Studies in Big Data 70

Jorge Vázquez-Herrero
Sabela Direito-Rebollal
Alba Silva-Rodríguez
Xosé López-García Editors

Journalistic
Metamorphosis
Media Transformation in the Digital Age
Studies in Big Data

Volume 70

Series Editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
The series “Studies in Big Data” (SBD) publishes new developments and advances
in the various areas of Big Data- quickly and with a high quality. The intent is to
cover the theory, research, development, and applications of Big Data, as embedded
in the fields of engineering, computer science, physics, economics and life sciences.
The books of the series refer to the analysis and understanding of large, complex,
and/or distributed data sets generated from recent digital sources coming from
sensors or other physical instruments as well as simulations, crowd sourcing, social
networks or other internet transactions, such as emails or video click streams and
other. The series contains monographs, lecture notes and edited volumes in Big
Data spanning the areas of computational intelligence including neural networks,
evolutionary computation, soft computing, fuzzy systems, as well as artificial
intelligence, data mining, modern statistics and Operations research, as well as
self-organizing systems. Of particular value to both the contributors and the
readership are the short publication timeframe and the world-wide distribution,
which enable both wide and rapid dissemination of research output.
** Indexing: The books of this series are submitted to ISI Web of Science, DBLP,
Ulrichs, MathSciNet, Current Mathematical Publications, Mathematical Reviews,
Zentralblatt Math: MetaPress and Springerlink.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11970

Jorge Vázquez-Herrero Sabela Direito-Rebollal
• •

Alba Silva-Rodríguez Xosé López-García

•

Editors

Journalistic Metamorphosis
Media Transformation in the Digital Age

123
Editors
Jorge Vázquez-Herrero Sabela Direito-Rebollal
Faculty of Communication Sciences Faculty of Communication Sciences
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela, Spain Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Alba Silva-Rodríguez Xosé López-García

Faculty of Communication Sciences Faculty of Communication Sciences
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela, Spain Santiago de Compostela, Spain

ISSN 2197-6503 ISSN 2197-6511 (electronic)

Studies in Big Data
ISBN 978-3-030-36314-7 ISBN 978-3-030-36315-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard
to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Editorial Project

This book is part of the activities developed in:

• the research project Digital native media in Spain: storytelling formats and
mobile strategy (RTI2018-093346-B-C33) funded by the Ministry of Science,
Innovation and Universities (Government of Spain), Agencia Estatal de
Investigación, and co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund
(ERDF);
• the research project New values, governance, funding and public media services for
the Internet society: European and Spanish contrasts (RTI2018-096065-B-I00)
funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Government of
Spain), Agencia Estatal de Investigación, and co-funded by the European Regional
Development Fund (ERDF); and
• Novos Medios research group, supported by Xunta de Galicia (ED431B
2017/48).
Editorial coordination, book layout and formatting: Jorge Vázquez-Herrero,
Sabela Direito-Rebollal and Alba Silva-Rodríguez.

v
Preface

Over the past decades, journalism has been in a state of flux due to the outcome
of the digitalization of the media environment. The increase of channels and
platforms together with the emergence of digital native players has created an
immediate need for journalism to innovate in order to survive in this digital and
social media age. However, although innovation has turned into a significant matter
to guarantee the future of journalism, it is still necessary to deeply understand its
potential implications within the media industry. In order to identify relevant fea-
tures for media innovation, this book emphasizes three dimensions of change:
content and narrative, technology and formats, and business models.
Journalistic Metamorphosis: Media Transformation in the Digital Age is
divided into four parts. The first part consists of three chapters which cover the
technological impact of the challenges and consequences in media. Ramón
Salaverría and Mathias-Felipe de-Lima-Santos (University of Navarra) study the
implementation of the so-called Internet of things (IoT) within the framework of
technological innovations assimilated by journalism over the last 25 years. They
describe devices, applications and systems that media have incorporated in the
production and consumption of news content, by providing a general overview
of the opportunities and challenges that IoT offers to journalism.
The debate about automated journalism is addressed in the chapter signed by
José Miguel Túñez-López, Carlos Toural-Bran (Universidade de Santiago de
Compostela) and Ana Gabriela Frazão-Nogueira (Universidade Fernando Pessoa).
The automation of the search engines, classification and the treatment of infor-
mation as a result of the alteration of a journalist’s routine due to the consequences
of the implementation of AI to the workflow is part of the analysis made by the
aforementioned authors.
The search for new ways of journalistic narratives is the main topic of the
chapter by Jorge Vázquez-Herrero, Xosé López-García (Universidade de Santiago
de Compostela) and Fernando Irigaray (Universidad Nacional de Rosario), for
whom ubiquity, transmediality and micro-contents define emerging narratives, with
a strong link with social media and their consumption.

vii
viii Preface

The second part of this book revolves around these emerging narratives and
journalistic formats. Ana Cecília B. Nunes (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio
Grande do Sul) and João Canavilhas (University of Beira Interior) look for the
identification of peculiarities in innovative journalism taking as a reference the case
study of Google DNI Fund initiatives in the European context highlighted in its
three-year report. Digital revenue and news narratives or formats are the main goals
to achieve consumers’ needs. Jonathan Hendrickx, Karen Donders and Ike Picone
(Vrije Universiteit Brussel) discuss the unexpected popularity of e-mail newsletters
as a successful tool for legacy and new news media outlets alike to independently
disseminate their content, without having to rely on social media algorithms.
Andreu Casero-Ripollés, Silvia Marcos-García and Laura Alonso-Muñoz
(Universitat Jaume I) present new social media formats for local journalism like live
blogging, summary information through WhatsApp or Instagram Stories and 360°
image and video.
The continuous rise of visual information available online is prompted by the
current state of the so-called liquid modernity. Ángel Vizoso (Universidade de
Santiago de Compostela) focuses his work on this topic by underlining the weak
and strong points of this visual system. Sara Pérez-Seijo and Berta García-Orosa
(Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) analyze the use of this immersive nar-
rative in five international NGOs from an ethical and critical point of view.
The third part of this book, which begins with the one signed by Ainara
Larrondo Ureta, Koldo Meso Ayerdi and Simón Peña Fernández (University of the
Basque Country), addresses the impact that social networking sites have caused in
the legacy media and its continuous use as a way to innovatively enhance consumer
engagement. The authors show a global vision of the strategies used by Spanish
media concerning social networks, especially regarding the development of pro-
fessional practices adapted to new patterns of users’ consumption, as well as new
modes of content creation, distribution and promotion.
News organizations publish social media guidelines to guide the conduct of their
journalists on social networks, due to the common use of Facebook and Twitter to
collect, distribute, promote and discuss the news. Sabela Direito-Rebollal,
María-Cruz Negreira-Rey and Ana-Isabel Rodríguez-Vázquez (Universidade de
Santiago de Compostela) study the social media guidelines developed by public
service broadcasting corporations in the European Union to explain the recom-
mendations for their journalists.
The last two chapters of the third segment are focused on the innovation of
broadcasting formats. Jose A. García-Avilés (Miguel Hernández University) ana-
lyzes six new international broadcasting formats. The author concludes that inno-
vation in newscasts essentially lies in the audiovisual narrative, integrating image
and sound, telling the story with fluency and holding viewers’ trust with rigorous
journalism. This topic is also considered by Ana González-Neira and Natalia
Quintas-Froufe (Universidade da Coruña) with their analysis of TV’s audience
participation in news bulletins.
Preface ix

Last part of this book puts together three chapters that delve into the study of
digital media revenue business models and in the era of the so-called post-
journalism, focusing on the figure of the journalist, particularly in its loss of
legitimacy.
Manuel Goyanes (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), Marta Rodríguez-Castro
and Francisco Campos-Freire (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) analyze
the relation between innovation and digital media revenue business models.
The authors consider that the core relies on social value and creative intelligence.
Laura Solito and Carlo Sorrentino (Università degli Studi di Firenze) study the
practices journalists use to authenticate their work. They argue that journalistic
authority is always the product of complex and variable relationships. Furthermore,
the authors go in depth studying the changes of the professional identity in con-
sequence of the loss of trust from the audience and the difficulties encountered from
traditional business models within the industry. Finally, Xosé López-García, Alba
Silva-Rodríguez, Sabela Direito-Rebollal and Jorge Vázquez-Herrero (Universidade
de Santiago de Compostela) theorize about the future role of journalists in the era of
post-journalism. The authors come to the conclusion that journalism is not dying,
but it is returning to its roots. In order to do so, it is necessary to implement data
journalism, immersive journalism, multimedia and multi-format narratives, trans-
media narratives, verification techniques (fact-checking) or semi-automated
systems.
Journalistic Metamorphosis: Media Transformation in the Digital Age, edited
by Jorge Vázquez-Herrero, Sabela Direito-Rebollal, Alba Silva-Rodríguez and
Xosé López-García (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela), brings together
experts from Europe and America working on the impact of technology, the
reconfiguration of the media ecosystem and the transformation of business models
within the context of glocal information and enriched innovation.

Santiago de Compostela, Spain Jorge Vázquez-Herrero

Sabela Direito-Rebollal
Alba Silva-Rodríguez
Xosé López-García
Contents

Towards Ubiquitous Journalism: Impacts of IoT on News . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Ramón Salaverría and Mathias-Felipe de-Lima-Santos
From Data Journalism to Robotic Journalism: The Automation
of News Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
José Miguel Túñez-López, Carlos Toural-Bran
and Ana Gabriela Frazão-Nogueira
The Technology-Led Narrative Turn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Jorge Vázquez-Herrero, Xosé López-García and Fernando Irigaray
Journalism Innovation and Its Influences in the Future of News:
A European Perspective Around Google DNI Fund Initiatives . . . . . . . 41
Ana Cecília B. Nunes and João Canavilhas
Innovating Journalism by Going Back in Time? The Curious
Case of Newsletters as a News Source in Belgium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Jonathan Hendrickx, Karen Donders and Ike Picone
New Formats for Local Journalism in the Era of Social Media
and Big Data: From Transmedia to Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Andreu Casero-Ripollés, Silvia Marcos-García and Laura Alonso-Muñoz
Information Visualization and Usability: Tools for Human
Comprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Ángel Vizoso
Use of 360-Degree Video in Organizational Communication:
Case Study of Humanitarian Aid NGOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Sara Pérez-Seijo and Berta García-Orosa
Shared Spaces for News Content Production in Spanish
Online Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Ainara Larrondo Ureta, Koldo Meso Ayerdi and Simón Peña Fernández

xi
xii Contents

Social Media Guidelines for Journalists in European Public

Service Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Sabela Direito-Rebollal, María-Cruz Negreira-Rey
and Ana-Isabel Rodríguez-Vázquez
Reinventing Television News: Innovative Formats in a Social Media
Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Jose A. García-Avilés
Mediamorphosis of Participation on Television: The News
Programmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Ana González-Neira and Natalia Quintas-Froufe
Value and Intelligence of Business Models in Journalism . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Manuel Goyanes, Marta Rodríguez-Castro and Francisco Campos-Freire
New Forms of Journalistic Legitimization in the Digital World . . . . . . . 185
Laura Solito and Carlo Sorrentino
From Meta-Journalism and Post-Journalism to Total Journalism . . . . . 199
Xosé López-García, Alba Silva-Rodríguez, Sabela Direito-Rebollal
and Jorge Vázquez-Herrero
Editors and Contributors

About the Editors

Jorge Vázquez-Herrero is Ph.D. in Communication, Universidade de Santiago de

Compostela (USC). He is Member of Novos Medios research group (USC) and
Latin-American Chair of Transmedia Narratives (ICLA–UNR, Argentina). He was
Visiting Scholar at Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Universidade do Minho,
University of Leeds and Tampere University. His research focuses on digital
interactive non-fiction digital storytelling—mainly interactive documentary—
micro-formats and transmedia, immersive and interactive narratives in online
media.

Sabela Direito-Rebollal is Ph.D. Candidate at Universidade de Santiago de

Compostela (USC). She holds a Degree in Audiovisual Communication (USC), a
Master’s Degree in Communication and Creative Industries (USC) and a Degree in
Movie and TV Script from the Madrid Film Institute. She was visiting scholar at the
University of Hull (United Kingdom) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium).
Her research focuses on innovation, audience trends and programming strategies of
European public service media.

Alba Silva-Rodríguez is Associate Professor of journalism at the Department of

Communication Sciences at Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC). She
is Ph.D. in journalism and Member of Novos Medios research group. She is
Secretary of the RAEIC journal. As Researcher, she focuses on the assessment of
digital communication, especially the study of mediated conversation in social
media and the evolution of media contents in mobiles devices.

Xosé López-García is Professor of journalism at Universidade de Santiago de

Compostela (USC) and a Ph.D. candidate in history and journalism (USC).

xiii
xiv Editors and Contributors

He coordinates the Novos Medios research group. Among his research lines, there
is the study of digital and printed media, analysis of the impact of technology in
mediated communication, analysis of the performance of cultural industries and the
combined strategy of printed and online products in the society of knowledge.

