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User-generated content ( UGC), alternatively known as user-created content ( UCC), is Content creation generated by users of the Internet such as images, videos, audio, text, testimonials, software, and user interactions. Online News aggregator such as social media, discussion forums and by their interactive and social nature, no longer produce multimedia content but provide tools to produce, collaborate, and share a variety of content, which can affect the attitudes and behaviors of the audience in various aspects. This transforms the role of consumers from passive spectators to active participants.
User-generated content is used for a wide range of applications, including problem processing, news, entertainment, customer engagement, advertising, gossip, research and more. It is an example of the democratization of content production and the flattening of traditional media hierarchies. The BBC adopted a user-generated content platform for its websites in 2005, and Time magazine named "You" as the Person of the Year in 2006, referring to the rise in the production of UGC on Web 2.0 platforms. CNN also developed a similar user-generated content platform, known as iReport. There are other examples of news channels implementing similar protocols, especially in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophe or terrorist attack. Social media users can provide key eyewitness content and information that may otherwise have been inaccessible.
Since 2020, there has been an increasing number of businesses who are utilizing User Generated Content (UGC) to promote their products and services. Several factors significantly influence how UGC is received, including the quality of the content, the credibility of the creator, and viewer engagement. These elements can impact users' perceptions and trust towards the brand, as well as influence the buying intentions of potential customers. UGC has proven to be an effective method for brands to connect with consumers, drawing their attention through the sharing of experiences and information on social media platforms. Due to new media and technology affordances, such as low cost and low barriers to entry, the Internet is an easy platform to create and dispense user-generated content, allowing the dissemination of information at a rapid pace in the wake of an event.
The role of the passive audience, therefore, has shifted since the birth of new media, and an ever-growing number of participatory users are taking advantage of these interactive opportunities, especially on the Internet, to create independent content. Grassroots experimentation then generated an innovation in sounds, artists, techniques, and associations with audiences, which then are being used in mainstream media.Jenkins, Henry (SODA), "Convergence Culture", New York University Press, New York The active, participatory, and creative audience is prevailing today with relatively accessible media, tools, and applications, and its culture is in turn affecting mass media corporations and global audiences.
The OECD (OECD) has defined three core variables for UGC:OECD (2026). 9789264037465, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. . ISBN 9789264037465
Reaching 1.66 billion daily active users in Q4 2019,
Accessed 18 February 2020. Other social media platforms are also dominant at the regional level such as: Twitter in Japan, Naver in the South Korea, Instagram (owned by Facebook) and LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) in Africa, VKontakte (VK) and Odnoklassniki (eng. Classmates) in Russia and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, WeChat and Tencent QQ in China.
However, a concentration phenomenon is occurring globally giving dominance to a few online platforms that become popular for some unique features they provide, most commonly for the added privacy they offer users through disappearing messages or end-to-end encryption (e.g. Jami, Signal, Snapchat, Telegram, Viber, and WhatsApp), but they have tended to occupy niches and to facilitate the exchanges of information that remain rather invisible to larger audiences.
Production of freely accessible information has been increasing since 2012. In January 2017,
. Graham, Straumann, and Hogan say that the increase in the availability and diversity of content has not radically changed the structures and processes for the production of knowledge. For example, while content on Africa has dramatically increased, a significant portion of this content has continued to be produced by contributors operating from North America and Europe, rather than from Africa itself.
So what we're going to do, if I have your agreement that we're going to produce such a dictionary, is that we're going to send out invitations, were going to send these invitations to every library, every school, every university, every book shop that we can identify throughout the English-speaking world... everywhere where English is spoken or read with any degree of enthusiasm, people will be invited to contribute words. And the point is, the way they do it, the way they will be asked and instructed to do it, is to read voraciously and whenever they see a word, whether it's a preposition or a sesquipedalian monster, they are to... if it interests them and if where they read it, they see it in a sentence that illustrates the way that that word is used, offers the meaning of the day to that word, then they are to write it on a slip of paper... the top left-hand side you write the word, the chosen word, the catchword, which in this case is 'twilight'. Then the quotation, the quotation illustrates the meaning of the word. And underneath it, the citation, where it came from, whether it was printed or whether it was in manuscript... and then the reference, the volume, the page and so on... and send these slips of paper, these slips are the key to the making of this dictionary, into the headquarters of the dictionary.
