Anàlisi

Multiplatform strategies of Euskal Irrati Telebista [Basque Radio Television] aimed at new audiences: The challenges of public television in a minority language

Ana Mendieta Bartolomé — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The broadcasting industry and consumer habits have undergone a profound change since the arrival and subsequent monopoly of online or over-the-top (OTT) content platforms. Children’s and youth audiences tune in less and less to public television channels, which have seen an irreversible decline in their audiences. Euskal Irrati Telebista [Basque Radio Television] (EITB) has seen its audience share reduce by more than half since 2004, and the digitisation of its content is a matter of survival if it wants to compete with the OTT services. This paper aims to identify the recent multiplatform strategies implemented by EITB to attract new audiences; and to analyse whether they are consistent with its public service mandate both to promote the Basque language and to prioritise children and youth as key audiences.

Communication research in academia in Spanish and Portuguese. Scientific journals in the WoS-JCR, Scimago-SJR rankings (communication section). A map of the flow of research in Spain and Latin America between 2009 and 2019

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This article evaluates the highest-ranked journals in Spanish in the field of communication in Spain, Portugal and Latin America between 2009 and 2019. Using the SJR-Scimago-Scopus index, the current status of scientific journals in this field in the first and second quartiles (according to the rankings on 31 December 2019) is analysed. A sample consisting of 4098 articles from eight communication research journals was analysed, using a coding book developed by five qualified coders. Analysis parameters were: gender of the authors, first and second author, their h-index, the number of authors per article, the internationalisation of the articles, the competitive funding of the articles, the predominant publication regions of the authors, and the most frequent typology of articles. After running an analysis of the variables, we found a significant presence of authors and social interest in research in this area. However, other weaknesses and threats were also detected, such as a shortage of funding, publication very focused on certain Spanish regions (Madrid, Catalonia, Andalusia) and the lack of scientific journals in Spanish or Portuguese ranked in the first and second quartiles of the Scopus and/or JCR indexes. Along with these data, numerous opportunities were identified.

News Life Cycle and the Hybrid Media System

Ana Serrano Tellería — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Following a brief examination of recent theories, this proposal describes the transmedia ideals, logic and values for journalism and explores how transmedia storytelling addresses the need to ensure the continued relevance of journalism. We test the ideals, logic and values and refine the evolving features and strategies employed by Spanish legacy media through case study analysis. Thus, this research analyses and describes the use of languages, genres and formats; strategies, resources and platforms for the creation, collaboration and distribution (News Lifecycle, Serrano-Tellería, Jin and Arroyo, 2019) of journalistic products about Covid-19, and determines whether a transmedia logic is being followed. Likewise, this study proposes a set of good practices that can be applied to other stories- products and media in everyday and planned routines. For this, the field work focuses on the analysis of two aspects: the interface design and the creation and dissemination of content. The pandemic represented a unique frame of analysis due to the intrinsic work conditions, routines and dynamics as well as its limitations and increased demands for information. Thus, we concluded that transmedia core values, ideals and logic offer a suitable framework to embrace in everyday media work and specifically, in journalism, to adapt, innovate and overcome its crisis and challenges, opportunities and potentials. Transmedia means an ideal, a logic, a group of values to bear in mind when constructing a story. To adapt storytelling to media production, bearing in mind all possible genres, languages, formats, semiotics and strategies is a fundamental step because audiences are used to consuming media on different devices and want the best of all of them to have a full experience.

Presentation

Ramón Salaverría, Charo Sádaba — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Presentation.

Perceptions of journalism and trust in news among traditionalist and digitalist media users: A comparative analysis of Denmark, Spain and USA

Aurken Sierra, Javier Serrano-Puche, Jordi Rodríguez-Virgili — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

This study analyses trust in news and the relevance granted to journalism by different user profiles in three countries (Denmark, Spain and the United States), each from a different media system as identified by Hallin and Mancini (2004). For this research we used two online surveys (2019, 2020) carried out by the Reuters Institute with more than 2000 people in each country. Our results show that users who consume news through newspapers, radios and television trust news more than those whose main source of information are digital devices. Traditionalist users also have a higher degree of satisfaction with the classic functions of journalism: making the powerful accountable (adversarial function), disseminating current information (disseminating function) and explaining current events to the public (interpretative function). There are differences between countries, especially in the evaluation of the adversarial function. Spaniards, who belong to the polarized pluralist system, are the ones who worst value its fulfilment among their country’s media.

