User generated content in online newspaper : between citizen journalism and cheap content

Abstract

Newspaper readers increasingly have the possibility to participate in the news
making process due to computer mediated communication, either as content
providers (commentaries, reader reporter, SMS or online surveys) or as content
evaluators or disseminators (recommending, linking, sending). This article
explores in which forms this participation can be realized in the case of online
newspapers, and it makes a distinction between different medial-technical variants
of newspapers (online edition, tablet, smartphone); in addition single possibilities
of participation are analyzed in more detail. The article also asks what is the status
of these new possibilities of participation: Are they part of ‘real’ citizen
journalism, democratizing journalism? Or as means for newspaper to produce
cheap content?