Contributors

Laura Alonso-Muñoz Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain

Francisco Campos-Freire Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
João Canavilhas University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal
Andreu Casero-Ripollés Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain
Mathias-Felipe de-Lima-Santos University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
Sabela Direito-Rebollal Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
Karen Donders Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Ana Gabriela Frazão-Nogueira Universidade Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal
Jose A. García-Avilés Miguel Hernández University, Elche, Spain
Berta García-Orosa Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
Ana González-Neira Department of Sociology and Communication Sciences,
Universidade Da Coruña, A Coruña, Spain
Manuel Goyanes Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Jonathan Hendrickx Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Fernando Irigaray Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Rosario, Argentina
Ainara Larrondo Ureta University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain
Xosé López-García Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
Silvia Marcos-García Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain
Koldo Meso Ayerdi University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain
Ana Cecília B. Nunes Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto
Alegre, Brazil
Editors and Contributors xv

María-Cruz Negreira-Rey Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de

Compostela, Spain
Ike Picone Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Sara Pérez-Seijo Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
Simón Peña Fernández University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain
Natalia Quintas-Froufe Department of Sociology and Communication Sciences,
Universidade Da Coruña, A Coruña, Spain
Marta Rodríguez-Castro Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
Ana-Isabel Rodríguez-Vázquez Universidade de Santiago de Compostela,
Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Ramón Salaverría University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
Alba Silva-Rodríguez Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
Laura Solito Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università degli Studi di
Firenze, Florence, Italy
Carlo Sorrentino Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università degli
Studi di Firenze, Florence, Italy
Carlos Toural-Bran Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
José Miguel Túñez-López Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
Jorge Vázquez-Herrero Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela, Spain
Ángel Vizoso Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela,
Spain
Towards Ubiquitous Journalism: Impacts
of IoT on News

Ramón Salaverría and Mathias-Felipe de-Lima-Santos

Abstract After embracing web and mobile technologies, the news media are ready
to receive a third technological wave: the Internet of Things (IoT). This set of tech-
nologies has already begun to spread, through new devices based on artificial intelli-
gence. One of the most affected areas by this new technological wave will be that of
journalistic information. Robotic systems and IoT devices are bringing new modes
of production, distribution and consumption of the journalistic content, taking the
news media to a new paradigm: the ubiquitous journalism. This chapter grounds on
a historical perspective to place the implementation of the IoT within the frame-
work of technological innovations assimilated by journalism over the last quarter
of a century. It describes the devices, applications and systems that the media are
being incorporated into the production and consumption of news content, providing
a general overview of the opportunities and challenges that IoT poses to journalism.

Keywords Digital journalism · Internet of things · Robotization · News production

1 A Fish Tank Full of Information

Fish don’t know they’re in the water. They breathe, feed, move in that liquid, but
they are not aware that they inhabit it and that, if they run out of water or it simply
changes—in its degree of salinity, oxygenation or temperature—they won’t survive.
This image of the close relationship between fish and water was often used half a
century ago by Marshall McLuhan (Gossage 1967) to describe people’s relationship
with the news media. Today it remains as a good analogy, probably better than ever.
In fact, recently other authors have kept comparing contemporary society (Bauman
2000) and even current journalism (Deuze 2008) with the liquid element. We live
surrounded by an expanding set of communication technologies that connect us with

R. Salaverría (B) · M.-F. de-Lima-Santos

University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
M.-F. de-Lima-Santos
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1

J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_1
2 R. Salaverría and M.-F. de-Lima-Santos

other people and allow us to access all kinds of information and services. But, as if
we were fish in a tank, they are increasingly transparent to us, almost imperceptible.
Information has become an ever-present good. From the very minute we wake up
until we go to bed, all day long we cross over hundreds of messages that call for our
attention: the time, the temperature, the traffic, the latest sports results, the evolution
of stock market prices… And also, of course, all sort of news. An endless thread of
news impacts, from simple textual flashes to highly elaborated multimedia packages,
reach to our eyes and ears in the multiple screens and loudspeakers that we meet at
each step. Even if we are not searching for news, they come to us, often creating an
uncomfortable sense of information overload (Shenk 1997).
This is one of the great changes in the news media consumption patterns compared
to previous eras. In the past, those who wished to access journalistic information had
to make a deliberate act of searching. To read the content of a newspaper, they first had
to go to a newspaper stand or buy a subscription. To watch or hear news on broadcast
media, they had to attend news programs in scheduled times. Television and radio
were devices located in a central place at home and the members of the family had
to gather collectively in front of these almost totemic objects, at predefined times.
They could not choose what content would be broadcasted by those devices; they
could only decide whether they would consume or not what the audio-visual media
companies offered. The audience was captive of programmers’ decisions.
In the last quarter of a century, the digitalization of information has blown up those
old rules of distribution of the commercial, journalistic and entertainment content.
Today it is the public, each one of its members individually, who choose the place,
the moment, the content and the format of what they want to consume. Or, at least,
the public believes it has that power.
Although users can benefit from the increasing adaptability and advanced per-
sonalization of content, it is no less true that these contents begin to be shaped and
targeted to each user inadvertently. This micro-targeting is possible thanks to artifi-
cial intelligence (AI) technologies, one of the fastest growing technological trends in
contemporary journalism (Newman 2017). Thanks to the continuous use of digital
devices and platforms by each user, these technologies allow the content providers
to know every detail about the preferences and consumption patterns of each user.
Thus, content providers and digital platforms are able to profile, with almost sur-
gical precision, the interests of the users. These have the false impression that they
control the flow of the content they consume, when, in fact, they are subject to
automated decision-making by algorithmic systems. These AI technologies surrep-
titiously select and provide the journalistic, advertising and commercial contents that
keep users’ attention, following the interests of news providers and advertisers.
Without noticing it, contemporary media users—that is, all of us—live in a fish
tank. And the liquid that surrounds us is called information.
Towards Ubiquitous Journalism: Impacts of IoT on News 3

1.1 News in the Age of IoT

The ever closer link between people and information is possible thanks to the evo-
lution of the intermediary element between both of them: information technologies.
In the last twenty-five years, the digitalization of technologies has transformed the
content of the media, the profile of journalists, the news organizations and their
audiences (Salaverría and Sádaba 2003). However, the way in which technologies
continue to impact all those areas of journalism evolves over time. In the 1990s
and during a large part of the first decade of the 21st century, digital technologies
transformed mainly the news production processes, causing a profound disruption
in aspects such as the professional profiles of journalists and media business mod-
els. The current technological evolution, on the other hand, is affecting mainly in
other areas: it is transforming the public’s relationship with information and the very
notion of news.
Close to begin the third decade of the 21st century, to understand the future
evolution of journalism, it is necessary to relate it to the Internet of Things (IoT)
and all the technologies that it involves: real-time analytical systems of big data,
self-improving algorithmic systems (also known as machine learning), interaction
systems between sensors for data capture, monitoring tools and remote control of
electronic objects, among others (Greengard 2015). They are applications that just
a few years ago sounded like science fiction, but nowadays most of these IoT tech-
nologies are already a reality and are announced as hegemonic by the middle of the
third decade of this century (Pew Research Center 2014). If in the early years of the
Internet there was a process of digitalization of journalism, in the coming years the
main technological transformation will be towards robotization and AI.
What impact will the IoT have on journalism? It is still early to know it. However,
there is little doubt that this impact will be very large and diverse. The reason is
that IoT technologies affect the three main phases of journalistic work: information
gathering, processing and, especially, news content distribution.
With regard to the first phase, that of information gathering, journalism will be
enriched by the enormous volume of information coming from the automatic sensors,
present in almost any digital device. These sensors capture data in an uninterrupted
way, transforming it into quantitative measures of all kind: from the temperature
of the sea on the coast to the speed of the wind in the mountain, from the number
of cars that circulate at a given moment through a highway to the volume of CO2
that they are emitting into the atmosphere. Practically any activity of nature and,
above all, of human beings, begin to be monitored and quantified. All this immense
volume of information, what we know as Big Data, is becoming raw material for the
preparation of journalistic information, which is added to the traditional sources of
the journalists: personal observation, documents’ checking and interviews.
IoT technologies also have a great impact on information processing. One of the
most innovative areas is Natural Language Processing (NLP). These technologies,
based on the combination of computation, linguistics and artificial intelligence, are
giving rise to applications and platforms that allow direct communication between
4 R. Salaverría and M.-F. de-Lima-Santos

human beings and computers. These technologies are the basis of conversational
systems, such as text and/or voice chatbots, and also the origin of applications for
automatic writing of texts, known as robots for news writing (Veglis and Maniou
2019). These applications, which have given rise to a new discipline named as ‘algo-
rithmic journalism’ (Dörr 2016), are expanding technologies in newsrooms, produc-
ing unknown challenges for journalists: beyond being simple technologies with a
mediating role, they are gaining a new full communicating role, which in the past
corresponded exclusively to journalists (Lewis et al. 2019).
The third area where the IoT will impact journalism is on the dissemination of
news. The multiplication of mobile devices lived in the last two decades, is giving
way to a new ecosystem (Martínez-Costa et al. 2019) where all devices, mobile and
desktop, large and small, own and foreign, interact with each other. It is a technolog-
ical scenario in which the machines are related to each other, constantly exchanging
data and presenting to the users the messages that best fit their profile, regardless
of whether they are deliberately searched. It is, in short, the rise of a new emerging
value in journalism: ubiquity (Pavlik 2014).

2 Technology-Driven News Production and Consumption

Over the last three decades, the digitalization of newsrooms has substantially changed
the ways news are produced and consumed. However, the transformation of news
production and consumption patterns began long before. At the beginning of the
twentieth century, prior to the invention of radio and television, “the newspaper
enjoyed the same kind of social monopoly as the railroad did before the coming of
the automobile and the airplane […] It dominated the sphere of information as the
train dominated that of transportation” (Smith 1980: 318, as cited in Cunningham
and Turnbull 2014).
The role of newspapers in people’s social life was crucial and had equivalent
importance on the financial strength of news organizations. A century ago, reading
newspapers was a widespread social activity, but the emergence of broadcast media
soon started to replace that activity, so the growth and circulation of newspapers did
not keep the pace of the population. The changes of lifestyle in Western countries
seem to have contributed to this steady decline of newspapers, which first symptoms
were perceived long before the advent of the interactive networks (Bogart 1972).
However, after the impact of broadcast media on news consumption patterns, since
the 1990s it has been Internet the main catalyst of the profound changes in these
habits.
The multiplication of home computers and derived technologies, such as smart-
phones, tablets, wearables, and smart speakers, enabled new ways to tell and consume
stories. However, they also contribute to cut down the revenue streams of pre-digital
media, newspapers in particular. Since embracing web technologies in the 1990s,
news organizations are struggling to find their way and adapt their business models
to digital media. The quality of information produced by these institutions has a
Towards Ubiquitous Journalism: Impacts of IoT on News 5

strong bearing on competitiveness and growth, in an age where innovation plays a

significant role to engage and interact with the audience (Cunningham and Turnbull
2014). Augmented and virtual reality (VR) is “currently forming the next wave of
digitally-driven transformation of economy, culture, and society” (Hassan 2019).
Not only them, but there are also great technologies that are driving innovation in
newsrooms, such as the use of drones, wearables and smart speakers in journalism,
the interactive and visual storytelling formats, the slow journalism, real-time data
stories, the news bots, and so on.