Collaborative Journalism and Normative Journalism: Lessons from Latin American Journalism

Lucia Mesquita — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Collaboration in journalism has become increasingly important, in the face of the challenges posed by digitalisation and platformization. The development of information and communication technologies has led to collaborative journalism committed to democratic and public-oriented methods. However, it is unclear how this commitment is reflected in practice, and whether it varies according to political, economic and media system contexts, especially in non-democratic and authoritarian regimes. Latin America is a diverse region with a history of social, economic and political instability, alternating between authoritarian and democratic regimes. This context can help answer the research question of this study, which aims to understand the commitments, norms and values of practitioners of collaborative journalism in various contexts. The thematic analysis of 36 semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted in Latin America found that practitioners of collaborative journalism commonly share normative journalism roles, practices, values and norms. The study suggests a need to reinforce, restore and reform normative journalism norms and values, particularly in non-democratic, authoritarian, and developing democracies. This study can be a valuable resource for future researchers exploring journalism, collaborative journalism and investigative journalism beyond the context of Western liberal democracies.

WhatsAppening to the news in Brazil? A mixed-method study on news publishers’ struggle to adapt to WhatsApp’s inherent characteristics of mobile and interpersonal communication

Giuliander Carpes, Enric Moreu — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

After Facebook started prioritizing posts from family and friends on its newsfeed at the beginning of 2018, news consumption on social media increasingly migrated to other mobile applications such as WhatsApp. This has put pressure on media organizations to establish channels on the platform in an attempt to compensate for the decline in audience figures. Journalistic practices on WhatsApp remain poorly understood. Building on the “diffusion of innovations” theory, this article examines whether the way newsrooms have adapted to WhatsApp follows similar patterns to their adoption of social media for news distribution, or whether they have been able to develop new practices that fully consider the tool’s inherent characteristics of mobile and interpersonal communication. Focusing on Brazil as a case study, this study draws on the analysis of 8,855 messages sent to WhatsApp news channels and interviews with 21 editors and executives from publishers, and shows that newsrooms have hardly adapted to the possibilities of WhatsApp beyond its technological aspects. Audience engagement has often been neglected or has been addressed with a lack of consistency. According to the interviewees, constraints presented by WhatsApp, such as the large amount of manual work it requires of newsrooms, make it difficult for news organizations to adopt the platform to transform their relationship with their readers.

Digital-native news media: Reach in 46 countries, top brands and user profiles in Spain

Jürg Kaufmann-Argueta, Samuel Negredo — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Digital-pure news publications have become competitive players in many countries, populating audience rankings in the context of a high-choice media environment. With the aim of gaining insight into the performance of digital-native news brands around the world and into how their audiences are similar or different to those of media with traditional roots in Spain, we draw on survey data for 2021 and 2022, respectively. First, we examine what proportion of online adults use any of the most popular digital-pure news brands in 24 mostly European countries and in 22 markets in America, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, and we highlight how the main digital-native brands rank among online news sources, based on their weekly audience reach. Then we compare the user profiles of the five most-used online-only news organizations in Spain, against the audiences of the top five legacy brands (N = 2028), looking at reader loyalty, gender, age, income and education levels, and political leaning. With this media-centric approach to audiences, we find that digital-native news media brands either lead (in 15 out of 46 countries) or occupy some of the top positions by weekly reach in most markets, with Nordic countries standing out as an exception. In Spain, audiences of the top digital-native brands check them slightly less frequently than the users of news sites with traditional roots. News sites in our study are slightly more popular among males, older people, and more affluent and formally educated users who can define their political stance. Nevertheless, the diversity of editorial approaches found among sites in an externally pluralistic news media market inevitably results in brands with user profiles that show exceptions to these trends.

