UGC and Digital Divides:Interviewing the Taxi Driver 2.0Dr David R Brake, Senior LecturerDivision of Journalism & Communication

Presentation at MeCCSA, University of Bedfordshire, Luton 13 Jan 2012

Outline

•Significance of UGC for news organizations

•Who is providing it?

•Solicited/submitted – The BBC case

•Ambient – Global digital divides

•Implications/Recommendations

It’s everywhere

Supply push

•Rising avail of mobile phones…

Developed world

Developing world

Africa

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Mobile subs/100 people 2011 (ITU)

•And cameraphones...

Increasing use of Twitter, other social media

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/social-media-marketing-facebook-twitter-arent-enough

Demand pull (Davies 2008, Allan 2006)

•Shrinking newsroom staff

•Fewer foreign bureaus (80 countries have neither AP nor Reuters, 130 have no TV from either)

•Need for immediate response to fast-breaking stories

Networked Journalism

“The public can get involved in a story before it is reported, contributing facts, questions, and suggestions… to help report the story… after the story is published… the public can continue to contribute corrections, questions, facts, and perspective”. (Jarvis, 2006)

Claimed benefits

•Better journalism through easier access to sources

•Fairer journalism

•“A chance to replace professional exclusivity with a participatory inclusiveness that might lead to a greater variety among the people who can enter and even run the news media.” (Beckett 2008)

My key question:Internet brings more voices but…

Greater variety of voices?

The BBC case

BBC hacks seem to think so

•“Many journalists felt confident that those who write in are diverse and represented their audience but when prompted to explain why they couldn't produce any hard evidence to support this hunch.” (Wardle, 2008)

•However…

Who sends in UGC?

•23% of British have sent material to a news organization. Of remainder…

•22% ‘not interested’ in contributing

•18% ‘can’t be bothered’

•12% ‘don’t have time’

•9% ‘have nothing interesting to say’ (Wardle 2008)

What demographics?

•34% of high level managers & professionals had submitted vs 12% of two lowest social classes (manual and unwaged)

•32% of people w household inc over £40k and 19% of those w income under £10k

UGC in context Hermann (2006)

2000 contribut

ors100,000

page views

500,000 page views

Traffic and contributions to “Have your Say” BBC page vs avg news page

The International Picture

Global digital divides &The Twitter case

Visits to Twitter.com Jun 2010 (Comscore)

Latin AmericaAsia PacificMiddle East & AfricaEuropeNorth America

Top penetration (Twitter.com)

Country % Reach

1 Indonesia 20.8

2 Brazil 20.5

3 Venezuela 19

4 Netherlands 17.7

5 Japan 16.8

11 US 11.9

13 UK 10.9

‘Global’ average (41 countries) 7.4

However…

These internet users are often privileged national minoritiesCountry % Internet

penetration% pop accessing Twitter.com

1 Indonesia 9.9 2

2 Brazil 40.6 8

3 Venezuela 35.6 6.6

4 Netherlands 90.7 15.3

5 Japan 78.2 13.1

11 US 74 8.8

13 UK 85 9.2

‘Global’ average (41 countries)

35 * 2.5 *

2010 Figures from ITU w Internet penetration based on whole world estimates

Who tweets?

2.2% = 58.3% of tweets (Sysomos 2009)

Who is listened to?

Who speaks English?

Global English Knowledge (Warschauer, 2003)

Native EnglishEnglish as second languageEnglish as foreign languageLittle or no English

And many tweets may be ‘about nothing’Main subjects for one’s blog (Lenhart 2006)

• 37% “their life and experiences”

• 11% politics and gov’t

• 7% entertainment

• 6% sport

• 5% news & current events

Though of course “their life and experiences” is sometimes exactly what journalists need to contextualise a story!

The UGC filters

Addressed to

journalistsAbout

something newsworthy

Writing in English

Is popular/visible

Uses social media

Has internet access

And who’s free to talk?

•Some countries block certain social media sites (Investintech, n.d.)

