News coverage today is an emerging collaboration between the general public and professional journalists. News consumers have come to expect and demand the unprecedented immediacy of experience and coverage of breaking news offered by photographs, video clips, audio recordings, tweets, commentary: content created by ordinary citizens. The use of user-generated content is a salient aspect of how journalists and news organizations are responding to technological changes in the twenty-first century.

Eyewitness Textures examines the far-reaching changes in journalism spurred by the growing importance of user-generated content. Bringing together the voices and experiences of professional journalists and academic researchers from across five continents, this collection explores news production practices, changing skills among editors and journalists, and corporate and newsroom restructuring. Chapters by practitioners collectively reflect the newsroom experiences of major global media organizations, while the academic contributions address issues of industrial transformation, political influence, truth and verification, aesthetics, and ideological implications. Both perspectives combine to deepen our understanding of what constitutes the conditions and creation of good journalism, as well as the implications of how the profession should be taught to future journalists.

Tracing recent shifts in journalism practice around the world, Eyewitness Textures examines the creative adaptation and strategies of journalists and news organizations in the face of transformative technological change.

Michael Lithgow’s first collection of poetry, Waking in the Tree House, was shortlisted for the Quebec Writers Federation First Book Award. His poems and essays have appeared in numerous literary and academic journals and in Best Canadian Poetry (2012). Born in Ottawa, he changed cities frequently in his early years and moved to Vancouver in the mid-1980s, working as an activist journalist in community-based media and as a paralegal, before attending graduate school in Montreal and Ottawa to complete a PhD in Communication Studies. He currently lives in Edmonton with his wife and daughter, and teaches at Athabasca University.

Michael Lithgow's profile page

Michèle Martin is a professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University.

Michèle Martin's profile page

"User-generated content is a hot-button issue in the field of journalism, and this earnest essay collection takes on several of its complexities." Choice

“This book explores the breadth of new dimensions crucial to understanding the implications of user-generated content today. While this kind of content has become commonplace, the blurred distinctions between it and citizen witnessing, or between witnessing in general and the processes of publication, are not easily resolved. The global case studies and dialogues in Eyewitness Textures constitute a particularly thoughtful and enriching discussion that moves beyond the familiar accounts of user-generated content we are so used to hearing.” Scott A. Eldridge II, University of Groningen and author of Online Journalism from the Periphery: Interloper Media and the Journalistic Field