Not yet a two way street..

Neil Thurman of City University has sent me the headlines of a study he has just completed on User interaction with news websites. It will be published in New Media and Society and is available from his University page.

Headlines:

Major news websites are struggling to make the most of readers' contributions due to factors such as the costs of moderation and the varying quality of user-generated content (UGC), whilst in return readers are not fully engaging with the UGC initiatives.

Thurman found that 'popular' debates on the BBC News website's 'Have Your Say' attracted contributions from just 0.05 per cent of the site's daily unique audience, and one fifth the page views of  'popular' news stories.
 
The research showed that the slow uptake of UGC by some editors was due in part to worries over legal liabilities. Furthermore most publications insisted on moderation because of concerns over: spelling, grammar and decency; duplication; unbalanced views; and a lack of newsworthiness amongst contributions. These issues had caused some websites to drop UGC altogether.

 
Allf Hermida discusses the findings at Reportr.Net

I'm not surprised - interaction has always been a minority sport. Reading key news websites it's easy to see there is often a tight community of regular commenters who represent a fraction of the total readership.
But this doesn't undermine the value of news organisations being open and responsive.

[UPDATE: Shane Richmond takes him to task for being out of date....and me for being uncritical!}