Leveraging user-generated content for news search

Over the last few years both availability and accessibility of current news stories on the Web have dramatically improved. In particular, users can now access news from a variety of sources hosted on the Web, from newswire presences such as the New York Times, to integrated news search within Web search engines. However, of central interest is the emerging impact that user-generated content (UGC) is having on this online news landscape. Indeed, the emergence of Web 2.0 has turned a static news consumer base into a dynamic news machine, where news stories are summarised and commented upon. In summary, value is being added to each news story in terms of additional content. Importantly, however, while there has been movement in commercial circles to exploit this extra value to enrich online news, there has been little research from the academic community on how can be achieved. Indeed, the main purpose of this thesis is to research practical techniques for the integration of UGC to improve the news search component of the most ubiquitous of Web tools, i.e the Web search engine.