[Commlist] Call for papers - Eyewitness Textures, edited collection

*Call for papers: Edited collection focusing on User Generated Content (UGC)
*
*in news coverage and changing practices for journalists and educators*

*Eyewitness Textures: User Generated Content & News Coverage in the 21st 
Century*

We are calling for abstracts for chapter contributions for an edited 
collection exploring user generated content (UGC) in news coverage. 
Abstracts are due Oct 15.

Among the many changes introduced by new media technologies to news 
practices, the growing utilization of User Generated Content (UGC) is 
one of the most challenging. Members of the public are capturing 
dramatic events around the world and then sharing them, not only on 
social media platforms, but with professional news media organizations 
which are eagerly incorporating posts, tweets and images into 
professionally produced news stories. The presence of amateur content in 
news discourses is a growing phenomenon that is reshaping the profession 
of journalism, news coverage and public expectations.

The issues raised by these practices often involve tensions between 
labour precarity and professionalism, entertainment and evidence, 
centralized and decentralized management of news rooms, traditional and 
emerging forms of social media news narratives, truth and immediacy.

We are calling for papers from academic researchers and journalists that 
address this important and timely subject. Questions the collection will 
address include:

  1.   How is the use of UGC reorganizing professional practices?
• User generated content and professionalism in news rooms
• Role and significance of verification in news production
• The problems of fake news when working with UGC
• The growing shift of UGC onto private networks: threats and opportunities
• The challenge and opportunities of new technologies for professional 
news rooms

2.   How is UGC transforming labour practices among journalists and the 
structural organization of news media?
• Changing labour practices in the newsroom
• Changing structures, staffing and organization of news desks
• Organizational changes and emerging business models
• Emerging forms of produsers and precarious labour
• Professional labour vis-à-vis labour of love

3.   How is UGC influencing the construction of meaning in news coverage?
• The impact of user produced content on the form and aesthetic of 
visual news
• Role of contextualization in UGC verification services
• The influence of non-professional producers on news narratives, 
framing and agendas

4.   What are emerging themes and tensions in non-professional practices 
of production?
• Emerging motivations for creating UGC news content
• Emerging practices and conventions for UGC production
• Precarity and risk in UGC production

5.   What are the theoretical, methodological and historical 
considerations helping to understand and explain the growing use of UGC 
in professional news coverage?

Deadline: Abstracts (300-500 words) should be emailed to the editors by 
Oct 15, 2019 clearly identified by “UGC Chapter Abstract” in the subject 
line. Email: (michael.lithgow /at/ athabascau.ca) 
<mailto:(michael.lithgow /at/ athabascau.ca)> Please contact the editors (at 
the same email address) if you have any questions.


About the Editors:

Dr. Michael Lithgow is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media 
Studies, in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Athabasca 
University. His research focuses broadly on citizen engagement in public 
cultures. His most current research explores expanded approaches to 
community digital & network literacies encompassing design, creation and 
operation of telecommunications infrastructure. He is part of a research 
group investigating changing practices in professional news rooms in 
response to the growing use of user-generated content (UGC) in news 
production.

Prof. Michele Martin

Dr Michèle Martin is Professor Emerita at Carleton University, Ottawa, 
Canada. Her research focuses on the history of illustrated news, 
feminist studies, and sociology of labour in the media. She has 
published several books - among them Hello Central? (nominated for the 
Harold Innis Prize), which has been translated into several 
languages, Communication and Mass Media and Images at War (attributed 
the Canadian Communication Association prize) - and numerous articles 
and book chapters. She is currently part of a research group 
investigating changing practices in professional news rooms in response 
to the growing use of user-generated content in news production. She has 
also been invited as a visiting professor at Oxford University, The 
London School of Economics and Political Sciences, Université 
Panthéon-Assas Paris, American University in Istanbul among others.







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