Article summaries

Writers who work for nothing: it's like writing a licence to print money summary
Original article by John Naughton

The BBC had a picture of the inside of a train carriage shortly after a crash occurred on the train, below the picture was a legend 'send your pictures to yourpics@bbc.co.uk' it is a striking example of what has become known as user-generated content.
When the London bombings occurred on the 7Th of July 2005 marked the first time we had seen such impact on traditional news media in Britain. there was too much for the TV networks too cope with so they were desperate for any footage and imagery that became available. It flooded in from camera phones and digital cameras of observers on and under the ground some was striking moving and informative some was just ghoulish and tasteless but whatever its characteristics it was greedily accepted by the networks. main stream media began to understand what user-generated content meant.
Last year, enough digital information- from blogs and e-mails to mobile phone call, photos and TV signals - was generated to fill a dozen stacks of hard back books stretching from the earth to the sun. the total digital content was 161 billion gigabytes or enough to fill 161 billion i-Pod shuffles. researchers also predicted that by 2010 more than 70% of total digital content will have been generated by the consumer.
What it means however is not clear, optimists see it as a great release of human creativity, where people finally have the tools to express themselves to a wide audience.
Cynics see it differently as living proof giving blogging or movie editing equipment to the average punter is like giving a clock to a monkey. sceptics say 'who is going to pay for the bandwidth needed to host the 100 million video streams you tube provides everyday? or the storage needed to maintain the 57 million blogs currently in existence?
Media moguls used to be sceptical but know they have wised up. they are after all purveyors of content which has always been expensive but user generated content is free all they ask or is gratis and a space to publish in. all that remains is to find a way of monetising it.
An interesting analysis comes from blogger Nick Carr 'one of the fundamental economic characteristics of web 2.0 is the distribution of production into the hands of the many, and the concentration of the economic rewards into the hands of the few.'

We're all reporters in the digital democracy summary
Original article by Emily Bell

One of the most profound changes is taking place in the mainstream media is the part played by the audience. Once a passive receptor for messages from newspapers, radio and TV, media consumers are now making themselves heard.
For as long as there has been journalism there have been bystanders and eye witnesses. what has changed over the last 3 years has been the speed, volume and type of response made possible by the Internet, broadband and digitised media.
There is no doubt the way 9/11 was reported would be done so differently now, there would be thousands of mobile phone images and dozens and dozens of video clips as well as instant and continuous blogging of the event and stream of amateur photography made available on sites such as Flickr. since the tsunami and the London bombings it is almost second nature for citizens caught up in a news event to record it on increasingly handy digital equipment.
Local papers have always been close to the public and usually have a middle page called the village round up submitted by local residents.
the mainstream media has a job to do in not just incorporating these eyewitness testimonies into its own work but aggregating these communities of potential contributors.
Is there a difference between the professional journalist and the citizen contributor? by the very definition there is - one is casually contributing their expertise, the other is paid for an ability to make judgements on how to convey stories or content in the most effective way. but the idea that what the professional journalist can provide will always in all circumstances be qualitatively better than a citizen journalist is not true anymore - if it ever was.