In the following decades, hundreds of thousands of contributions were sent to the editors.
In the 1990s several electronic bulletin board systems were based on user-generated content. Some of these systems have been converted into websites, including the film information site IMDb which started as rec.arts.movies in 1990. With the growth of the World Wide Web the focus moved to websites, several of which were based on user-generated content, including Wikipedia (2001) and Flickr (2004).
User-generated Internet video was popularized by YouTube, an online video platform founded by Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim and Steve Chen in April 2005. It enabled the video streaming of MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) user-generated content from anywhere on the World Wide Web.
The BBC set up a pilot user-generated content team in April 2005 with 3 staff. In the wake of the 7 July 2005 London bombings and the Buncefield oil depot fire, the team was made permanent and was expanded, reflecting the arrival in the mainstream of the citizen journalist. After the Buncefield disaster the BBC received over 5,000 photos from viewers. The BBC does not normally pay for content generated by its viewers.
In 2006, CNN launched CNN iReport, a project designed to bring user-generated news content to CNN. Its rival Fox News Channel launched its project to bring in user-generated news, similarly titled "uReport". This was typical of major television news organizations in 2005–2006, who realized, particularly in the wake of the London 7 July bombings, that citizen journalism could now become a significant part of broadcast news. Sky News, for example, regularly solicits for photographs and videos from its viewers.
User-generated content was featured in Time magazine's 2006 Person of the Year, in which the person of the year was "you", meaning all of the people who contribute to user-generated media, including YouTube, Wikipedia and Myspace. A precursor to user-generated content uploaded on YouTube was America's Funniest Home Videos. (2026). 9780199342303, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199342303
Paid UGC is distinct from normal UGC through how it's created. It's created by a UGC Creator, someone who creates authentic looking content on a product or service by brand's request. In return, they receive compensation in form of monetary rewards, free products, discounts, exclusive access or other valuable incentives. It is not to be confused with influencer marketing.
Unlike influencers, UGC developers focus on creating organic product reviews and the content isn't shared on their personal pages and on the company's page instead. On the other hand, influencers have a strong connection with their audience, showcasing branded content on their social media feeds and directly engaging with their followers. The structure of work differs since influencer deals are more comprehensive and agreements include creating and distributing content across their personal platforms.
However, it's possible for UGC Creators to function as macro-influencers if they have 100k+ followers. In this case, they can accept influencer deals where they post on their personal page in exchange for money or UGC deals where the brands post on their own page.
There are several ways where paid UGC differs from non-paid UGC:
Companies leveraging paid UGC see increased credibility with their platform, as customers connect with creators who feel like everyday people facing similar challenges. By showcasing the product as a real solution to a relatable problem, UGC makes brands more trustworthy and authentic. With commercial ads, customers can't put a face behind the high production edits and don't connect with it. A survey showcases that UGC is 85% better at increasing conversion rates than any studio content. This showcases the content's ability to impact and potential reasons why companies increasingly utilize it for their social media strategy.
Nevertheless, there are concerns on the authenticity of content published on social media, particularly with the increasing prevalence of paid user generated content. Additionally, legal considerations such as copyright laws, privacy regulations and trademark protection play a role in content dissemination. As this field of work grows, there is potential for increased liability, particularly regarding disclosure requirements for paid content and will continue to evolve over time.
Determining the value of user contributions for assessment and ranking can be difficult due to the variation in the quality and structure of this data. The quality and structure of the data provided by UGC is application-dependent, and can include items such as tags, reviews, or comments that may or may not be accompanied by useful metadata. Additionally, the value of this data depends on the specific task for which it will be utilized and the available features of the application domain. Value can ultimately be defined and assessed according to whether the application will provide service to a crowd of humans, a single end user, or a platform designer.
