Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: A study into how newsroom culture is framing the adoption of user-generated content (UGC) at leading UK newspaper websites is used to highlight some of the methodological challenges in the analysis of this emerging field. An online survey and interviews were used to study the adoption of UGC and to investigate the debates taking place in newsrooms over the publication of user media. Findings reveal that news executives are providing opportunities for UGC but are experiencing problems with incorporating it into professional journalism structures due to concerns about reputation, trust and legal issues.

The term "participatory journalism" itself is ill defined. Terms such as citizen journalism, participatory journalism or user-generated content are often used interchangeably when referring to the emergence of online tools that allow for broad participation in the creation and dissemination of content by individuals via the Internet. This study also found that there are inconsistencies in the terms used to describe UGC formats, despite an attempt to develop taxonomy of generic formats.

Semi-structured interviews were used to investigate attitudes among senior online news executives to UGC. The participants were selected as representatives of a particular position in the social system in question, and the number (11) exceeded the quantity sufficient for qualitative research based on in-depth interviews. However, research into emerging forms of media can only explore meanings, uses and impacts of early adopters, in this case senior online news executives at the UK's most popular newspaper websites. Consequently, this raises questions over how representative this group is compared with the news industry as a whole.