Villefranhe sur mer, Nice, France (2019)

Picture taken by Jonathan Acuña

What is User-Created Content?

Am I a sharing any type of content?

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

Head of Curriculum Development Senior Language Professor

Academic Department School of English
Centro Cultural Costarricense- Faculty of Social Sciences
Norteamericano Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Thursday, August 6, 2020

Post 357

Prompt

Do you create any type of content? How many of the three types?

User Creative Content (also known as UCC) is a recently coined term used
to differentiate it from User Generated Content (UGC). UCC has lots to do with
what people do on the Internet, especially while sharing their lives on social media.
As we delve deeper into understanding the type of content one can get to produce,
one gets to think what is actually being created and then then shared on social
media and how it should be named.
 Based on The University of Sydney (n.d.), there are three types of content
that can be labelled as UCC. Gathering my thoughts for a while and revisiting the
information provided by The University, here you have an infographic that
summarizes what UCC is, the three types being listed, and examples for each kind
of content that is shared.
As it can be seen, this user-created content that is now being produced is not
meant to be linked to any kind of paid work or fan endeavor; otherwise, that work
will be classified as user generated content (UGC), not UCC. Both types of content
generated by users must be differentiated for better comprehension.

So what is UGC? “User Generated Content is defined as any type of content

that has been created and put out there by unpaid contributors or, using a better
term, fans” (Gallegos, 2016). UGC’s content can be in the form of blogs, tweets,
photographs, video recordings on Vimeo, WhatsApp, or YouTube, etc.; the very
same means of sharing used by UCC contributors. What is important to understand
here is that UCC is done for the sake of sharing content in online communities out
of commonality, reciprocity, identity, collective action (or civility) and respect. No
“free promotion” of objects or services is present in UCC sharing. UGC contributors
are fans, as stated by Gallegos (2016), who follow a product, (micro) celebrety,
program, and the like.

Now the question: “Do you create any type of content?” My answer is: Yes,
I do. And this creative content of mine is produced as part of my reflections and
ideas linked to what I teach at the university in content or language classes, what
I do at work in terms of curriculum design, what I continue to study as a self-
regulated life-long learner, and what I feel like sharing with anyone who is part of
a community of learning in education, mostly. The only kind of collaborative
content I tend to develop as a virtual instructor at a local university in my home
country is with students in my classes where I can coach them in their writing skills
or help them develop their literary interpretations of classic writers; this is done
through Google Drive. I have no experience in small scale tools at the moment.
To conclude, this is pretty much the bedrock of my own UCC history.
References
Gallegos, J. (2016, August 23). What is User Generated Content (and Why You Should Be Using it).
Retrieved August 5, 2020, from https://www.tintup.com/: https://www.tintup.com/blog/user-
generated-content-definition/

The University of Sydney. (n.d.). What is user-created content? Retrieved 8 5, 2020, from
https://www.futurelearn.com/: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/ethical-social-
media/1/steps/824136