Exploring the Integration of User-Generated Content in Media Organizations Through Participatory Journalism

Introduction

The concept of user engagement in news production process has evolved during the last centuries to extend from early forms of participation in printed matters to wholly participatory platforms hosted by mainstream online media outlets. The initial steps of the 17^th century (Boczkowski, 2005) were followed by practices like letters to the editor, newspaper ombudsmen and reader representatives, before Internet and World Wide Web (Web) spread made it possible for message boards and chat rooms to be implemented on news websites (Deuze, 2006; Gillmor, 2004; Singer et al., 2011). Nevertheless, it was the predominance of Web 2.0 that led to the radical transformation of the journalist-audience relationship (Reader, 2018; Sinton, 2018).

Remarkable quantities of user-generated content (UGC), basically in the form of text, photos, videos and graphics (Anderson, 2007), are produced and uploaded thanks to easy-to-use publishing tools, always-on connections and powerful mobile devices (Bowman & Willis, 2003). Meanwhile, citizen journalism activity through social media such as Facebook and Twitter is becoming increasingly relevant and important (Kim & Lowrey, 2015, p. 298) and anyone with something engaging to share can be a potential mass communicator (Moore & Hatcher, 2018). As Newman (2009) states, social media and UGC have fundamentally changed the nature of breaking news by contributing to the compression of the “news cycle”, putting more pressure on editors over what and when to report and creating an important extra layer of information and diverse opinion.

Technological developments, along with social and economic transitions (Moretzsohn, 2006), declined audience’s confidence in mainstream journalism (Hirst, 2011) and loss of advertising revenues (Franklin, 2014) provoke strategic redesign in media, challenging traditional concepts such as gatekeeping (Bruns, 2005). Thus, online media adopt tools and applications of participatory journalism, where users can -among others- comment on published stories, send their own digital material, discuss several issues and share articles in social networking sites. However, users’ involvement in making and disseminating news raises a variety of ethical, legal and responsibility issues, which force organizations to use quality assurance methods (Saridou & Veglis, 2016, p. 88).

This chapter aims to offer an in-depth description of the concept of participatory journalism, by providing a deep approach to the conceptual sense of this phenomenon, presenting an analytical framework of the audience engagement in online news production. The chapter seeks better understanding of the adoption of UGC in media via different forms, tools and applications and during different stages of journalistic process. The problems organizations have to deal with when amateur content is involved with the professional content and the solutions chosen are investigated as well. Finally, future research perspectives are discussed.