Post #3: User Generated Content

• How has user generated content impacted journalism, publishing, design, or other media? 

In terms of how user generated content has affected me in my work, my answer is two-fold. First, as the blogger relations manager, my workplace directly benefits from user generated content. When we send fashion bloggers merchandise, they style an outfit and link back to us in the post, while also adding their post to all their social media platforms like Lookbook, Chictopia, Instagram, etc. One such blogger we've worked with often is Amy of A Fashion Nerd. When it comes to my job as the blogger relations manager, I'd say the result has been positive. 

My second thought about how user generated content has affected me professionally, has to do with my other job as a staff columnist for Synthesis Weekly. I've been writing for them for the past seven years, and because of that I'm on a lot of press lists. I get press releases from record companies and musicians, and even in my time at Synthesis, I can say with confidence that the market for music has become more flooded than ever. With the accessibility and ease of music editing software, and how simple its become to put ones music online, we are reaching a saturation point in the music industry. It's good in a way, because up-and-coming musicians have the ability to have their music heard by a larger audience. However, because of the saturated market, it's become increasingly more difficult for them to break through and heard above the "noise" of the rest of the Internet. In that regard, I'd say it's made my job to seek out and find musicians that I'd like to profile, more difficult. 

As far as how user generated content has impacted journalism and other media-heavy fields, I would say that as we are nearing a full saturation point of the Internet with media, I think consumers are becoming more educated about how to drown out the white noise of media that they aren't interested in. I also think that being aware of this high saturation means that we bear some responsibility in shaping the direction of how we want the Internet to evolve.