2.1 Will IoT Help or Substitute Journalists?

As mentioned above, IoT is already being developed at a fast pace and is expected
to dominate the connected devices’ landscape shortly. IoT technologies are the next
big wave of data-driven innovation (Castillo and Thierer 2015), which may allow
tech product companies heading the transformation of what already in the 1970s was
named as media or “news ecosystem” (Lozano Bartolozzi 1974). The total number of
devices of all kind interconnected will increase exponentially, producing a brand new
market for the media, where almost every device, space or surface can—and will—be
used as a news platform. The old idea of media as something paper-, radio-, or TV-
based will be definitely surpassed, extending it to new ‘smart’ objects, such as home
appliances, wearables, and autonomous vehicles, among others. This pervasiveness
of IoT technologies will also transform the way journalists produce news.
Technologies have been key for the news-gathering processes since the late 1800s,
first, with the telegraph and later with the telephone. This latter technology became
popular in the US newsrooms only by the mid-1930s, affecting the culture of news
organizations as it emphasized on mobility and timeliness (Mari 2018). Most of the
news workers were reluctant to use the telephone at the beginning. Mainly because it
was a complex technology to be adopted by newsrooms and change the skills needed
from journalists. The gradual expansion of telephone networks, the standardization
of telephone switchboard and the decreasing costs for calls made the telephone an
everyday tool in the news organizations.
By the 1920s, the relationship between news workers and technology began to
change, giving birth to new long-distance forms of producing news. The technologi-
cal affordances brought by the telephone, anticipated to some extent by the telegraph,
caused internal shifts in the newsrooms’ environment, with groups with a higher
comfort level, speed of adoption, and ability to innovate taking control over the orga-
nizations’ workplaces. Therefore, telecommunications—mainly the telephone—can
be considered as the first ubiquitous technologies to affect news organizations.
A second technology that increased the ubiquity of media coverage was the auto-
mobile. Thanks to the cars, news workers gained autonomy and reach when covering
news, while at the same were capable of coordinating better with their peers (Mari
2018).
6 R. Salaverría and M.-F. de-Lima-Santos

2.2 More Disruption, Newer Forms of Journalism

Meanwhile, a third newer technology emerged: the mobile, short-range radio, later
resulting in a ‘radio car’, and subsequently the handheld radios. This technology
changed the news production in news outlets, which permit editors to keep in constant
touch with reporters. The radio car became a reality after World War II, when it got
more affordable and commercially available. Thus, several US newspapers began
experimenting with that device (Mari 2018).
By 1952, the full automation of newspaper was already envisioned, without man-
power of any kind. “The telephone and the radio car, along with some of their ancillary
news-gathering technologies, including battery-powered recorders and hand-held
radios, both disrupted and strengthened work routines in and out of the newsroom”
(Mari 2018: 1385). In other words, sometime in the past “new” technologies already
shaped the news, as well as the form they were produced. Thus, there are reasons to
believe that this may well happen again, thanks to advanced computing and AI.
Although the use of computers in journalism dates back to the 1950s (Cox 2000),
it was only in the late 1980s and early 1990s that the intensive use of databases
changed the norms and professional practices of journalism. Back in the 1970s, the
father of ‘precision journalism’, Meyer (1973), already predicted that the use of data
would not only help to produce quality content, but also increase readers’ engage-
ment. According to Meyer’s prediction, the precision journalism, later renamed as
computer-assisted reporting (CAR), began to make significant inroads into news-
rooms, led by several Pulitzer Prize-winning stories that became a form of profes-
sional recognition and validation of practice. That wave finally transformed into
what is known today as data journalism (Coddington 2015). Thanks to the advent
of the Internet with their large online search engines, as well as to the easier access
to databases, data-driven journalism evolved during the 2000s towards its current
state. This professional practice represents a democratization of resources, tools,
techniques, and methods that in the past were restricted to a few specialists.
Data journalism seems to be a fast-growing trend in the way to future journalism.
News organizations need to look into the whole news ecosystem and understand
the usefulness of data journalism to adapt news to the new multi-device environ-
ment. Data-driven journalism is capable of creating a ‘bridge’ between technology
developers and journalists in newsrooms, expanding their horizons in the working
practices and processes, leading them to explore new topics more in-depth (Cairo
2016; Hermida and Young 2017).
Automated journalism, also known as robot journalism (Lemelshtrich 2018), is
another emergent practice within an established field of practices that is journalism.
“An example of automated journalism in which a program turns data into a news
narrative, made possible with limited—or even zero—human input” (Carlson 2015:
416). These technologies are being disrupted by companies that are not media orga-
nizations, such as Applied Semantics, Automated Insights, and Narrative Science
(Caswell and Dörr 2017).
Towards Ubiquitous Journalism: Impacts of IoT on News 7

When in March 2014 Los Angeles Times reported a 4.7 magnitude earthquake in
the city three minutes after the rumbling stopped, no one could imagine the news
story was written by a robot. However, the information that had been reported by
nobody, written by nobody and published by nobody, was the news everyone was
reading (Salaverría 2017: 16). Since then, many news organizations around the world
have embraced automated news writing technologies. The system behind these tech-
nologies is the natural language generation (NLG), which involves the automatic
creation of text from digital structured data, a technology that has been developed
and commercialized over the past decade (Carlson 2015). Today, the most obvious
examples of automated journalism are in routine sports and financial news. Several
reasons explain why robotic journalism has not expanded yet to other topics and
to even more complex journalistic writing. One of these reasons is the absence of
appropriate data in those topics, which so far has put up a barrier in the development
of this technology. This limitation might be soon overcome with the advent of IoT
and AI to the news industry (Caswell and Dörr 2017).
Automated journalism’s ability to produce news stories without human mediation
raises questions about the future of journalistic labor (Carlson 2015; Caswell and Dörr
2017). These concerns come from the sensitivity of the ongoing workforce cuts and
layoffs in the media industry. These fears are not new; they date back to the earliest
days of nineteenth-century industrialization, when some people’s jobs began to be
replaced by machines. Today’s situation is a step forward in that same old path: “The
long-running trope of human versus machine is now complicated by developments
in artificial intelligence regarding the mimicking of human storytelling” (Carlson
2015: 424).
One of the leading companies in automated writing technologies, Narrative Sci-
ence, has indicated how its technology will alter journalism. This American company
highlights that the tool will not replace journalists, but it will free them up to pursue
other stories. It claims a new approach to news production, as it enables novel ways
to collect, distribute, and consume news. According to this company, technology is
saving ‘boring’ activities to humans, so that they can focus on more relevant activi-
ties. It is no less true, however, that this dehumanization of news production process
raises questions about who and how will control the news flows in the future.
Considered from the optimistic side, the renewal of news production forms is an
opportunity to scale and personalize news stories. Before the automation, the limited
availability of staff and space in the newspapers caused publishers “to base coverage
decisions on ideas of newsworthiness to attract its desired audience both maximally
and efficiently” (Carlson 2015: 425). Thus, today’s ongoing robotic journalism has
the potential to drastically alter the conditions of news production and consumption.
It may reduce the production costs of a large portion of news reporting, allowing a
constant update of information without current difficulties. It may adapt automatically
the form of this news reporting, based on their response rate by the audience. Finally,
the future of automated news opens the possibility to create multiple customized
versions of the same story for individual users. Even though all these changes might
result in many more stories published but with fewer hits each, the overall web
traffic will surely increase. That model is impossible today due to human labor
8 R. Salaverría and M.-F. de-Lima-Santos

costs. However, besides the impact on labor, there are also other concerns: as the
automatization expands, so will do also the threats of echo-chambers, which limit
the diversity of opinions people are exposed to (Cardenal et al. 2019).
Computational thinking, an ability to think abstractly about the use of language
in parallel of its logical rules and practical language skills (Wing 2006), will be a
necessary skill for journalists working with automated news production. “Journalists
should be able to work with structured events, narratives, and narrative abstractions
without any coding skills, database skills, mathematical skills, or other technical
expertise” (Caswell and Dörr 2017: 492). Off-the-shelf solutions will help journal-
ists who don’t have the skills to develop automated stories without coding skills,
mathematics skills or any other computational expertise. However, learning to code
is essential for journalists to get computational thinking and being able to commu-
nicate and work effectively with other actors involved in news production (Caswell
and Dörr 2017).
Furthermore, the evolution of technology is allowing publishers to create new
forms of multimedia news storytelling. There are already autonomous video pro-
duction systems, which automatically combine and edit texts, pictures, and short
videos through out-of-the-box solutions. “Increased automation is probably essen-
tial to fulfilling journalism’s societal mission and will therefore probably become a
more common aspect of the practice of journalism” (Caswell and Dörr 2017: 493).
The technological affordances provided by IoT and AI are expanding thanks to
new devices, such as drones, wearables and smart speakers. These objects will be
not only tools to access information, but also to provide very detailed audience
data to publishers and advertisers. In brief, technology can alter power relationships
between actors involved in the development of new technologies and innovation in
newsrooms.
The underlying drivers of the technology revolution are defined by an increase in
“processing power, storage capacity, and networking capabilities”, along with “the
digitalization of data and assembly of ‘big data’ repositories” (Castillo and Thierer
2015: 2). As the telephones or radio-cars took some time to be incorporated by
media companies, the same applies to IoT technologies (Mari 2018). These will
happen neither overnight or smoothly, but the early adoption by some newsrooms
will surely make others to catch the pace and strengthen their will to embrace these
communication technologies.
As pointed by Belair-Gagnon et al. (2017: 1235), “historically, innovation in news
production has often occurred outside traditional newsrooms’ settings and, in many
cases, led to the creation of new forms of journalism”, such as photojournalism
and the rise of photojournalism magazines. Today we can observe again that same
process: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), more
commonly known as drones, have become an important case of disruptive journalistic
technology in news organizations. These devices were developed outside newsrooms,
but made their way into established institutions in journalism.
Camera drones first appeared in the news media in 2011, during the riots in
Warsaw, Poland, and thereafter in the event of the Occupy movement (Lauk et al.
2016; Uskali 2018). Since then, drones have shown potential to provide productivity
Towards Ubiquitous Journalism: Impacts of IoT on News 9

gains and cost savings to data gathering in journalism. UAVs extend the surveillance
capabilities of media, giving access and providing tools for new forms of storytelling.
Furthermore, the possibility to have better and more precise visualization without
human risk has led to the gradual incursion of drones in news work. The range of
perspectives and aerial element provided by images produced by UAVs develop new
forms of witnessing news and access remote areas, or places that were inaccessi-
ble by journalists before. The technology has progressed to implement autonomous
algorithmic control of drones, which offers a cost-efficient way to capture images
and data through sensor-based UAV journalism.

2.3 Journalism Every Time, Everywhere and in Every Form

Since the beginning of the Internet age, information has become an easy to find
commodity. Today’s new technologies promise a more real-time, multi-platform
news consumption, accessible to almost everyone and anywhere via Internet live-
streaming (Uskali 2018). This type of panoptic broadcasting is already present in
social networks.
Over the last few years, social media networks, one of the main expressions of
participatory culture (Jenkins et al. 2013), have had a deep influence on the birth of
ubiquitous journalism, bringing new ways of disseminating the news. For instance,
Twitter has become a common tool for journalists around the world to cover breaking
news events. Facebook promotes algorithmic news feeds that suggest personalized
content, according to users’ browsing history. As indicated by Uskali, “ubiquitous
journalism favors the social media platforms that can offer the largest audience, and
right now that is clearly Facebook” (Uskali 2018: 243).
New technological affordances have caused shifts in the ways people consume
news, creating new ways to reach audiences. New devices like smart speakers and
smartwatches are some of the innovations brought to the news industry, which might
be a game changer, especially in live news situations. “The smart speakers offer the
potential to challenge the foundation of radio, turning broadcasts into conversations,
changing the stories people hear and reading individualized streams of information”
(Bullard 2019). Smart speakers can replace or augment the functions of a radio or
phone, powering them with AI. Through voice commands, users can consult their
devices not only about the news but also to play music, find recipes or answer simple
questions. Therefore, voice is pushing the audience’s connected lives to new habits
and leading users to rethink how they interact with technology. The promising future
of smart speakers might influence the whole news industry, transforming voice in a
more dominant interface (Newman 2018).
In the US, in 2018 there was still only 18% of smart speakers’ owners listening
every day to the news and 22% were using these devices to listen to podcasts (Newman
2018). There is a great opportunity for a news organization to boost this technology,
which is still in its infancy. Owners of smart speakers complain about “hearing the
same story told by different outlets in different ways, possibly at different volumes”
10 R. Salaverría and M.-F. de-Lima-Santos

