From Gatekeeping to Forensic Truth-Seeking: User-Generated Content and the Verification Crisis in the Age of Synthetic Media

Author: Saiful Hoque

Keywords: User-generated Content (UGC), Forensic Journalism, Produsage, Verification, Synthetic Media, Digital Transformation, Trauma-Informed Journalism.

Journal: Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.) - 71(1) - June 2026

Page Numbers: 29-46

Published At: June 2026

DOI: 10.64298/jasbhum.v71i.002

Abstract:

The spread of digital technologies has effectively altered the news-production ecosystem, as it turns traditional audiences into so-called produsers who not only consume but also create and share content that is no longer limited to the boundaries between the realms of formal work and study. Whereas other fields like Marketing have embraced with ease the use of User-Generated Content (UGC) as part of sustainable business models, journalism has been caught in an endless dilemma between commercial demands and professional ethics. This paper critically reviews the history of UGC, which began as an early techno-utopian pattern of positioning UGC as a global electronic agora, but soon transitions into the present-day state of an epistemic crisis created by platformization and synthetic media. The paper conceptualizes UGC using a multidimensional model that classifies the practices of the newsrooms into four main typologies: unsolicited, solicited, expeditious, and audience-watchdog content. It is clear in the analysis that algorithmic gatekeeping in combination with the resulting emergent newsfluencer economy has undermined the editorial discretion traditionally part of journalism, putting metrics of engagement ahead of civic quality. Moreover, generative AI and deepfakes have created a Liar Dividend of reality, in which the ontological integrity of reality is challenged in a systematic manner. The paper argues that journalistic legitimacy requires paradigm shift whereby traditional gatekeeping should be changed with forensic truth-seeking. The newsrooms can combat infocide and the flood of fake news by employing Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) methodologies and forensic re-creation. Lastly, the paper emphasizes the necessity of the trauma-informed newsroom policy to protect the psychological health of the journalists in the context of the raw, graphic UGC that has become a hallmark of the Wild West of information production today.