The study, which compared sites Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit with established news providers, claims there is little overlap between the most popular stories on these sites and those making the headlines in the mainstream media.
Measured during the last week of June, the survey found only five per cent of the stories on the user-driven sites reflected the 10 most widely reported stories in the conventional media.
While the failed bombings in the UK and events in Iraq dominated mainstream coverage, according to the findings, user-generated news was more interested in the launch of the iPhone and Nintendo overtaking Sony in net worth.
The research, conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), compared the three user-oriented sites with the PEJ's own index of 48 media outlets, which includes mainly US-based press, broadcast and online platforms such as the Washington Post, CCN.com and Fox News.
While analysing 644 stories from the user-driven sites - taken from each site's top ten most recommended lists - against 1,395 stories from the index, the survey also found a huge difference in the choice of news sources.
Seventy per cent of the stories on user sites drew from blogs or non-news sites such as YouTube, while just 25 per cent came from more traditional news sources.
"Some of the sources being drawn on were unique and very day-to-day," Amy Mitchell, deputy direct of the PEJ, told Journalism.co.uk.
"The news and the events that they [users] were interested in were very transitory. The only story that had traction was the Apple iPhone, but in the rest of the stories there was no consistency or news event that the users of these sites were digging into. A story about one thing at 9:05am becomes at story about something different by 9:15am."
Technology and science, which was absent from the top five topics covered by the mainstream news, was the most popular subject for all the user sites, with around 40 per cent of their stories falling into this category.
Users also ranked lifestyle stories highly - another topic missing from the top of the mainstream agenda.
The research also found that only one per cent of the items featured on Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit referred to the first report of an event.
Content on the user-driven sites tended to stick close to home, with their coverage during this week having a more US-centric focus than the mainstream media.
Digg had 89 per cent of stories relating to domestic events, while Reddit had 83 per cent and Del.icio.us 81 per cent, compared to 81 per cent of the items appearing in the traditional media.
The research suggests that while mainstream providers may focus on developments in the same story throughout a week, users prefer to pick and choose from a wide variety of events and sources giving stories a relatively short shelf life, as they quickly disappear from top ten rankings.
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