(Bullard 2019). So far, the lack of local content and limited personalization does not
allow to expand audience’s engagement. To overcome this, publishers need to design
news updates that take advantage of smart speakers’ unique assets. The challenge
is to find out what users expect to hear and how it should sound. The possibility of
having a conversation with the listener makes this device more genuine, creating an
interactive environment that allows engaging further audiences. The future might be
answering to topical news questions and provide stories targeted to specific listeners.
With the data provided by searching terms from millions of users flowing in, news
organizations could cater their work to make the content more relevant. Thus, the
“most successful ways of telling stories in an algorithmically curated, the voice-based
news feed will be determined by user data” (Bullard 2019).
Chances are that smart speakers will lead to novel standards in the news production
to capture the diverse range of news, views, and opinions from a wide range of
sources, so that, journalism can develop the critical thinking of the audience. For this
reason, human curation should be a big part of what algorithm is doing to ensure that
the stories aren’t subject to personalization or algorithmic bias. The next step in the
growing evolution of audio news reporting might be the completely synthetic voices,
which news organizations will be using text-to-voice technology to produce their
news bulletins. The relationship between humans and machines will have become
even more valuable to guarantee that the algorithms are performing correctly and
distributing stories properly.
Wearables are a subset of technologies that integrate networked devices into
portable accessories. These applications can be found in watches, clothes, glasses,
just to name a few, and they are the fastest-growing segment of IoT. Even the pos-
sibility of having under-skin devices is envisioned. This wide array of technologies
promises to connect ‘smart devices’ with massive processing power and speedy.
So far, smartwatches are the most popular wearables, allowing a constant and
ubiquitous connectivity. Apple and Samsung, with their respectively Apple Watch
and Samsung Gear, are leading this disruption. Other examples of less advanced
examples are the Jawbone and Fitbit, with allow individuals to measure and share
their daily fitness activity (Castillo and Thierer 2015). These devices are not only
a means to be informed but also data producers, which offer an interesting tool
of information gathering. Wearables lead to an interconnected platform based on a
dominant logic of constant news updating through notifications, which enhances the
capacity to reach users directly. Informative alerts were first implemented by mobile
devices through SMS or MMS. Smartwatches seem to be much more effective in
breaking news situations and also in delivering financial and sports news (Uskali
2018).
The data generated by audiences are also a source of real-time information, which
could be used for media organizations. To some extent, users could become into
involuntary reporters, providing data about events they are part of or, for instance,
submitting data about meteorological conditions (Castillo and Thierer 2015; Silva-
Rodríguez et al. 2017).
This post-mobile wave of technologies also creates new ways to engage and
generate empathy with the audience. The immersive journalism is a result of the
Towards Ubiquitous Journalism: Impacts of IoT on News 11

novel capabilities made possible through the deep progress in the fields of video.
These technological innovations got extremely popular in 2016 with virtual reality
(VR) and augmented reality (AR) (Nordrum 2016). The immersive journalism is a
form of news storytelling where the audience can gain a first-person experience of
events (Mabrook and Singer 2019).
Currently, the immersive experience can happen in two different ways. The first
one is ‘virtual reality’, a term coined in the 1980s by Jaron Lanier, a musicologist and
engineer. VR is awaiting to form the next wave of digitally-driven transformation of
the economy, culture, and society. This technology creates immersive atmospheres
that can be alike to or radically different from the real world (Terdiman 2018), which
have as central elements the immersion and interactivity. 360-degree video, also
known as immersive video, “enables users to look in every direction, thus placing
them ‘inside’ an environment” (Mabrook and Singer 2019). Usually shot by using an
omnidirectional camera or a collection of cameras, these videos can be engaging and
even emotionally impactful, but they are essentially just a new form of filmmaking
(Hassan 2019; Mabrook and Singer 2019).
The second type of immersive journalism is brought by augmented reality. AR is
an evolution built on the “transformation that photography as a media of storytelling
brought to journalism in the 19th century” (Hassan 2019: 2). Overlapping the virtual
world with the real world, the AR promises to capture attention and empathy con-
ducting through a semi-real world, the viewer ‘augments’ the space from physical
reality. “Duty of the journalist is to bring the far to the near” (Hassan 2019: 15). Thus,
technology has this function and helps journalism to bring a ‘reality’ or a ‘story’ that
people wouldn’t have access to it.
Beyond VR and AR, there are other emergent technologies that promise immersive
experiences. One of them is the autonomous car, which will be a networked vehicle
connected to wireless communication and dynamic programming. This will turn
drivers into passengers, freeing them up to do other tasks. Just as the appearance
of the car as a means of transportation changed the habits of citizens and served to
popularize the radio, these smart cars might change again the way we consume news.
The possibility of being transported by a self-driven car may produce significant shifts
in the way current drivers spend their time, allowing them to do other things, such
as consuming news with no need of paying attention to the traffic. The same might
happen to automated drones, which might employ similar networked concepts to
automate aerial operations. Thus, news organizations may increase their productivity
and gain cost savings to gather data and produce news stories (Castillo and Thierer
2015).
It’s not yet clear how these technologies will cohabit with each other. But there’s
no doubt about the disruption of novel technologies will create new possibilities and
challenges for journalism.
12 R. Salaverría and M.-F. de-Lima-Santos

3 The Advent of Ubiquitous Journalism

All these technological transformations are driving journalism towards a new ubiqui-
tous paradigm. This is an emerging form of journalism, characterized by an expansion
in the modes of production and consumption of information, thanks to the intensive
use of algorithmic systems and the personalized distribution of content, in all types
of digital devices. These technologies are taking journalism to another dimension:
first came media digitalization, then participatory journalism and now, finally, comes
news robotization. It is a model of journalism that transcends the boundaries of the
classic news media outlets—press, radio, television, Internet—to convert, at least
potentially, any digital device into a media platform.
According to what it has been explained in the previous pages, ubiquitous jour-
nalism can be defined as the type of journalism that, thanks to the intensive use of
algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence, disseminates news in multiple digital
devices produced by journalists, users and robots, so that it is consumed anywhere
and anytime by the public, through a constant flow of personalized and multisensory
information. As this definition points out, ubiquitous journalism is characterized by
five main features:
(1) expanded news production, with content elaborated by three types of sources:
journalists, users, and robots;
(2) multi-device access to information, through every kind of visual, sound, and
haptic (Parisi et al. 2017) interfaces;
(3) constant flow of information, without restrictions of time or space;
(4) personalized distribution of information through artificial intelligence systems,
capable of targeting specific content to each user, based on their personal
preferences and digital history;
(5) immersive news storytelling, with expanded multimedia content targeted to
multiple corporal senses.
These five elements have been explored separately in recent years by some media
companies, usually the most advanced. The great novelty now is that the five ele-
ments can be combined all together, multiplying their impact and opening unknown
possibilities for the news media.
These developments are full of opportunities, but also threats, for journalism. Con-
tinuing the path that the media industry undertook in the 1990s, when it launched the
first web publications, now it can take a step forward in the exploration of innova-
tive ways of presenting news and interacting with the public. Locative technologies
(Goggin et al. 2015) and the processing of large volumes of data through algorith-
mic systems will open spectacular possibilities to the media for the dissemination of
personalized news, aimed at any physical environment, device or user profile.
These are, without a doubt, opportunities that journalism must explore. However,
at the same time, these technologies are an undeniable menace to people’s privacy
and even to their right to be fairly informed, as these technologies may distribute news
contents according to hidden commercial and/or ideological interests. Transferring
Towards Ubiquitous Journalism: Impacts of IoT on News 13

from journalists to machines not only the capacity to produce news, but also to rank
and distribute them among specific audiences is a phenomenon in which long-term
impact we are far to envision yet. The news agenda, more and more personalized,
will be largely determined by the robots. The liquid element called information that
surround us and where we live may no longer be controlled by journalists.

Acknowledgements This chapter has been funded by two research projects: JOLT—Harnessing
Data and Technology for Journalism (H2020—MSCA-ITN-2017; grant number: 765140), and
DIGINATIVEMEDIA - Digital Native News Media in Spain: Characterisation and Trends (Spanish
Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities; grant number: RTI2018-093346-B-C31).

References

Bauman Z (2000) Liquid modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge

Belair-Gagnon V, Owen T, Holton AE (2017) Unmanned aerial vehicles and journalistic disruption.
Digit J 5(10):1226–1239
Bogart L (1972) The age of television: a study of viewing habits and the impact of television on
American life. Ungar Publishing Company, New York
Bullard G (2019) Smart speaker use is growing. Will news grow with it? Nieman reports. Retrieved
13 May 2019, from https://niemanreports.org/articles/reimagining-audio-news/
Cairo A (2016) The functional art. New Riders Publishing, Berkeley
Cardenal AS, Aguilar-Paredes C, Cristancho C, Majó-Vázquez S (2019) Echo-chambers in online
news consumption: evidence from survey and navigation data in Spain. Eur J Commun (Online
first, 23 Apr)
Carlson M (2015) The robotic reporter: automated journalism and the redefinition of labor,
compositional forms, and journalistic authority. Digit J 3(3):416–431
Castillo A, Thierer AD (2015) Projecting the growth and economic impact of the internet of things.
Mercatus Center
Caswell D, Dörr K (2017) Automated journalism 2.0: event-driven narratives. J Pract 12(4):477–496
Coddington M (2015) Clarifying journalism’s quantitative turn. Digit J 3(3):331–348
Cox M (2000) The development of computer-assisted reporting. Newspaper division. Assoc Educ
J Mass Commun SE Colloquium 2030(305):22
Cunningham SD, Turnbull S (2014) The media and communications in Australia, 4th edn. Allen &
Unwin, Sydney
Deuze M (2008) The changing context of news work: Liquid journalism for a monitorial citizenry.
Int J Commun 2(18):848–865
Dörr KN (2016) Mapping the field of algorithmic journalism. Digit J 5(8):1044–1059
Goggin G, Martin F, Dwyer T (2015) Locative news: mobile media, place informatics, and digital
news. J Stud 16(1):41–59
Gossage HL (1967) You can see why the mighty would be curious. In: Stearn GE (ed) McLuhan,
hot & cool; a primer for the understanding of & a critical symposium with a rebuttal by McLuhan.
The Dial Press, New York, pp 15–34
Greengard S (2015) The internet of things. MIT Press, Cambridge
Hassan R (2019) Digitality, virtual reality and the ‘Empathy Machine’. Digit J (Online first, 2 Jan)
Hermida A, Young ML (2017) Finding the data unicorn. Digit J 5(2):159–176
Jenkins H, Ford S, Green J (2013) Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a networked
culture. New York University Press, New York
14 R. Salaverría and M.-F. de-Lima-Santos

Lauk E, Uskali T, Kuutti H, Hirvinen H (2016) Drone journalism: the newest global test of press
freedom. In: Carlson U (ed) Freedom of expression and media in transition: studies and reflections
in the digital age. Nordicom, Gothemburg, pp 117–125
Lemelshtrich LN (2018) Robot journalism: can human journalism survive?. World Scientific
Publishing, New Jersey
Lewis SC, Guzman AL, Schmidt TR (2019) Automation, journalism, and human–machine com-
munication: rethinking roles and relationships of humans and machines in news. Digit J (Online
first, 23 Apr)
Lozano Bartolozzi P (1974) El ecosistema informativo. Introducción al estudio de las noticias
internacionales. EUNSA, Pamplona
Meyer P (1973) Precision journalism: a reporter’s introduction to social science methods. Indiana
University Press, Bloomington
Mabrook R, Singer JB (2019) Virtual reality, 360° video, and journalism studies: conceptual
approaches to immersive technologies. J Stud (Online first, 17 Jan)
Mari W (2018) Technology in the newsroom. J Stud 19(9):1366–1389
Martínez-Costa MP, Salaverría R, Breiner J (2019) El ecosistema que viene. In: López García X,
Toural-Bran C (eds) Ecosistema de cibermedios en España. Tipologías, iniciativas, tendencias
narrativas y desafíos. Comunicación Social, Salamanca, pp 225–240
Newman N (2017) Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2017. Oxford Reuters
Institute for the Study of Journalism
Newman N (2018) The future of voice and the implications for news. Oxford Reuters Institute for
the Study of Journalism
Nordrum A (2016) The fuzzy future of virtual reality and augmented reality. IEEE Spectrum, New
York
Parisi D, Paterson M, Archer JE (2017) Haptic media studies. New Media Soc 19(10):1513–1522
Pavlik JV (2014) Ubiquidade: O 7º princípio do jornalismo na era digital. In: Canavilhas J (Org)
Webjornalismo: 7 caraterísticas que marcam a diferença. Livros LabCom, Covilhã, pp 159–183
Pew Research Center (2014) The internet of things will thrive by 2025. Retrieved from http://www.
pewinternet.org/2014/05/14/internet-of-things/
Salaverría R, Sádaba C (2003) Towards new media paradigms: content, producers, organisations
and audiences. Ediciones Eunate, Pamplona
Salaverría R (2017) Allá donde estés, habrá noticias. Cuad de Periodistas 35:15–22
Silva-Rodríguez A, López-García X, Toural-Bran C (2017) iWatch: the intense flow of microformats
of “glance journalism” that feed six of the main online media. Rev Lat de Comunicación Soc
72:186–196
Shenk D (1997) Data smog. Surviving the info glut. Technol Rev 100(4)
Terdiman D (2018) Why 2018 will be the year of VR 2.0. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.
com/40503648/why-2018-will-be-the-year-of-vr-2-0
Uskali T (2018) Towards journalism everywhere. In: Daubs MS, Manzerolle VR (eds) Mobile and
ubiquitous media: critical and international perspectives. Peter Lang, New York, pp 237–247
Veglis A, Maniou TA (2019) Chatbots on the rise: a new narrative in journalism. Stud Media
Commun 7(1):1–6
Wing JM (2006) Computational thinking. Commun ACM 49(3):33

Ramón Salaverría Ph.D. and associate dean of research at the School of Communication, Uni-
versity of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain), where he heads the Digital News Media Research Group.
Being author of over 200 scholar publications, his research focuses on digital journalism and
media convergence, both in national and international comparative studies. His most recent book is
Ciberperiodismo en Iberoamérica [Digital journalism in Ibero-America] (2016), a comprehensive
analysis of the evolution of digital media in 22 Latin America countries, Spain, and Portugal.
Towards Ubiquitous Journalism: Impacts of IoT on News 15

Mathias-Felipe de-Lima-Santos Ph.D. Candidate on Branding Data Journalism at the Univer-

sity of Navarra under JOLT project, a Marie-Skłodowska-Curie European Training Network. In
early 2018, he was visiting researcher at DMRC of Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
He completed the EU-funded master’s qualification Digital Communication Leadership offered by
University of Salzburg and Aalborg University. His research interests lie in the ongoing changes to
journalistic practice, with a particular focus on business models, digitalization, big data and data
visualization.
From Data Journalism to Robotic
Journalism: The Automation of News
Processing

José Miguel Túñez-López, Carlos Toural-Bran

and Ana Gabriela Frazão-Nogueira

Abstract The 21st century is a reaffirmation of automation and through big data
and data journalism begins to speak of the ‘robot journalism’, the ‘automated jour-
nalism’ and the weight of ‘cognitive journalism’. This article refers to how Artificial
Intelligence (AI) is beginning to occupy a field traditionally dominated by the human
factor in the management of information relations between organizations, the media
and society by the application of data mining to generate algorithms that make it pos-
sible to automate the management and derive it to the work of bots in the elaboration
of news. It also addresses how the journalistic profession lives apparently oblivious
to the robotization of the newsrooms, although the origin of mass automation dates
back to 2014 when Associated Press with Automated Insights and Zacks Investment
Research generated 3000 news about ‘corporate profits’.

