User-generated content is not new

Driving home tonight listening to the local sports station riff with call-in guests on the Vancouver Canucks’ prospects for the coming NHL season, I started thinking.

“User” or “consumer” generated content is nothing new. It’s at least as old as talk radio, which relies heavily on call-in listeners to stimulation conversations and generate interest.

Are there other examples of producerism that predate the internet era? Here’s the components you need, as far as I can tell:

  • a shared and social media space
  • a community that gathers there
  • content of some kind that they create and share

Talk radio fits, I think, but the 18th-century tavern doesn’t. Am I missing something?

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[ update Sept. 4 ]

America’s Funniest Home Videos comes to mind. A significant difference? The centralized gatekeeper/editor. Perhaps a necessary part of the definition of producerism/user-generated content is the lack of a centralized gatekeeper.

[tags] cgm, consumer-generated media, producerism, team1040, radio, talk, social media, community, john koetsier [/tags]