Alf Hermida - formerly of the BBC, now of the University of British Columbia - blogs on a question that's bugged me for a while.
Does 'Big Journalism' see citizen journalism for what it is - something different - or as just another news source; kinda like a news agency ultra-casually staffed by real, unpaid people?
I wrote about this on my own blog, Storycurve, back in January 2008 - reflecting on some comments of the BBC's then Head of Newsroom, Peter Horrocks, on the editors blog.
Now, Alf draws our attention to a new study by Claire Wardle, Andrew Williams and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen which concludes:
"... that the BBC mainly views UGC [user generated content] as part of its newsgathering operations, in essence as a way of obtaining photos and video, eyewitness accounts or story tip-offs. There were isolated examples of BBC journalists viewing participation as a way to collaborate on stories or as a shift towards networked journalism."