Keywords Algorithm · Robot journalism · Automated journalism · Artificial

intelligence

1 From the Algorithm to Analyze to the Algorithm to Write

The news written automatically could win the Pulitzer in a few years. The irony of
Lindén (2017) and Levy (2012) is also a prediction of the growing impact of the
algorithmic generation of informative content that is transferred to the audience as
content of the media agendas. The interest for the contents elaborated by machines is
a recurrent theme in the present, but in reality it corresponds with a way of producing
news that began at least half a century ago with meteorological information, included
in the weather section (Meehan 1977; Glahn 1970) and, already in the final years of

J. M. Túñez-López (B) · C. Toural-Bran

Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
C. Toural-Bran
e-mail: [email protected]
A. G. Frazão-Nogueira
Universidade Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 17
J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_2
18 J. M. Túñez-López et al.

the 20th century, in some of the topics that achieved space in the pages of economics
or sports (Meehan 1977).
Is then in the last decade of the 20th century that could be located the beginning
of the change of trend or the start of the real takeoff of the automation of news,
with the resource to generate financial software, data, and news content that some
companies, like Bloomerang LP, start to offer to a portfolio of clients that includes
some news agencies and media as representative as Thomson Reuters or The New
York Financial Press (Winkler 2014).
By following the trail of the irruption of computers in the creation of informative
content, the path traced goes beyond the computerization of the newsrooms. Some
authors link the origin of the automated generation of news to data journalism and,
as in the case of Gynnild (2014), even point Philip Meyer as a pioneer.
The starting point is in the computer-assisted reports (CAR) that are identified
as the launch for what later would be known as ‘precision journalism’, defined
by Meyer himself as the application of social and behavior research methods to the
exercise of journalism through a deep exploration of databases, surveys, and a general
combination of informatics and social sciences (Meyer 1975).
Already in the first years of the 21st century two initiatives are identified that
could be considered pioneers in the visualization of data as news. On the one hand,
the Chicago Crime—Google map mashup, launched in 2005, and, on the other hand,
crime information in real time by Los Angeles Times. Both represent a step forward
that turns the visualization into news and that is reinforced when this same newspaper,
Los Angeles Times, resorts shortly after, in 2007, to Quakebot, an algorithm that uses
data from the US Geological Survey to prepare information from a previous template.
This experience goes one step further and not only computerizes the news, but
also automates that the news written by the robot is already published directly, if
the earthquake is less than magnitude 6. There is a coincidence, however, in con-
sidering that the origin of mass automation is initiated by Associated Press with
Automated Insights and Zacks Investment Research, in 2014, to generate 3000 news
on ‘corporate profits’.
In this synthesis of changes there is an important transformation. It is not just
about the process’ informatization, but the scope of that computerization to the
phases of the process that had not been affected before. It is the step of the algorithm
to analyze to the algorithm to write in a constant evolution of change that, in this
case, has been favored by the progression of Web 2.0 to 3.0, characterized by the
appearance and consolidation of the web semantic and by the application of Artificial
Intelligence for the storage and processing of data that facilitate the passage from
data journalism to computer journalism. “Computational journalism works primarily
through the abstraction of information to produce computable models, while data
journalism works primarily through the analysis of data together to produce data-
oriented stories” (Stavelin 2014).
From Data Journalism to Robotic Journalism … 19

2 Journalism and Big Data

Carlson (2014, referencing Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier 2013) influences this dif-
ferentiation by ensuring that the automated generation of news comes to be the result
of the intersection between journalism and big data. In his opinion, computers can
be used for information retrieval and data mining processes can be used to discover
new knowledge of structured and unstructured random data silos (Wölker and Powell
2018) and allows, in addition, to complete the process, introducing interactivity with
consumers (Flew et al. 2012).
The robotization of newsmaking has been a constant since the computerization of
the newsrooms began. The change of the typewriters by computer and the replace-
ment of news reception systems by journalist computer reception systems were cel-
ebrated as a technological advancement that improved the process of construction
of the agenda but opened the way for the redefinition of professional profiles that
participate in the news production process, both in the planning, connection, layout,
printing and product distribution parts.
The change has been progressive and continuous, but it has been done in a way that
always seemed to affect the mode of information production but not the production
of content directly and, even today, journalists do not have a clear perception that
they already share time or space of informative emission of the contents that they
elaborate and those that are obtained from automatic way through algorithms.
A recent study based on interviews with 366 Spanish journalists confirms that
among professionals of journalism there is still no clear awareness that the generation
of news through algorithms has ceased to be a possibility to be a reality and is “even
unknown that some international media and agencies have already replaced their
editors with computer applications to produce content that they transmit to their
audiences” (Túñez-López et al. 2018: 756).
Evidently, the 20th century has marked an increase in the speed of transformation
as its decades advanced. At the turn of the 21st century one can already speak of
a reaffirmation of automation and, as seen, through big data and data journalism,
it was possible to start talking about the robot journalism, automated journalism or
cognitive journalism.

3 New Productive Routines

Artificial Intelligence began by changing the routines of the journalist by automating

some of the functions of search, classification or processing of information and has
begun to install itself already in its functions by also covering the tasks of news
writing. The use of bots to generate text “is the pinnacle of a process of decades of
automation in newsrooms” (Lindén 2017) that began at the end of the “80s of the
20th century” (Túñez-López et al. 2018: 751).
20 J. M. Túñez-López et al.

The result is what has been labeled as automated journalism, which has been
defined as “algorithmic processes that convert data into informative narrative texts
with limited or no human intervention beyond the initial program” (Carlson 2014:
417) or as the “process of using software or algorithms to automatically generate news
without human intervention, after the initial programming of the algorithm” (Graefe
2016) interrelating “the fields of informatics, social sciences and communications”
(Flew et al. 2012: 157).
Other authors have chosen to refer to it as algorithmic journalism (Dörr 2016)
and robot journalism (Oremus 2015), but always identifying it as a technological
solution to produce news or other journalistic tasks such as reports, therapeutic or
even analysis and visualization of data (Carlson 2014; Gao et al. 2014; Young and
Hermida 2015; Shearer et al. 2014; Broussard 2015).
Independently of its denomination, the elaboration of news through computer pro-
grams that give autonomy of data interpretation and writing of texts to the computers
can be carried out through the identification of repeated writing routines that can
be identified and codified because it is based on the simulation of natural language
through software that allows the robotic creation of informative texts elaborated by
computer, but with identical characteristics to another elaborated by a human.
The creation of algorithms and programs that allow writing with increasingly
autonomous machines has been a constant in technological development because,
as pointed out by Rivera-Estrada and Sánchez-Salazar (2016), for humans to endow
them with autonomy has represented a dream that the Artificial Intelligence is per-
forming in an increasingly visible way since its application in online environments
affect the daily life of citizens to the extent that they produce and help to shape their
referent of reality through the news that receive.

4 Bots and Algorithms in the Newsrooms

In a simple definition, Artificial Intelligence is oriented to emulate (imitate or repeat)

intelligent behavior, but it does so through computational processes (Córdoba-
Guardado 2007). Its irruption in the environments of mass media content, or in a
more generic way, in communication, coincides with the rise of a new environment,
the result of universalization and massive access to the internet, which multiplies the
possibility of obtaining and disseminating data that, at the same time, can be treated
massively through computer systems.
The internet has forced a restructuring of the media, has changed its methods
of financing itself and producing content, has transformed the way of relating to
audiences and has allowed new platforms to appear, the online media, in which one
works with hypertextuality, interactivity, and multimedia. That is, it has upset the
profile of journalism and expanded the operative functions of journalism. Parallel
to the changes in products and support, the current phase is characterized by the
technological development that goes into the creation of contents and the writing of
news based on algorithms to be generated by computer.
From Data Journalism to Robotic Journalism … 21

Expressed in a metaphorical way, this step forward converts the algorithms into
the new journalists. Defined as a finite series of specific descriptive norms, algorithms
are the step-by-step abstraction of a procedure that takes an input and produces a
result to achieve a defined product (Diakopoulos 2014).
Applied to journalism or to the generation of informative texts to disseminate
in any medium and not only in the media, Anderson (2011) and Carlson (2014)
explain how algorithmic formulations can prioritize, classify and filter information
and even be applied as metrics of audience’s analysis to determine topics to cover
and, according to the information obtained or provided in databases, to write stories.
The use of algorithms allows, then, machines to become programmable and
autonomous generators of textual journalistic products, graphic or infographics, from
data. As Graefe (2016: 5) points out:
once the algorithm is developed, it automates every step of the news production process,
from the collection and analysis of data, to the creation and publication of these. […] In
this context, algorithms can create large-scale content, personalizing it to the needs of an
individual reader, faster, cheaper and potentially with fewer errors than any human journalist.

One of the important differences is that automated journalism does not work
directly on the reality defined by facts, but on a reality encoded mainly in data on
which the algorithms act. It is an important nuance because it allows deriving interest
to four aspects:
(i) the ability of the AI to replace the cognitive part of the journalistic work and
code it algorithmically;
(ii) the process of preparing the databases;
(iii) the rules of construction of the algorithm;
(iv) the robots involvement in the possible generation of false stories.
Attention and social debate are surely centered on the current perverse use of
automation to appropriate all the symbols of news and their codes and channels of
dissemination to introduce into the public sphere fake information. Without entering
into the debate that the fake news can not be considered news, because the news
reflects a true story without previous intentionality or conscious of cheating, this
analysis focuses on the computerization of the production of real news. That is, tasks
performed by machines to be incorporated into the informative story as a part of the
narrative of current references, transmitted by the media.
The use of computers, bots and/or algorithms to produce news content is an
alternation of the newsmaking process that opens a new path of attention because it
is no longer just a matter of debating the convenience or suitability of replacing the
individual with the machine and the possibility to automate the ability to analyze,
interpret and narrate. The robotization of newsmaking generates the story about data
not about the fact itself and this forces to guide towards the creation of new spheres
of control over the information that is published.
In fact, voices have already been raised that consider it necessary to thoroughly
review the ethical, moral and operative considerations of computer-generated news
because Artificial Intelligence tends to concentrate more power in the hands of those
22 J. M. Túñez-López et al.

who are already powerful “as we have already seen in Google, Facebook and Twitter”
(Lindén 2017: 73).
The replacement of journalist by robots to generate news is a hot topic in academic
research, especially since the beginning of this decade from the work of Powers
(2012) and Karlsen and Stavelin (2013) on the impact in journalism of advances in
technology, or the contributions of Flew et al. (2012), on the use of computers as
tools to increase interactivity with consumers.
There are relevant publications on the application of Artificial Intelligence to
the elaboration of news such as Kim et al. (2007), Matsumoto et al. (2007), Van
Dalen (2012), Clerwall (2014), Edge (2014), Karlsen and Stavelin (2014), Latar
(2014), Napoli (2012), Stavelin (2014), Carlson (2014), Oremus (2015), Lecompte
(2015), Dörr (2016), Graefe (2016), Fanta (2017), Hansen et al (2017), Lindén (2017),
Marconi and Siegman (2017), Usher (2017), Salazar (2018) and, among others,
Wölker and Powell (2018) reflecting a growing interest in scientific research for the
robotic development of news stories.

