BBC Arabic UGC

Videos and pictures taken by ordinary people caught up in newsworthy events are often the first to reach a global audience.

From Iran and Egypt to Japan and Libya, bloggers equipped with mobile phones have broken stories and provided dramatic first-hand footage.

Far from being left trailing in their wake, the BBC welcomes the content which so-called citizen journalists produce.

But the photographs and videos are not accepted unquestioningly by the newsroom.

Here Mohamed Yehia from BBC Arabic talks about the prizes - and pitfalls - associated with user-generated content.

You can learn more about user-generated content from the BBC College of Journalism website. The site is free to licence fee payers within the United Kingdom but you will be charged to access most of the content if you are outside the UK.