The variation of data and specificity of value has resulted in various approaches and methods for assessing and ranking UGC. The performance of each method essentially depends on the features and metrics that are available for analysis. Consequently, it is critical to have an understanding of the task objective and its relation to how the data is collected, structured, and represented in order to choose the most appropriate approach to utilizing it. The methods of assessment and ranking can be categorized into two classes: human-centered and machine-centered. Methods emphasizing human-centered utility consider the ranking and assessment problem in terms of the users and their interactions with the system, whereas the machine-centered method considers the problem in terms of machine learning and computation. The various methods of assessment and ranking can be classified into one of four approaches: community-based, user-based, designer-based, and hybrid.
After launching in the mid-2000s, major UGC-based adult websites like Pornhub, YouPorn and xHamster and became the dominant mode of consumption and distribution of pornographic content on the internet. The appearance of pornographic content on sites like Wikipedia and Tumblr led moderators and site owners to institute stricter limits on uploads.
The restaurant industry has also been altered by a review system the places more emphasis on online reviews and content from peers than traditional media reviews. In 2011 Yelp contained 70% of reviews for restaurants in the Seattle area compared to Food & Wine Magazine containing less than 5 percent. (2026). 9780444636911, Elsevier Science. ISBN 9780444636911
Students can also manipulate digital images or video clips to their advantage and tag them with easy to find keywords then share them to friends and family worldwide. The category of "student performance content" has risen in the form of discussion boards and chat logs. Students could write reflective journals and diaries that may help others. The websites SparkNotes and Shmoop are used to summarize and analyze books so that they are more accessible to the reader.
A popular form of User-Generated Video Content is shared in the form of video blogs, or vlogs. Vlogs are a form of content that individuals create to capture their unique experiences. Creators of this type of content create a unique relationship with the viewer that is intimate and personal. The type of vlogs created vary in subject matter. These subjects are related but not limited to lifestyle, travel, or entertainment. Vlogging became popularized in the early years of the 2000s. As opposed to traditional blogs, traditionally only containing words, vlogs give creators the ability to communicate with their audience through body language, moving images, and audio.
Since the mid-2000s, journalists and publishers have had to consider the effects that user-generated content has had on how news gets published, read, and shared. A 2016 study on publisher business models suggests that readers of online news sources value articles written both by professional journalists, as well as users—provided that those users are experts in a field relevant to the content that they create. In response to this, it is suggested that online news sites must consider themselves not only a source for articles and other types of journalism but also a platform for engagement and feedback from their communities. The ongoing engagement with a news site that is possible due to the interactive nature of user-generated content is considered a source of sustainable revenue for publishers of online journalism going forward.
Journalists are increasingly sourcing UGC from platforms, such as Facebook and TikTok, as news shifts to a digital space. This form of crowdsourcing can include using user content to support claims, using social media platforms to contact witnesses and obtain relevant images and videos for articles.
The effectiveness of UGC in marketing has been shown to be significant as well. For instance, the "Share a Coke" by Coca-Cola campaign in which customers uploaded images of themselves with bottles to social media attributed to a two percent increase in revenue. Of millennials, UGC can influence purchase decisions up to fifty-nine percent of the time, and eighty-four percent say that UGC on company websites has at least some influence on what they buy, typically in a positive way. As a whole, consumers place peer recommendations and reviews above those of professionals.
User-generated content can enhance marketing strategies by gathering relevant information from users and directing social media advertising efforts toward UGC marketing, which functions similarly to influencer marketing. However, each serves different purposes and plays distinct roles. The distinction between UGC creators and influencers lies primarily in their approaches to content creation. UGC creators are a varied range of individuals who share content based on their personal experiences with a product, service, or brand. They typically do not collaborate with specific brands, which lends authenticity to their posts and makes them relatable to their audience. In contrast, influencers have a significant and engaged following. They create branded content through sponsorships and paid partnerships with companies. Their role is to influence their followers' purchasing decisions, and their content is usually more polished and aligns closely with the branding and messaging of the companies they work with.
