of UGC in news institutions has changed traditional journalism practices in terms of their news value, standard and quality. Essentially, editors of the news media determine which images captured by citizens will be used, and they also decide the messages that they want to send to the public through framing techniques. Previous research on editorialship has identified various standards about news worthiness that serve as selection criteria. However, there is a limited amount of research available on how UGC has changed the traditional journalism model. Through qualitative interviews with seven image editors, five news companies, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CTV, Macleans, Rabble and The Toronto Star, this study sheds light on the editor’s perceptions about citizen videos and images in news content online. Three Canadian case examples are examined for its visual content analysis: immigration ex-judge sex bribe, the Vancouver police tasering of a Polish man, and Victoria police manhandling guys at a nightclub. Through the analysis of the interviews and case studies, this study finds that editors feel that UGC has not altered their traditional news standards. However, upon closer examination of news report cases, it does appear that UGC, which are low quality videos with information entertainment content, has affected the practices of quality journalism. The news have adopted UGC content styles, of being more sensational, graphic, raw, that they make “hard news”, which are investigative in-depth information, appear as if they are “soft news”, such as sensational infotainment. Notwithstanding that professional news organization use public content in their news stories, they have not provided a platform of partnership to allow citizens to have a democratic voice through their media.

Keywords:

Citizen Journalism, Public Journalism, Democracy, User Generated Content, Online News Sites, Media Ethics, Broadcasting.