Content curation – a new trend in digital journalism

A professor of new media at the New York University, Clay Shirky, based his lecture held at the Web 2.0 Expo Conference in 2008 on the thesis which says that the almost endless amount of digital content is a global problem for today's information society.

This information overload, first defined by Alvin Toffler in 1970, has become a burden in everyday activities and consumption of information of the digital citizen. Shirky points out that the problem has not appeared recently, but soon after the invention of the Gutenberg's press and mass printing of written content. He offers a decisive solution: the problems is not caused by information overload, but by the failure of the filtration system.

The amount of information that is being created every day and made available within the digital information system overwhelms and burdens the mass media audience. In the struggle for readers' attention, the amount of low-quality content is overshadows the high-quality content and makes it difficult for readers for find good sources of information. In the world of analog media, rules were different and selection and filtration used to be performed by professional editors. Popularization and advantages of Web 2.0, especially in the area of news, have dealt a serious blow to the traditional media. It seems that a new and rapidly spreading practice is changing the situation again.

The term content curation, originating from the Latin word curare – to take care – and today's meaning of the word curator, denoting a person who selects and preserves values, entails manual and editorial filtration and delivery of content that is selected with regard to its quality and relevance. Selection of best reports from various credible and reliable sources creates an overview of most relevant and significant events. This curating practice of content editing requires publication of links to original sources of news and redirection of readers to websites of the competing media. This practice differs from previous attempts to retain visitors on a single website for as long as possible. It is interesting to note that research has shown that this form of content editing constitutes a response to new expectations of readers. Internet research conducted in January 2010 by the US Pew Research Center shows that the most popular characteristics of online news is the possibility of following web links that lead to information mentioned on the web page. The audience of news media perceives this possibility as a richer reading experience, while the media company itself offers high-quality, relevant and up-to-date overview of selected news from credible sources, which serves as the readers' first choice for information.

An excellent and fresh example is the web site of the Reuters news agency, Counterparties, which offers exclusively this form of content, consisting of carefully selected and linked news and comments from the world of finance originating from various sources and effectively turning the web site into a linkblog.

Shirky claims that in the post-Gutenberg economy, high-quality content is not being filtered from the low-quality content anymore. Everyone can be an author, journalist or editor in the digital media sphere. High-quality content, that has always been a foundation of professional journalism, has an even greater importance today because it is so rare. Therefore content curation, as a new editorial practice, has a potential to become a significant advantage of digital journalism.

Jelena Mickic

About the authors

MC Newsletter,
January 13, 2012