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Letting the public into the hallowed halls of journalism is a divisive issue among editors. A study by my friend and colleague, Neil Thurman of City University, revealed just how divided the UK news media is over user-generated content.

His paper, “Forums for citizen journalists? Adoption of user generated content initiatives by online news media”, published in New Media & Society, examines attitudes to letting audiences contribute to professionally edited news outlets.

While there has been an explosion in opportunities in the UK media for audiences to participate, Neil concludes that news websites are struggling to make the most of readers’ contributions.

The key factors are:

• Low levels of audience participation. For example, the BBC News website’s Have Your Say section attracted contributions from just 0.05 per cent of the site’s daily unique audience, and one fifth the page views of popular news stories.
• An emphasis on moderation due to legal worries as well as concerns over spelling, grammar and decency, or a lack of newsworthiness from contributions.
• Uncertainty over the commercial value of reader participation, especially given the costs of moderation.

Neil suggests that:

By becoming gatekeepers of UGC, editors are on familiar territory and can protect their brand’s value - a key aspect of their job. But it is a delicate balancing act. Too much filtering and control could frustrate the supply of UGC - something that is not in the interest of editors or users.

What emerges is an industry that is applying established newsroom norms and practices to its relationship with the public, seeking to retain the traditional gatekeeping role of the journalist.

Neil and I have worked on a follow-up study, which is due to be published in Journalism Practice in October, in which we explored further how journalistic norms are shaping the adoption of user-generated content. A very early version of this paper, presented at a conference last year, is available here (link fixed).