5 Investigations on AI and Journalism

For a rigorous study of the informative automation it is necessary to stand out, among
them, the investigations that, at the time, were novel for providing concrete cases of
robotization. Thus, Graefe (2016) and Dörr (2016) identify media in which automated
news were already being used, the Fanta (2017) report refers to the use of computer
generated news in the European news agencies and Renó and Renó (2017) contribute
on the use of algorithms to generate stories in media and agencies.
The contributions of Clerwall (2014), which analyzed the differences in the per-
ceived quality of 46 Swedish students in two versions of an article about a game of
American football with human and robotized authorship, establishing a comparison
whose results demonstrated that, for the public, there were no important differences
between both texts. Graefe et al. (2016) take up the case to try to answer the reasons
for the results obtained.
Reports such as the Digital News Report 2017 of the Reuters Institute and the
University of Oxford reinforce the idea that there are no clear preferences of the
public among the contents elaborated by machines or by humans, and they even opt
slightly towards the news selected by algorithms. According to the data of this report,
in general, 54% opted for automated selection compared to 44% opting for the one
made by humans. When the data are revised by age, among those under 35 years of
age, the preference for the information proposal made by a robot increased to 64%.
Other studies that focus on issues such as opportunities and challenges of jour-
nalism on accountability centered on algorithms (Diakopoulos 2014); the public’s
perception of informational texts produced through Artificial Intelligence (Graefe
2016); on the benefits of personalizing local information thanks to structured data
(Lecompte 2015); on the response of the media to the automation of content (Lindén
2017) and even research in the educational field such as the analysis of Slater and
From Data Journalism to Robotic Journalism … 23

Rouner (2002) on the response of groups of people of different levels and ages to
texts made by journalists and robots.
Other investigations are oriented to know what is the perception that professionals
have of the information of algorithmic inspiration in the newsrooms. Van Dalen
(2012) analyzed the reactions of journalists to the launch of StatSheet, a network
of sports websites written by machines; Carlson (2014) examined how journalists
wrote about the text generation software published by Narrative Science; Young and
Hermida (2015) examined the appearance of news about computer crimes in Los
Angeles Times and Thurman et al. (2017), interviewing ten journalists from media
such as CNN, BBC or Thomson Reuters to get their impressions on various articles
that had been generated in an automated way. Túñez-López et al. (2018) studied the
degree of knowledge of the penetration of robotization and the attitude of Spanish
journalists.
The results are convergent in their description, although the computerization of
the generation of news generates conflicting reactions. Critics with the use of bots
suggest that algorithmic journalism could represent the “most unsettling model, both
for communication and for democracy” (Anderson 2011: 541), a challenge to the
authority of traditional journalists (Usher 2017).
Those who question the robotization of newsrooms argue that the use of algorithms
to create news is a disruption with the idea of what is journalism not only because
the bots can not ask questions, determine causality or form opinions, but because
they may be inadequate to fulfill the function of ‘guardian dog’ (Strömbäck 2005)
since it is not possible to think of algorithms that become “guardians of democracy
and human rights” (Latar 2015: 79). They also say that robotization will have a
negative impact on employment, because it will mean the elimination of jobs, and
in the content, since it can mean that the media pass to emit or publish insipid and
repetitive news.
However, in general, most studies agree that, as Carlson (2014: 418) points out,
journalists react to technological innovation “in a complex way, from fear (…) to
reinvention”. The most optimistic argue that, with the algorithms, the content will
be more attractive and the news written by computer “could potentially increase the
quality and objectivity of the news coverage” (Graefe et al. 2016: 597) or defend
that the automation allows the content to be produced faster, in multiple languages,
in greater numbers and possibly with fewer errors and biases.
Clerwall (2014) adds that robotization is perceived as a form of collaboration with
the human journalist or a distribution of the workload since it frees that professional
from tasks. In this same direction, Flew et al. (2012) explains that when the machine
frees the journalist from the work of obtaining the data, allows him to focus on the
verification of news, on counteracting ‘false news’ (Graefe et al. 2016) or on making
exhaustive or investigative reports while routine tasks are covered with algorithms.
Economic reasons are also indicated because they would allow the media to offer a
wide range of stories at a minimal cost (Van Dalen 2012) and reasons of opportunity:
“if journalism must be cyborg, robots must be part of the panoply of professionals;
machines that help them increase the power and scope of their journalism, and not
rivals that endanger their jobs” (Cervera 2017: 108–109).
24 J. M. Túñez-López et al.

Other research works, such as those by Chu et al. (2010), Tavares and Faisal (2013),
Dickerson et al. (2014) or Ferrara et al. (2016), have been oriented to review the use
of robots in social networks, especially, in the extraction of characteristics such as
temporal activity, network structure and user sentiment to develop automatic learn-
ing classifiers that allow detecting the robotic management of the profiles. Keeney
(2015) focuses on analyzing how hyper-targeting social network users can track their
fingerprints to suit their preferences.
Defined as ‘automated social actors’ the bots in networks are oriented to simulate
human behavior (Lokot and Diakopoulos 2016) in the management of content and
interactions (Hwang et al. 2012: 40) and to spread positive content or expand fakes
and generate unwanted relationships (spam). More than generating news, they are
therefore oriented to participate in the dissemination on social platforms (Lokot and
Diakopoulos 2016), to retransmit or to add web content (Mittal and Kumaraguru
2014; Starbird et al. 2010) and to identify events of journalistic interest for its later
diffusion (Steiner 2014) since the algorithms can be adjusted to the personalized
behaviors of the people to attend the informative needs of reduced targets, at low
cost (Cohen et al. 2011).
As noted by Túñez-López et al. (2018), despite the fact that communication flows
with audiences are changing and the strengthening of social networks as a new
support for transmission and meeting with the public, a new way of symmetrical
bidirectional relationship is created, journalists still do not foresee Artificial Intelli-
gence and the automation of contents as an element of transformation or revitalization
in the relations of the informants, or the media and with audiences.
Only one in ten journalists considers that the AI will allow a more personalized relationship
with the public, following the same line as the personalization of content that is identified
as a differentiating element of the new ways of understanding marketing and organizations’
communication managment in this second decade of the 21st century. (Tuñez-López et al.
2018: 756)

Túñez-López, Toural-Bran and Cacheiro-Requeijo synthesized, in 2018, this

panorama on a world map of media and companies that use, in a significant way,
the automated elaboration of news that is publicly transmitted to which sixteen
journalistic media incorporate, thirteen news agencies and 21 companies, mainly
from North America, Europe, China and Japan. They also point out that the highest
concentrations are in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom.
In the review of scientific literature, no significant research on the automation of
news in Spain has been found, in addition to the contributions of Tuñez-López et al.
(2018) and Salazar (2018). Fanta (2017) refers in its study of European agencies that
Efe Agency has not yet considered its use, although it points out that some of its
delegations do work with small systems of automated data processing.
It was also identified pioneering experiences such as Vocento’s when creating
service information about beaches or ski resorts, in a project to automate the updating
of contents called Medusa; or companies such as Narrativa, that is among the pioneers
in the preparation of reports on sports theme in real time for the editorial field and
which is already materialized in initiatives such as the newspaper Sport to inform
the narration of football matches of the Second Division B.
From Data Journalism to Robotic Journalism … 25

6 The Future: Singling Out the Journalist’s Contributions

Artificial Intelligence experts recognize that the challenge is to move from machines
programmed to act, to machines with the ability to decide how to act on each occasion:
robots with autonomy and ability to think and program their reactions. The exit
of the future that is aimed in journalism has not to do with the standardization
of texts and texts generated by the machines but to reinforce the contribution of
human intervention to the generation of identifiable value in the text through the
singularization of proposals or approaches.
That is to say, to reinforce the weight of the cognitive part in the participation
of the journalist in the process of construction of the informative agenda, which
would suppose a posture that flees from agendas programs, opposing the personal
singularization of the informative proposals. Or what is the same, try to dodge the
algorithm emphasizing the intellectual component that converts the generation of
news in a process away from repetitive mechanical decisions (productive routines)
and texts written fleeing clichés, to differentiate them from the repetitive wording in
structures and in terminology that currently characterizes the texts produced by the
machines.

Acknowledgements This text has been prepared within the framework of New values, gover-
nance, funding and public media services for the Internet society: European and Spanish con-
trasts (RTI2018-096065-B-I00) project, of Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, co-
financed by FEDER; and within the framework of Digital native media in Spain: storytelling
formats and mobile strategy (RTI2018-093346-B-C33) project, of Ministry of Science, Innovation
and Universities, co-financed by the ERDF.

References

Anderson CW (2011) Notes towards an analysis of computational journalism. HIIG discussion

paper series 2012(1), pp 1–25
Broussard M (2015) Artificial intelligence for investigative reporting: using an expert system to
enhance journalists’ ability to discover original public affairs stories. Digit J 3(6):814–831. https://
doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2014.985497
Carlson M (2014) The robotic reporter: automated journalism and the redefinition of labor, composi-
tional forms, and journalistic authority. Digit J 3(3):416–431. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.
2014.976412
Cervera J (2017) El futuro del periodismo es cyborg. Cuadernos de periodistas: revista de la Aso-
ciación de la Prensa de Madrid 34:102–109. Retrieved from http://www.cuadernosdeperiodistas.
com/futuro-del-periodismo-ciborg
Chu Z, Gianvecchio S, Wang H, Jajodia S (2010) Who is tweeting on Twitter: human, bot, or
cyborg?. In: Proceedings of the 26th annual computer security applications conference, Austin,
Texas, 6–10 Dec. https://doi.org/10.1145/1920261.1920265
Clerwall C (2014) Enter the robot journalist. J Pract 8(5):519–531. https://doi.org/10.1080/
17512786.2014.883116
Cohen S, Hamilton JT, Turner F (2011) Computational journalism. Commun ACM 54(10):66–71.
https://doi.org/10.1145/2001269.2001288
26 J. M. Túñez-López et al.

Córdoba-Guardado, S (2007) La representación del cuerpo futuro (Ph.D. dissertation). Universidad

Complutense de Madrid. Retrieved from https://eprints.ucm.es/7536/1/T29917.pdf
Diakopoulos N (2014) Algorithmic accountability. Digit J 3(3):398–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/
21670811.2014.976411
Dickerson JP, Kagan V, Subrahmanian VS (2014) Using sentiment to detect bots on twitter: are
humans more opinionated than bots? In: Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE/ACM international con-
ference on advances in social networks analysis and mining, pp 620–627. https://doi.org/10.1109/
asonam.2014.6921650
Dörr K (2016) Mapping the field of algorithmic journalism. Digit J 4(6):700–722. https://doi.org/
10.1080/21670811.2015.1096748
Edge A (2014) Ophan: key metrics informing editorial at The Guardian. Retrieved from
https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-ophan-offers -bespoke-data-to-inform-content-at-the-
guardian/s2/a563349
Fanta A (2017) Putting Europe’s robots on the map: automated journalism in news agencies. In:
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Oxford. Retrieved from https://reutersinstitute.
politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2017-09/Fanta%2C%20Putting%20Europe%E2%80%99s%
20Robots%20on%20the%20Map.pdf
Ferrara E, Varol O, Davis C et al (2016) The rise of social bots. Commun ACM 59(7):96–104.
https://doi.org/10.1145/2818717
Flew T, Christina Spurgeon AD, Swift A (2012) The promise of computational journalism. J Pract
6(2):157–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2011.616655
Gao T, Hullman JR, Adar E et al (2014) Newsviews: an automated pipeline for creating custom
geovisualizations for news. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in
computing systems, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 26–May 1. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.
2557228
Glahn HR (1970) Computer worded forecasts. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 51(12):1126–1132.
Retrieved from https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477%281970%29051%
3C1126%3ACPWF%3E2.0.CO%3B2
Graefe A (2016) Guide to automated journalism. Retrieved from https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_
reports/guide_to_automated_journalism.php
Graefe A, Haim M, Haarmann B et al (2016) Readers’ perception of computer-generated
news: credibility, expertise, and readability. Journalism 19(5):595–610. https://doi.org/10.1177/
1464884916641269
Gynnild A (2014) Journalism innovation leads to innovation journalism: the impact of compu-
tational exploration on changing mindsets. Journalism 15(6):713–730. https://doi.org/10.1177/
1464884913486393
Hansen M, Roca-Sales M, Keegan J et al (2017) Artificial Intelligence: Practice and Implications
for Journalism. Brown Institute for media innovation and the tow center for digital journalism.
Columbia Journalism School. https://doi.org/10.7916/d8x92prd
Hwang T, Pearce I, Nanis M (2012) Socialbots: voices from the fronts. Interactions 19(2):38–45.
https://doi.org/10.1145/2090150.2090161
Karlsen J, Stavelin E (2013) Computational journalism in norwegian newsrooms. J Pract 8(1):34–48.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2013.813190
Keeney M (2015) Future cast: will robots replace journalists like toll collectors? Publicity Club
of New England. Retrieved from https://www.pubclub.org/837/future-cast-will-robots-replace-
journalists-like-toll-collectors
Kim J, Lee K, Kim Y, Kuppuswamy NS, Jo J (2007) Ubiquitous robot: a new paradigm for integrated
services. In: 2007 IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, pp 2853–2858
Latar NL (2014) Robot journalists: ‘Quakebot’ is just the beginning. Knowledge@Wharton, Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. Retrieved from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/will-robot-
journalists-replace-humanl-ones
Latar NL (2015) The robot journalist in the age of social physics: the end of human Journalism? In:
Einav G (ed) The new world of transitioned media: the economics of information, communication,
From Data Journalism to Robotic Journalism … 27

