Abstract
The rise of user-generated content is often associated with the marked-driven media world, aimed at harnessing the interactive and participatory potential of digital media to gain competitive advantage, increase audience ratings and ultimately contribute to growing revenues. Yet, as this edited collection reminds us, user-generated content also has potential to enhance the ability of the media to fulfil their public mission, by opening new venues for generating shared public experiences, by encouraging creativity and active participation in cultural activities or by engaging previously disenfranchised or digitally illiterate groups. The collection brings together the results of eight research projects into user-generated content produced by the British public broadcaster, co-funded by the BBC and the UK Arts and Humanities research Council. The chapters examine a wide spectrum of initiatives, including the resources designed to stimulate firms of citizen journalism among audiences of the children’ news programme Newsround; the digital storytelling initiatives associated with projects such as Capture Wales and A Public Voice, aimed at harnessing the potential of digital media to give voice to ordinary, individual experiences; and the online virtual world Adventure Rock, targeted at children aged 6–12 years. The picture that emerges from the varied case studies captures both the opportunities and the challenges of user-generated content in a public broadcasting environment. It also invites us to reflect more generally on the ways we define user-generated content, including the tendency to conceive of the user as autonomous and digitally literate.