The recently published spring issue of the Newspaper Research Journal includes a detailed study entitled "Citizen Journalism Web Sites Complement Newspapers".

Researchers at Michigan State University, the University of Missouri, and the University of North Carolina performed a content analysis of 86 citizen blogs, 53 citizen news websites and 63 daily newspaper sites in June and July 2009. They analyzed which sites publish content new content on a daily basis, and the similarities and differences between citizen vs professional content.

The study adopted a "media economics research" perspective in order to gauge how much of a threat citizen journalism currently poses. The research was guided by four questions:

• Do citizen blog sites publish content on a daily basis?
• Do citizen news sites publish content on a daily basis?
• How similar are citizen blog sites to daily newspaper Web sites?
• How similar are citizen news sites to daily newspaper Web sites?

The good news for the professional news industry is that the researchers found citizen journalism websites (news and blog sites) are presently not viable substitutes for daily newspaper sites. Only 25 % of the amateur sites published on a daily basis. Even if they do have daily postings, they tended to have significantly fewer news items, which the study attributes to the inherent budgetary constraints of most models of citizen journalism that have surfaced thus far.

The story was sourced from DigitalJournal.com, which itself is comprised of user-generated content (some of which users can be paid to write). Among today's front page news at the DigitalJournal were the compelling narratives cat stuck in a washing machine, and toddler addicted to cigerettes.

The full academic study is available here.

Source: DigitalJournal