and entertainment: the impacts of digital technology in the 21st century. Springer International
Publishing, Switzerland, pp 65–80. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09009-2_6
Lecompte C (2015) Automation in the newsroom. Nieman Rep 69(3):32–45. Retrieved from http://
niemanreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NRsummer2015.pdf
Levy S (2012) The rise of the robot reporter. Wired 20(5):132–139
Lindén C (2017) Algorithms for journalism: the future of news work. J Media Innov 4(1):60–76.
https://doi.org/10.5617/jmi.v4i1.2420
Lokot T, Diakopoulos N (2016) News bots: automating news and information dissemination on
Twitter. Digit J 4(6):682–699. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2015.1081822
Marconi F, Siegman A (2017) The future of augmented journalism: a guide for newsrooms in
the age of smart machines. About AP insights. Retrieved from https://insights.ap.org/uploads/
images/the-future-of-augmented-journalism_ap-report.pdf
Matsumoto R, Nakayama H, Harada T et al (2007) Journalist robot: robot system making news
articles from real world. Paper presented at the 2007 IEEE international conference on robotics
and automation, Oct 29–Nov 2. https://doi.org/10.1109/iros.2007.4399598
Meehan JR (1977) TALE-SPIN, An interactive program that writes stories. Int Jt Conf Artif Intell
77(1):91–98. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.74.173
Meyer P (1975) Precision journalism. Commun Inf 1(1):164–165
Mittal S, Kumaraguru P (2014) Broker bots: analyzing automated activity during high impact
events on twitter (Ph.D. dissertation). Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, New
Delhi. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/pdf/1406.4286.pdf
Napoli P (2012) Audience evolution and the future of audience research. Int J Media Manag
14(2):79–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/14241277.2012.675753
Oremus W (2015) No more pencils, no more books. Slate. Retrieved from http://
publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Adaptive-learning-software-is-
replacing-textbooks-and-upending-American-education.-Should-we-welcome-it.pdf
Powers M (2012) “In forms that are familiar and yet-to-be invented”: American journalism and the
discourse of technologically specific work. J Commun Inq 36(1):24–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0196859911426009
Renó D, Renó L (2017) Algoritmo y noticia de datos como el futuro del periodismo transmedia
imagético. Rev Lat de Comunicación Soc 72:1468–1482. https://doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2017-
1229
Reuters Institute and University of Oxford (2017) Digital news report. Retrieved from http://www.
digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2017/
Rivera-Estrada JE, Sánchez-Salazar DV (2016) Inteligencia artificial ¿reemplazando al humano en
la psicoterapia? Escritos 24(53):271–291. https://doi.org/10.18566/escr.v24n53.a02
Salazar I (2018) Los robots y la inteligencia artificial. Nuevos retos del periodismo. Doxa
Comunicación 27:295–315. https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n27a15
Shearer M, Basile S, Geiger C (2014) Datastringer: easy dataset monitoring for journalists. In:
Proceedings of symposium on computation + journalism
Slater MD, Rouner D (2002) Entertainment-education and elaboration likelihood: understanding
the processing of narrative persuasion. Commun Theor 12(2):173–191. https://doi.org/10.1111/
j.1468-2885.2002.tb00265.x
Starbird K, Leysia P, Hughes A et al (2010) Chatter on the red: what hazards threat reveals about
the social life of microblogged information. In: Proceedings of the 2010 ACM conference on
computer supported cooperative work, Savannah, Georgia, 6–10 Feb. Retrieved from https://dl.
acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1718918.1718965
Stavelin E (2014) Computational journalism: when journalism meets programming (Ph.D.
dissertation). University of Bergen
Steiner T (2014) Telling breaking news stories from Wikipedia with social multimedia: a case study
of the 2014 winter olympics. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1403/1403.4289.
pdf
28 J. M. Túñez-López et al.

Strömbäck J (2005) In search of a standard: four models of democracy and their normative
implications for journalism. J Stud 6(3):331–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616700500131950
Tavares G, Faisal A (2013) Scaling-laws of human broadcast communication enable distinction
between human, corporate and robot Twitter users. PLoS ONE 8(7):e65774. https://doi.org/10.
1371/journal.pone.0065774
Thurman N, Dörr K, Kunert J (2017) When reporters get hands-on with robo-writing: professionals
consider automated journalism’s capabilities and consequences. Digit J 5(10):1240–1259. https://
doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1289819
Túñez-López JM, Toural-Bran C, Cacheiro-Requeijo S (2018) Uso de bots y algoritmos para autom-
atizar la redacción de noticias: percepción y actitudes de los periodistas en España. El profesional
de la información 27(4):750–758. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2018.jul.04
Usher N (2017) Venture-backed news startups and the field of journalism. Digit J 5(9):1116–1133.
https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2016.1272064
Van Dalen A (2012) The algorithms behind the headlines. J Pract 6(5–6):648–658. https://doi.org/
10.1080/17512786.2012.667268
Winkler M (2014) The bloomberg way: a guide for reporters and editors. Wiley, New Jersey
Wölker A, Powell TE (2018) Algorithms in the newsroom? News readers perceived credibility
and selection of automated journalism. Journalism (Online first, Feb 18). https://doi.org/10.1177/
1464884918757072
Young M, Hermida A (2015) From Mr. and Mrs. Outlier to central tendencies. Computational
journalism and crime reporting at the Los Angeles Times. Digit J 3(3):381–397. https://doi.org/
10.1080/21670811.2014.976409

José Miguel Túñez-López Doctor in Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona
and Professor of Organizational Communication and Communication Strategies and Plans, at Uni-
versidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC). He is also director of the International Doctoral
School of Arts, Humanities, Social and Legal Sciences of the USC and member of the Novos
Medios research group (USC). The author has also been Dean of the Faculty of Communication
Sciences of the USC (2004–2009) and received the National Queen Journalism Award.

Carlos Toural-Bran Doctor in Communication Sciences from Universidade de Santiago de Com-

postela. Chief of Staff of the Rector of Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Associate Pro-
fessor of Information Architecture, Online Media, DatViz and Organizational Communication.
Toural-Bran is also President of AGACOM (Galician Association of Communication Researchers)
and secretary of Novos Medios research group. He has also been Vice-dean of the Faculty of
Communication Sciences of Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (2014–2019).

Ana Gabriela Frazão-Nogueira Doctor in Audiovisual Communication and Journalism from

Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (2016), the author also has the diploma in Advanced
Studies in the Communication and Journalism Programme of the Doctorate at the USC (2007–
2009). Degree in Communication Sciences from the Fernando Pessoa University, Porto (1995),
Ana Nogueira’s curriculum also includes, among others, training in Creative Writing, Teaching
and Multimedia (2004), Use and Treatment of Voice for New Technologies (2000) and Journalism
and Design Techniques of Image (1998).
The Technology-Led Narrative Turn

Jorge Vázquez-Herrero, Xosé López-García and Fernando Irigaray

Abstract The narrative renovation has been a constant throughout history, fed by
successive literary and journalistic movements. In the third millennium a new phase
starts, with the characteristics of the complexity of the network society and the
current technologies as actors in this turn. The definitive rupture of the sequential
story has led to experimentation with narrative models based on hypertextuality,
multimedia and interactivity. Evolution has been strongly dependant and affected
by the past, without major upheavals in the fundamental, although driven by some
disruptive dimensions in communication processes. The appearance of journalistic
narratives has been guided in these last two decades by the combination of creativity
and innovation in an increasingly mobile, convergent and transmedia context. The
result is an expansion of models with unequal uses and consumption but enriching
the narrative outlook.

Keywords Journalism · Narrative · Multimedia · Convergence

1 Introduction

Social, political and economic contexts have framed the narrative renovation through-
out history and have contributed to the construction of the present. The narrative,
which simplifying can be understood as the story told by a narrator, is character-
ized by the combination of these elements in all their complexity and that is what
differentiates it from other genres (Valles Calatrava 2008). Techniques linked to tem-
poralization and spatialization, the narrative voice, the narrative speed, the characters
or testimonies of actors that intervene in the story are among the most used resources.

J. Vázquez-Herrero (B) · X. López-García

Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
X. López-García
e-mail: [email protected]
F. Irigaray
Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Rosario, Argentina
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 29
J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_3
30 J. Vázquez-Herrero et al.

They have accompanied the changes in the narrative scenario. Therefore, they also
affect the field of journalistic narratives, since the latter are almost always attentive
to innovations taking place within the literary scope as a source of inspiration.
The journalistic narrative, as a narrative of constructed reality (Casals 2001), has
changed under the influence of the cultural context, with a special impact of film and
literature. It has been a valued territory to the members of many journalistic move-
ments, from the so-called New Journalism to the current narrative journalism. It is
just this narrative side of journalism the one which has cultivated the writing about
certain facts using structures and narrative strategies typical of literature (Herrscher
2012) with better fortune, enriching thus the reality narration. A tradition of promis-
cuous relationships characterizes the connection between journalism and literature
(Chillón 1999), with more or less intensity depending on the historical periods.
Narrators and scholars started this travel when the network society established
a new scenario for journalistic stories with the beginning of the third millennium.
Now the old models coexist with other renewed ones. Without losing connection
with the past, narrative modalities emerge that apply immersive techniques (whether
old or new), at the same time the technological dimension opens up little explored
or even unknown territories in the past. Looking at and telling reality from narrative
journalism (Angulo Egea 2014) has been and is still a challenge. The factual word
(Chillón 2014) does not refuse its past relations. It keeps them in the present, but
tries new forms and formats that make the dream of a more efficient communication
come true.

2 The Digital Incentive

The technological systems that surrounded the birth and evolution of the Internet,
produced socially and in a specific cultural environment (Castells 2001), framed the
path followed by journalism in the change from the second to the third millennium.
The emergence of the network of networks was a real stimulus for journalism, which
has compelled professionals to adapt their activity to the new technological scenario.
The beginning of journalism on the Internet was the start of a great transformation
for the sector, the profession and society. It boosted the characteristics of the network
itself and digital technology, which represented a turning point in the design of tools
and changes in the processes.
Digitalization, which has come to stay, began its journey with the computerization
of production, the introduction of electronic newsrooms, and the digitization of the
product (Díaz Noci 2002); even at present, when the digitalization covers everything
and places us facing digital citizenship in a data society (Hintz et al. 2019). The first
steps of journalistic writing on the Internet include the proliferation of manuals to
understand the first consequences of the encounter between journalism and digital
technology (Díaz Noci and Salaverría 2003) as well as of analysis and proposals on
a new variant of journalistic writing (Salaverría 2005). Since then we have arrived
The Technology-Led Narrative Turn 31

to the application of virtual reality and transmedia strategies in the construction of

journalistic discourse, with modalities of reception narratives described as inclusive
(Gauthier 2018).
Technology has always been in the construction of modern journalism, from
Gutenberg’s typographical invention to the subsequent steps to the industrial age,
when it has lived under the influence of industrial society (Gómez Mompart and Marín
Otto 1999). Since the appearance of computerization, which changed the newsrooms,
technology gained presence and precision techniques, with current tools and the
scientific method (Meyer 1993). Later, from the first steps of digital journalism,
the impact of technology influenced how journalists do their work, the content of
the news, the structure and organization of the newsrooms, and the relationships
between journalism organizations, professionals and its users (Pavlik 2010). The
consequences have affected the set of processes surrounding journalistic work, both
the creation of content, with the opening of new ways in the narratives, as well as its
distribution.
Online journalism has increased the complexity of the different dimensions of
this social communication technique, especially through the construction of collab-
orative narratives with different management models of citizen participation. Since
the emergence of multimedia narratives (Deuze 2004) we have entered new terri-
tories such as transmedia narratives (Scolari 2009) or immersive journalism (De la
Peña et al. 2010). The processes of journalistic innovation (Paulussen 2016) look for
answers to the challenges, with special attention to the narrative field. Formats and
techniques are multiplied to seek a kind of communication that takes better advan-
tage of the possibilities of the current ecosystem and journalistic pieces that reach
a more efficient communication. The result is the existence of a great diversity of
proposals, models, currents and formats that enrich the journalistic narratives in the
prelude of the third decade of the 21st century.

