User-generated content (UGC) covers a range of media content available in a range of modern communications technologies. It entered mainstream usage during 2005, having arisen in web publishing and new media content production circles. Its use for a wide range of applications, including problem processing, news, gossip and research, reflects the expansion of media production through new technologies that are accessible and affordable to the general public. All digital media technologies are included, such as question-answer databases, digital video, blogging, podcasting, forums, review-sites, social networking, mobile phone photography and wikis. In addition to these technologies, user-generated content may also employ a combination of open source, free software, and flexible licensing or related agreements to further reduce the barriers to collaboration, skill-building and discovery.

Sometimes UGC can constitute only a portion of a website. For example on Amazon.com the majority of content is prepared by administrators, but numerous user reviews of the products being sold are submitted by regular users of the site.

Virginia Heffernan (born August 8, 1969) is an American journalist. In February, 2012, she became a national correspondent for Yahoo! News. Before that, she wrote regularly about digital and pop culture for the Opinion pages of The New York Times. She is also known as a television critic for The New York Times, and as "The Medium" columnist at The New York Times Magazine.

Virginia Heffernan was born in Hanover, New Hampshire. She received her B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1991, and an English Literature Master's Degree and Ph.D from Harvard University, in 1993 and 2002, respectively.

Heffernan began her career as a fact-checker with The New Yorker magazine. She served as an editor at Harper's and Talk magazines, and as TV critic for the online magazine Slate. Reviewing her work there, online critic Teresa DiFalco called Heffernan a "dazzling talent ... Should you at some point get stranded on a Desert Island, make Heffernan your first stop back. [TV] is life, it is increasingly how we communicate with each other, and a quick read of Heffernan will leave you fully prepared for the most daunting cocktail party crowd."