<jats:p>In this study we explore the user-generated content as one of the most unique tools of modern online environment. The user-generated content results from the interactivity with audience that becomes possible through the Web 2.0 technologies. Being accessible and affordable to the general audience, these technologies are widely applied by the users to independently create and share their own content. The objective of the research is to explore and substantiate the nature of the user-generated content (hereinafter UGC) phenomenon as a source of information for the online media. Being a multifunctional phenomenon UGC requires a comprehensive approach to the selection of research methods. We use the methods of analysis, synthesis, systematization, and comparison to explore the content samples from the wide range of sources including the citizen journalism, media activism, complicity journalism, and marketing. A method of observation let us identify the ways of including the user-generated content to the journalists’ publications; we also use the method of classification to distinguish the different forms of UGC.
Results and Conclusions. The user-generated content is increasingly becoming popular, especially among the users of social networks. Media pay much attention to the UGC, encouraging its expansion. Different forms of social networks’ content, such as video, digital images, text, infographics and combined content are widely used by journalists to produce their own media products. Cherkasy online publishers take user-generated content from the Facebook and VKontakte social networks’ personal pages for different purposes including the following: as a newsbreak, as a main text, as an addition to the product, as an illustration, as special focus determination, as an exclusive, etc. The user-generated content does not replaces the professional journalistic products, but rather complements and expands them. Special attention should be paid to the verification of the user-generated content.</jats:p> |