User-generated content that is driven by one’s own individual incentive are rare, but equally as valuable to a brand’s reputation on social media. This classification of User-Generated Content grant the brand with advertisement without the loss of expenses. Consumers who create user-generated content without an external reward can be referred to as "unofficial brand ambassadors". These creators are not contractually bonded to a company. Without the contractual requirement involved when producing a video, personally driven User-Generated Content creators are free to construct their own narrative for the product, brand, or service that is the topic of discussion. Organic user-generated content that positively reflects the brand or their product can lead to positive outcomes for the company. Alternatively, personally driven User-Generated content that is negative can lead to negative consequences. Brands that have experienced negative User-Generated content have seen negative impacts, such as dropped stock prices. Due to the uncontrollable nature of personally driven user-generated content, some companies are uncertain on the value of motivating their consumers to create user-generated content. A few of the risks associated with this type of user-generated content are creators expressing false information on the product, dishonest advantages of the product, or misleading representation of the brand or company.
Some commentators assert that the term "user" implies an illusory or unproductive distinction between different kinds of "publishers", with the term "users" exclusively used to characterize publishers who operate on a much smaller scale than traditional mass-media outlets or who operate for free. Such classification is said to perpetuate an unfair distinction that some argue is diminishing because of the prevalence and affordability of the means of production and publication. A better response might be to offer optional expressions that better capture the spirit and nature of such work, such as EGC, Entrepreneurial Generated Content (see external reference below).
Sometimes creative works made by individuals are lost because there are limited or no ways to precisely preserve creations when a UGC Web site service closes down. One example of such loss is the closing of the Disney massively multiplayer online game "VMK". VMK, like most games, has items that are traded from user to user. A number of these items are rare within the game. Users are able to use these items to create their own rooms, avatars and pin lanyard. This site shut down at 10 pm CDT on 21 May 2008. There are ways to preserve the essence, if not the entirety of such work through the users copying text and media to applications on their personal computers or recording live action or animated scenes using screen capture software, and then uploading elsewhere. Long before the Web, creative works were simply lost or went out of publication and disappeared from history unless individuals found ways to keep them in personal collections.
Another criticized aspect is the vast array of user-generated product and service reviews that can at times be misleading for consumer on the web. A study conducted at Cornell University found that an estimated 1 to 6 percent of positive user-generated online hotel reviews are fake.
Another concern of platforms that rely heavily on user-generated content, such as Twitter and Facebook, is how easy it is to find people who holds the same opinions and interests in addition to how well they facilitate the creation of networks or closed groups. (2026). 9783319509006, Springer, Cham. ISBN 9783319509006 While the strength of these services are that users can broaden their horizon by sharing their knowledge and connect with other people from around the world, these platforms also make it very easy to connect with only a restricted sample of people who holds similar opinions (see Filter bubble).
There is also criticism regarding whether or not those who contribute to a platform should be paid for their content. In 2015, a group of 18 famous content creators on Vine attempted to negotiate a deal with Vine representatives to secure a $1.2 million contract for a guaranteed 12 videos a month. This negotiation was not successful.
In the UK, the Defamation Act of 1996 says that if a person is not the author, editor or publisher and did not know about the situation, they are not convicted. Furthermore, ISPs are not considered authors, editors, or publishers and they cannot have responsibility for people they have no "effective control" over. Just like the DMCA, once the ISP learns about the content, they must delete it immediately. The European Union's approach is horizontal by nature, which means that civil and criminal liability issues are addressed under the Electronic Commerce Directive. Section 4 deals with liability of the ISP while conducting "mere conduit" services, caching and web hosting services.
A study from York University in Ontario in 2012 conducted research that resulted in a proposed framework for comparing brand-related UGC and to understand how the strategy used by a company could influence the brand sentiment across different social media channels including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. The three scholars of this study examined two clothing brands, Lulu Lemon and American Apparel. The difference between these two brands is that Lulu Lemon had a social media following while American Apparel was the complete opposite with no social media following. Unsurprisingly, Lulu Lemon had much more positive contributions compared to American Apparel which had less positive contributions. Lulu Lemon has three times the number of positive contributions, 64 percent vs 22 percent for American Apparel on Twitter while on Facebook and YouTube, they had roughly an equal number of contributions. This proves that social media can influence how a brand is perceived, usually in a more positive light. A study by Dhar and Chang, published in 2007, found that the volume of blogs posted on a music album was positively correlated with future sales of that album.
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