Comments on Online Media lecture 2

It was an odd feeling to be asked not to publish the results of some recent research at the latest online media lecture as it had not yet been published in the wider world. This feeling was particularly emphasised by the fact that the lecture was on User Generated Content (UGC). This left me with an ironic dilemma given the content of the lecture. It picks up strongly on an issue that I discussed in my last blog entry- what ethics are at work for the citizen journalist?

If a room of 90 bloggers were asked not to disclose information, then there is a good chance that this would be the first thing that many would do on finding a computer. In fact many would be updating Twitter. This is not necessarily a poor reflection of the people that put the information into the public sphere, but rather a reflection that the nature of the beast that is the internet.

There isn’t really any ethical code on the internet, and many argue that the freedom to access and put almost anything on the internet is one of its greatest strengths. On top of this, any time that there is talk of enforcing some kind of ethical code, or code of conduct online, it is pretty much laughed down. It is also interesting that when some sites such as the BBC filter what they allow to be put up on their site they are often attacked for censorship, as evidenced by the recent blog entry on The Editors which received some fairly negative comments from readers.

The Editors blog was also of interest as it did demonstrate the increasing importance that the media is placing on UGC, especially in mentioning the two big scoops their new interactive reporter achieved in two weeks. Both stories were fairly important: the extreme initiation rites that some students had to go through, and the students who are yet to receive their educational maintenance allowances. To get two big stories in two weeks is quite an achievement for a journalist, and shows the real power of UGC when it is given the proper attention.

Despite this it still seems that for UGC to gain the attention then it does need to be filtered by a media institute, as there is a lot of fake or indecent material, and even more that is simply of limited interest for most people. While the UGC element of the BBC can be trusted as it has been verified by a strong team of journalists at the BBC and carries the BBC’s strong brand name, with standard UGC it is more difficult to have full faith in what you’re viewing. This has been demonstrated very well on CNN’s iReport, where un-checked UGC is allowed free rein, and has lead to some issues, particularly the example of the elk in the forest fire. An interesting point with iReport is that its un-moderated nature means that users must rely on each other to flag up a false story. This seems like the most interesting direction that UGC can take upon which a widespread user base moderate each others content through comment, however, given the small percentage of internet users who are regular contributors at present then in many ways this is just as bad as the BBC’s censorship.