The implications of global and local digital divides for professional journalists' use of user generated content.

1. UGC and Digital Divides:
Interviewing the Taxi Driver
Dr David R Brake, Senior Lecturer
2.0
Division of Journalism & Communication
Presentation at MeCCSA, University of Bedfordshire, Luton 13 Jan
2012

2. Outline
•Significance of UGC for news
organizations
•Who is providing it?
•Solicited/submitted – The BBC case
•Ambient – Global digital divides
•Implications/Recommendations

3. It‟s everywhere

4. Supply push
•Rising avail of mobile phones…
Mobile subs/100 people 2011 (ITU)
Africa
Developing world
Developed world
0 50 100 150

5. •And cameraphones...

6. Increasing use of
Twitter, other social media
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/social-media-marketing-facebook-twitter-arent-enoug

7. 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

8. 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)

9. 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)

10. My key question:
Internet brings more voices but…
Greater variety of voices?

11. The BBC case

12. 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…

13. 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)

14. 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

15. UGC in context Hermann
(2006)
2000
contributors
100,000 page
views
500,000 page views
Traffic and contributions to “Have your Say” BBC page vs avg news page

16. The International Picture

17. Global digital divides &
The Twitter case
Visits to Twitter.com Jun 2010 (Comscore)
Latin America
Asia Pacific
Middle East & Africa
Europe
North America

18. 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…

19. These internet users are
often privileged national
minorities
Country % 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 35 * 2.5 *
countries)
2010 Figures from ITU w Internet penetration based on whole world estimates

20. Who tweets?
2.2% = 58.3% of tweets (Sysomos 2009)

21. Who is listened to?

22. Who speaks English?
Global English Knowledge (Warschauer, 2003)
Native English
English as second
language
English as foreign
language
Little or no English

23. 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!

24. The UGC filters
Addressed to
journalists
About something
newsworthy
Writing in English
Is popular/visible
Uses social media
Has internet access

25. 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)

26. 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%)

27. Can lead to a distorted
agenda Williams (2010) found 70% of UGC
• Wardle &
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?

28. … 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?

29. 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).

30. Thank you for your attention
Dr David R Brake, Senior Lecturer
Division of Journalism & Communication
david@davidbrake.org
http://davidbrake.org/
@drbrake

31. 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_Usag
e
• 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