•Many countries (and/or domestic internet companies and cybercafes) monitor what is said (Deibert, 2009)

Can lead to distorted coverage

• “Twitter was important in publicising what was happening, but its role was overemphasised."

• Hamid Tehrani estimates that there were fewer than 1,000 active Twitter users in Iran at the time of the election (Iranian Internet users in 2010 = 13%)

Can lead to a distorted agenda• Wardle & Williams (2010) found 70% of UGC used was ‘audience comment’ (with ‘audience content’ “arguably not in any greater numbers than a decade ago”)

• If journalists or audiences come to believe ambient UGC reflects popular sentiment (locally or overseas) this illusion might lead ironically to further marginalisation of non-elite views

• Is quoting Twitter any more representative than quoting taxi drivers?

… even among academics• In India "[citizen journalism]... is slowly exerting

influence in politics by exposing corruption, and in society by highlighting issues such as sexual harassment of women and the problems of people on the margins... While its impact has been uneven, the rapid takeup of internet technology by a middle class that is nearly 500 million strong is likely to exert a growing influence in reshaping India's public sphere.” (Sonwalkar, 2009)

• Internet penetration in India is 7.5% (and was 4.3% when he wrote) and the “middle class” in India is widely thought to be 150-300m.

• Is the internet really helping India’s ‘people on the margins’ to speak for themselves?

Recommendations

•Be mindful of representativeness of contributors – particularly on new applications like Twitter and when looking overseas

•“Ambient” contributions may be more representative than solicited/submitted ones (but note ethical concerns)

•Look online where the people are (Facebook, locally-dominant online spaces).

Thank you for your attentionDr David R Brake, Senior LecturerDivision of Journalism & Communication

david@davidbrake.org

http://davidbrake.org/

@drbrake

References

• Allan, S. (2006). Online News: Journalism and the Internet: Open University Press.

• Beckett, C. (2008). SuperMedia: saving journalism so it can save the world. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

• comScore Media Metrix. (2010, August 11). Indonesia, Brazil and Venezuela Lead Global Surge in Twitter Usage Retrieved January 11, 2012, from http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/8/Indonesia_Brazil_and_Venezuela_Lead_Global_Surge_in_Twitter_Usage

• Davies, N. (2008). Flat Earth news: an award-winning reporter exposes falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media. London: Chatto & Windus.

• Deibert, R. J. (2009). The geopolitics of internet control Censorship, sovereignty, and cyberspace. In A. Chadwick & P. N. Howard (Eds.), Routledge handbook of Internet politics (pp. 323-337): Taylor & Francis.

• Investintech. (N.D.). The World Social Networking Ban Race Retrieved January, 2012, from http://www.investintech.com/articles/theworldsocialnetworkingbanrace/

• ITU. (2011, December). ICT Eye - Free statistics Retrieved January 13, 2012, from http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/index.html

• Jarvis, J. (2006, July 5th). Networked journalism Retrieved January 1st, 2012, from http://www.buzzmachine.com/2006/07/05/networked-journalism/

• Lenhart, A., & Fox, S. (2006). Bloggers: A portrait of the internet’s new storytellers. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2006/Bloggers.aspx

• Sonwalkar, P. (2009). Citizen journalism in India : the politics of recognition. In S. Allan & E. Thorsen (Eds.), Citizen journalism : global perspectives (pp. 75-84). New York: Peter Lang

• Sysomos. (2009). Inside Twitter: An In-Depth Look Inside the Twitter World Retrieved from http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/

• Wardle, C., & Williams, A. (2008). UGC@thebbc: understanding its impact upon contributors, non-contributors and BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/knowledgeexchange/cardiffone.pdf

• Wardle, C., & Williams, A. (2010). Beyond user-generated content: a production study examining the ways in which UGC is used at the BBC. Media, Culture & Society, 32(5), 781-799. doi: 10.1177/0163443710373953

• Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion: rethinking the digital divide. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

• Weaver, M. (2010). Iran's 'Twitter revolution' was exaggerated, says editor, The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/09/iran-twitter-revolution-protests