Quantifying digital-native and legacy, national and local news websites in Spain, their topic scope and platforms

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Digital media have become an integral part of the journalism industry and of audience habits – in 2021 our research registered 2873 active news websites in Spain. First, this paper explores trends facing online news; it sets out the criteria used to identify a news brand as digital-native or non-native; and it presents the results of our classification. This includes: data on the presence of news titles both on proprietary platforms (print, radio, TV or app) in addition to their websites, and on external platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Telegram); their geographic scope (hyperlocal, local/regional or national/global); their subject (general or specialized coverage); and on ownership and language used. Almost 70% of the media were regional or local, while 60% covered general news, and one in three were linked to a print product, almost as many as those with their own app for users. Social media uptake is so widespread that more than 95% of the sites are on Facebook, with a similar number on Twitter, while more than 60% can be found on YouTube, and similarly on Instagram. Among specialized sites, sport is the largest category, comprising twice as many digital-native sites (106) than sites with traditional roots (46). The entertainment focus expands in the digital environment, and online-originated culture, business and science and technology outlets also outnumber legacy publications.

Transparency in informative content. An analysis of methods in Spanish data journalism (2019-2022)

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The crisis of confidence in journalism has increased hopes of internal transparency. The technical possibilities of data journalism and its background in social sciences support the values of openness and transparency. This study focuses on the daily journalism produced by the data units of the Spanish media (n=10) between January 2019 and April 2022. Through analysis of quantitative and qualitative content of a random sample of articles (n=62), this study explores the transparency of sources and the use of a methodology section. The results reveal an unequal and, on many occasions, infrequent use of elements such as an explanation of the research process or the possibility for data download. A greater use is observed in native online media and small and specialised projects, with certain exceptions, reflecting the reluctance of some media to implement the new “transparency rituals” and the greater importance of attitude and individual initiative rather than resources. Finally, an ambivalent influence of COVID-19 is detected in these practices, which suggest a critical view of data journalism and the evolution of its transparency.

Regulating dependency: The political stakes of online platforms’ deals with French publishers

Charis Papaevangelou, Nikos Smyrnaios — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

At a time when the news industry is struggling to cope with the dominance of the advertising market by large platforms, along with recent crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, commercial deals and regulatory initiatives are becoming increasingly common. While there is ample space for regulatory interventions seeking to level the playing field between news industry stakeholders and platforms, we are concerned these might further cement the dependency of the former on the latter through co-regulatory frameworks that epitomize the capture of vital infrastructures by platforms. This article examines the three-year negotiation of French news publishers with Google and Meta, which concluded with four framework agreements being signed. For our analysis, we first look at the historical trajectory of how these deals were made possible, using secondary sources such as leaks, press releases and the French Competition Authority’s rulings; we then discuss their details and implications. We trace Google’s attempt to capture news media in France and discuss the asymmetrical power it has exercised over the news industry, and how the subsequent deals with Meta were affected. Finally, our case study shows that these frameworks are not sufficient to tackle systemic imbalances – despite their good intentions – because they fail to challenge the concentration of power by a handful of oligopolistic private companies and, thus, effectively leave it up to them and the free market’s idiosyncrasies to decide how they are implemented.

Immersive media and social change: The ‘empathy machine’ is dead, long live ‘emotional geography’!

António Baía Reis — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Since 2014, immersive media storytelling has gained significant attention, with technologies such as 360° video providing unique first-person experiences, leading to the emergence of immersive journalism and documentaries. Some view immersive media as an “empathy machine” for fostering social change by creating strong connections between the audience and the issues portrayed. This paper critically examines this claim through a practice-based research approach, exploring five socially-driven immersive media projects from 2018-2020 in various countries, and interviewing 21 experts, both scholars and practitioners. The insights derived from this research provide an innovative conceptual framework that encompasses socially-driven immersive media productions, moving from initial empathy towards a more comprehensive concept and phenomenon native to the medium, referred to as “emotional geography”. This framework aims to shed light on the affective dynamics of immersive media in relation to social change, and offers valuable insights for future research, productions and critical discussions on the growing, emotionally-charged digital media ecosystem driven by advancing technologies.