This section provides an overview of user-generated content strategies. We look at a number of different approaches to building communities, and analyze how contribution rates can shape the strategies of local media organizations looking to build online communities based on user-generated content.
One of the key questions for news organizations is why they should bother. We believe that there are sound journalistic reasons beyond the obvious commercial ones. (The latter, which we discuss later, include more site visits and a chance to monetize new kinds of content.)
Regaining a place at the center of the civic conversation:
- In many cases, news organizations are no longer at the center of the civic conversation in the community they serve. A wide array of social changes, including regional mobility and two-career families, has created a decline in participation in civic organizations and civic life. A news organization that creates a forum for civic conversation and neighbor-to-neighbor connection that meets the needs of today's citizens has the opportunity to create a new civic institution with lasting impact.
Enhancing institutional memory
- Current conditions at many papers – whether major metro dailies or suburban weeklies – make it difficult to maintain the kind of institutional memory that's required to approach each day's new issues with a full appreciation of the history. Lifelong residents and longtime readers can serve as keepers of an "extended memory" of a news organization's coverage and a region's history.
Reducing bunker mentality
- The artificially high barriers to reader feedback that exist at many news organizations tends to result in a pool of feedback that's skewed towards the highly motivated individual. Typically, that level of motivation is fueled by anger. As a result, many newsroom employees are left with a distorted picture of the readership as angry and irrational. The ideal reader, by contrast, is distant and vague, creating a situation where a journalist's colleagues seem more real than the readership their organization serves. Creating opportunities for more informal, and less highly charged discourse can give newsroom staffers a more accurate picture of their readership, which can then inform their news judgment.
New stories, new ways
- Access to an online community offers journalists new approaches to stories. Stories that once were illustrated with an anecdote gain power when backed by data gathered by dozens or hundreds of readers.
