Mediatised Participation: Citizen Journalism and the Decline in User-Generated Content in Online News Media

Technical Summary: Mediatised Participation: Citizen Journalism and the Decline in User-Generated Content in Online News Media

Problem Statement
Approximately two decades ago, the advent of Web 2.0 tools sparked a "news utopia" where audiences were expected to proactively incorporate themselves into journalism, potentially emulating professional practices and democratizing news production. This era promised a shift toward a hybrid media system where users and institutions coexist and collaborate. However, this initial optimism has largely dissipated. The central problem addressed by this study is the discrepancy between the early theoretical expectations of empowered citizen journalism and the current reality, where audience participation in news creation has declined, become problematic, or shifted entirely to social media platforms. The paper investigates why the promise of user-generated content (UGC) within traditional news media has failed to materialize as a sustained, democratic innovation, identifying three primary actors responsible for this stagnation: the audiences themselves, professional journalists, and news companies.

Methodology
The authors conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) following the PRISMA guidelines for scoping reviews to map evidence on the topic.

• Search Scope: The review covered the period from 2000 to 2022.
• Databases: Primary searches were conducted in Web of Science and Scopus, supplemented by Google Scholar, EBSCO, and ProQuest.
• Keywords: The search utilized terms including "citizen journalism," "participatory journalism," "journalism 2.0," and "open-source journalism."
• Selection Process: An initial sample of 972 documents was filtered based on topic adequacy, time range, text type (articles or book chapters), and language. This resulted in a selection of 437 documents.
• Final Sample: The review prioritized empirical studies and research with high academic impact, synthesizing contributions from a final sample of 125 texts.
• Analytical Framework: The analysis focused on the three main actors in the participation process: audiences, professionals (journalists), and news companies.

Key Contributions and Results
The study synthesizes existing research to define the current state of audience participation, categorizing the findings into three critical areas:

1. Audience Lack of Interest and Problematic Participation:

   • Low Motivation: Contrary to early predictions, general audiences display very little interest in creating journalistic content. Those who do participate are often driven by specific ideological defenses or dissatisfaction with traditional media rather than a desire to produce general news.
   • Content Quality and Resources: Citizen journalists often lack professional training and access to information sources, leading to content that is frequently viewed as lacking authority or credibility. Consequently, citizen journalism has been relegated to a secondary role rather than replacing professional news work.
   • Shift to Comments and Toxicity: As direct content creation waned, participation shifted to comment sections. However, these spaces often lack deliberation and are plagued by incivility, hate speech, and anonymity-driven abuse. This has led many media outlets to close comment sections or redirect participation to social media.
   • Niche Value: Despite these issues, the paper acknowledges that citizen journalists do provide value in specific contexts, such as real-time reporting during disasters, mass events, and offering alternative viewpoints not covered by mainstream sources.

2. Journalistic Distrust and Defense of Organizational Culture:

   • Professional Identity: Journalists have historically viewed citizen journalism with skepticism, viewing it as peripheral and distinct from their own professional work. While some attitudes have softened, the core professional identity remains rooted in self-regulating organizations that prioritize verification, truthfulness, and public service.
   • Resistance to Co-Creation: Journalists generally resist ceding editorial control. They perceive interaction with audiences as a deviation from their primary duties. While they may value user contributions as representatives of the "common people," they rarely accept them as co-creators of news.
   • Lack of Reciprocity: The paper notes a lack of reciprocity; journalists often do not engage with user contributions, which demotivates audiences. Furthermore, tools allowing users to edit or correct news are among the least favored options by professionals.

3. The Drive for Profitability and Corporate Strategy:

   • Economic Imperatives: News companies initially embraced participation to reduce production costs and capture audience attention for advertising revenue. However, the reality of managing UGC (moderation, filtering, technical resources) proved more costly and complex than anticipated.
   • Strategic Shift: Due to the difficulties in managing participation and the resistance to sharing editorial responsibility, media companies have shifted their strategy. They now view audiences primarily as distributors of content rather than co-creators.
   • Social Media Diversion: Participation has been largely diverted to social media platforms. This allows news organizations to maintain editorial control while leveraging social networks for traffic and visibility. However, this shift subjects newsrooms to the logic of the "attention economy," where algorithms and platform metrics increasingly dictate editorial routines and news selection, potentially undermining the public sphere.

Significance and Conclusion
The paper concludes that the concept of "citizen journalism" as a model where users create content through traditional media outlets is effectively a "failed innovation" or a thing of the past. The authors argue that the current state of audience involvement is best defined as "mediatised participation."

This concept signifies a shift where:

• Audiences interact with media content rather than creating it within the media's own infrastructure.
• The power dynamic has shifted: while direct co-creation has declined, audiences exert significant influence post-publication through social media sharing and gatekeeping, which in turn conditions the content journalists produce to maximize engagement.
• The original democratic ideal of redistributing power has been superseded by corporate strategies focused on profitability, audience loyalty, and the management of the attention economy.

The study modestly claims that while audiences have not lost their capacity to influence news, the mechanism has changed from direct creation to indirect, "ex-post" influence via social platforms. The paper highlights the tension between the public interest and the commercial interests of the public, suggesting that future innovation requires new collaboration channels that acknowledge these complex, mediated realities. The authors note limitations, specifically that the review focuses on traditional media participation and does not fully address the rise of independent community or alternative media outside the traditional corporate structure.