3 Multimedia, Interactive and Immersive Scenario

The arrival of the computer and the Internet to the newsrooms demanded changes
in the nineties. The first online media were established in a digital scenario where
the rules of the analogue world no longer worked (Pavlik 2001); a scenario marked
by the convergence in production and consumption (Deuze 2007), where the rigid
classifications of the media (press, television, radio) had become obsolete. In a first
phase, the hypertextual condition was implemented, the most unique feature of the
World Wide Web. In practice, it meant creating connected documents, which would
be enriched by multimedia construction with the combination of resources such as
photography, video or infographics together with text.
The software becomes fundamental during this stage in the creative and informa-
tive processes (Manovich 2014). Among the most relevant tools were the Macro-
media and Adobe products, making the edition and multimedia production more
accessible with their specific applications. In the 21st century, with the appearance
32 J. Vázquez-Herrero et al.

of content management systems such as Drupal, Wordpress or Joomla, the publi-

cation of digital media became more affordable. These platforms are adaptable to
the needs of each project and they greatly facilitated the design of the websites and
their management. However, the standards are the ones that really facilitate and con-
solidate new functionalities in digital products. The most accessible channel for the
public is the Web, thanks to the existence of standardized conditions that allow a
homogeneous visualization of the contents and without requiring devices of the lat-
est technology, just one connected to the network. The implementation of HTML5,
CSS3 and Javascript has facilitated the creation of multimedia projects for the Inter-
net with improved integration of video, animations and interactive and personalized
complements.
However, specialized tools emerge as a response to the complex requirements
for multimedia and interactive production. These are promoted by producers, media
and consultants, sometimes with funding from innovation plans such as Google’s
Digital News Innovation Fund. Klynt is the interactive documentary creation software
of the French studio Honkytonk, Conducttr is a mixed reality platform created by
Robert Pratten, and Shorthand is the tool used by multiple media and agencies for
multimedia publications. These applications, among many others, are being used to
provide interactivity, visualize data, generate new formats or combine resources in
a fluid and attractive way.
The so-called multimedia journalism is a contemporary way of telling stories
(George-Palilonis 2012), “a critical middle ground between the impenetrable over-
loads and binary simplifications of digital communication” (Ball 2016: 432). In this
sense, the paradigmatic report of The New York Times published in 2012, Snow Fall:
The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, stood out for the integration of multimedia resources
and the fluidity of its scroll navigation. This special coverage was developed in HTML
with jQuery plugins that provided dynamism. It has consolidated a tendency for the
reports with visual prominence and scrollytelling. But in addition to being an alter-
native to the accelerated consumption of information, multimedia journalism opens
up new options to reach readers and create conversation (Lassila-Merisalo 2014).
Among multimedia formats there is a commitment to visual content, photography
and video, which occupy most of the screen. The media faces the challenge of
representing data in accessible ways, the revaluation of audio and the integration of
resources in the same design. However, this did not mean great progress in the last
decade. Again, technological advances determine innovative formats. As we will see
next, these point to interactivity and immersion as already developed factors while
automation is still developing.

3.1 The Interactive Promise

From the very definition of online journalism, interactivity (Deuze 2003; Rost 2006)
has been the differential characteristic and the eternal promise. On an instrumental
and navigational level, interactivity has had a wide implementation in the media;
The Technology-Led Narrative Turn 33

however, it is more incomplete in relation to participation. The ability to generate

bidirectional communication (Gershon 2016) has barely reached an exploratory level,
mainly through comments on news (Ziegele et al. 2014) and online videos (Ksiazek
et al. 2016). However, the potential of interactivity hasn’t exploded in the media yet,
also limited by the risks of a communication shared by the audience; an uncom-
fortable myth (Domingo 2008) for the newsrooms with consolidated production
routines.
The development of devices has favoured the evolution of interactivity, especially
through mobile devices due to their constant connection to the network. Platforms
condition the content, although the media moves towards an indifferent treatment of
the journalistic content according to the platform (Westlund 2013). Other factors that
reinforce it come into play. Social networks and their popularization are the main
platforms for the articulation of interactivity in the media. In interactive works, its
design becomes the motor of interaction, as a trigger and facilitator of the experience.
In addition, changes in consumer behaviour and the existence of an active user profile
support the emergence of interactive projects.
Different formats have risen after the bet of the media for interactivity, with an
experimental nature and a significant production cost as well. Interactive documen-
tary is a good example. It is a format that gives greater control to the user, who can
optionally diverge from the central story to focus their attention on specific aspects,
consume personalized content or contribute with their own content to the expansion
of the project (Vázquez-Herrero and Gifreu-Castells 2019). Gamification is also a
strategy present in the media, which implies the adoption of game elements in con-
texts that are not ludic (Deterding et al. 2011), giving rise to specific formats such as
newsgames, serious games or docugames. In the gamified projects developed by the
media, the user assumes a role and gets journalistic information in interviews and
data visualizations.
At a higher level in terms of interactivity, participatory and collaborative projects
are found, although with a very scarce presence in the field of news media. These
consider the participation of an active audience, a willingness to contribute that is
favoured by the technological developments that bring people closer through digital
media and really enable interaction.
Interactivity as a possible condition –and also in exploration– allows a wide range
of opportunities, but struggles with the structures and routines of the media orga-
nizations, the high cost of creating the most sophisticated systems and a doubtful
economic return. There are fears, uncertainties and difficulties, but it is still a prema-
ture field where “journalists have only scratched the surface of digital affordances
for storytelling” (Murray 2017: 77).

3.2 Immersion in Reality

Since 2010, the concept of immersive journalism has been developed (De la Peña et al.
2010; Domínguez 2013) supported mainly in virtual reality and video games. It is one
of the most recent technological change that directly affects journalistic narratives.
34 J. Vázquez-Herrero et al.

Immersion, a label associated with virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and
mixed reality (MR), has the same purpose as interactivity: engaging the user. It is
characterized by doing it in a very unusual way: placing him or her in a space and
time. Technology is what allows to activate some novel conditions—response-as-if-
real, place illusion, plausibility and virtual body (De la Peña et al. 2010). Therefore,
the aim is the sensorial immersion of the user in a virtual environment (Domínguez
2013) in order to reinforce his or her emotional engagement.
Although it is not a new technology, its application in journalism is relatively
recent, from experimentation to progressive adoption in newsrooms (Watson 2017).
The transition from storytelling to storyliving (Google News Lab 2017) seeks empa-
thy and emotion, but it is not free of ethical challenges (Sánchez Laws 2017), in
aspects such as the framing or image editing and practical risks such as sickness or
the user’s position in the scene.
Within the immersive technologies, augmented reality and mixed reality are pre-
sented as two areas of potential development, driven by the widespread availability
of smartphones (Engberg and Bolter 2014). Beyond experiments in main news com-
panies, there is still a future market for media in these areas (Future Today Institute
2017). Once again, technology will generate changes in the way stories are told,
trying to take advantage of their best features.

4 Transmedia, Mobile and Expanded Scenario

In the mobility era (Amar 2011), the content distribution channels expanded their
limits. Consumption is placed in a broader social and cultural context than those
made possible by traditional media. The mobile device is the best which adapts to
our habits of urban life. It fits perfectly to the interstices of daily life, those limited
temporary spaces of leisure in which enjoyment needs brevity (Igarza et al. 2008).
In our daily routine, leisure runs between productive times. The long waiting
times, the commuting between home and work are the main factors of the remarkable
visibility that mobile devices have acquired in our hyperurban societies. The symbolic
value is no longer in the destination to be placed on the path. Being able to see, hear
or witness comes into a new dimension: ubiquity, which allows access to content and
conversations in a sustained continuum.
The platforms of exchange and distribution of audiovisual content are transform-
ing the way of consuming media, watching television, having fun, learning and teach-
ing. Cultural consumption is flooded with short stories, smaller and smaller units,
which are shared between platforms and devices 24 h a day. As a consequence, con-
sumption habits previously set, for example, to prime time television hours, became
moments of interstitial leisure: we read, we interact, we watch videos, we write tweets
in the time and space of multiple micro pauses that we take opportunely along the
day. Many times those leisure bubbles (Igarza 2009) occur simultaneously to the cre-
ative and intellectual production. We live with multiple tabs open in our browser and
The Technology-Led Narrative Turn 35

several media applications running together. We keep multiple conversations, syn-

chronous and asynchronous, in voice, text and video formats and through different
platforms with their own grammars.
In this scenario, the entire content industry seeks to be the protagonist of our
micro-pauses. To interfere in these consumptions, it was necessary for the formats
to adapt: brief informative formats appeared, contained in microformats that can be
consumed quickly at any place and time.
The mobile exceeded the barriers of gender, education, social class and age, being
the only technology shared by different generations (Vacas 2010). The success of
the mobile lies, firstly, in the convergence of applications on the same device and the
possibility of permanent displacement. Central dimensions of the new communica-
tion, ubiquity and transmediality of this new mass cultural ecosystem of individual
consumption are added to audiovisuality (Irigaray 2016). Within it the microformats
expand. The micro unit (fiction, documentary, news or entertainment) is the unit of
the mobile. In the mobile culture, in our mobiling life, format, genre and reading
devices are aligned on the same spatio-temporal factor for the first time (Igarza et al.
2008).

4.1 The Reinvention of Digital Audio

Paradoxically in recent times, we can observe a resurgence of long-form formats such

as webdocs (evolution of multimedia special coverages) and the reinvention of audio
(sound dimension): podcasting. Audio is a media species which appeared during the
first years of the 20th century changing the multimedia information ecosystem. A few
years ago, it was blurring and losing interest among audiences and content producers.
But currently in the United States, then in Europe and now in Latin America we see
how the infotainment space begins to accelerate this format in a kind of podcast
reloaded.
In this sense, with the new irruption in the media system, several authors begin to
talk about transcasting, a term that makes “reference to those media projects that have
podcasting as a seminal medium, those that extend and disperse their narrative and
expand their communicative environment to other platforms, media and languages,
beyond the sound format, presenting a clear transmedia texture” (García Marín 2017:
152).

4.2 Convergence and Transmediality

Any transmedia narrative proposal that intends to meet with its participatory audi-
ences should consider the centrality of the mobile device in the distribution and
consumption of content. Paying attention to its features and the users’ consumption
36 J. Vázquez-Herrero et al.

habits are indispensable conditions for the production of adapted narratives. Some-
thing which allows us to understand why convergence is not a purely technological
process. Rather, as a cultural change, it encourages consumers to seek information
and establish connections between dispersed media content. Convergence occurs in
the consumers’ brains and in their social interactions. Therefore, it is a process that
develops in the cultural layer and not only in the technological one, where the cir-
culation expands and transcends the media, jumping between platforms where the
universe of the narrative framework unfolds.
In a hyperconnected, dispersed and transmedia context, narrative strategies can
use multiple platforms to expand their content, opening to the participation of users
who seek to be protagonists. Jenkins (2008) says that, in the culture of convergence,
consumers are increasingly powerful because they are learning to participate and
interact in new environments. The narrative strategies in the paradigm of convergence
face a double challenge: producing autonomous texts with feedback and multiple
formats, for analogue and digital platforms, giving rise to the participation of users
in the construction of knowledge and the narrative universe.
Audiences today are participatory, and it is one of the most tangible effects of
the irruption of a new technological scenario that transformed the conditions of pro-
duction, circulation and consumption of information. In this context, the use and
appropriation of the new digital connection devices had an impact on the tradi-
tional models of the communication field, which begins to discuss new categories of
analysis.
For Jenkins (2008), these changes in the media paradigm are crossed by three cen-
tral concepts: media convergence, participatory culture and collective intelligence.
In his definition, Jenkins does not conceive convergence as a merely technological
process, its meaning is broader as it operates in a cultural dimension:
With convergence I refer to the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the coop-
eration between multiple media industries and the migratory behaviour of media audiences,
willing to go almost anywhere in search of the desired type of entertainment experiences.
(Jenkins 2008: 14)

New audiences are fragmented, collaborative and interactive from the use of a
multiplicity of media and languages for the production, distribution and consump-
tion of content on the network and they are no longer subject to messages built
by traditional media. Media convergence alters the relationship between existing
technologies, markets, genres and the public. The power of the producer and media
consumers interacts in unpredictable ways. This implies a change of paradigm where
the audiences multiply, with differentiated needs and pretensions that the mode of
the broadcast does not reach to satisfy, fundamentally changing thus the distribution
criterion, which leads to a continuous update model.
A transmedia project can take many forms and aspects, but always taking into
account “optimizing the advantages that transmedia gives us, in the possibility of
delivering the right content for the right device at the appropriate time” (Pratten 2011:
6). The participation of the experience is as important as the way you tell the story.
You have to make an effort to remember that the emotional engagement is achieved
The Technology-Led Narrative Turn 37

by the combination between a good story and the design of the experience that will
be submitted to the audience. For this, it is essential to take into account four factors
that intervene in the design: the platforms, the defined spaces, the synchronization
of the contents and the participation actions that include calls to action.
With the multiplication of screens, users’ capabilities to fragment their atten-
tion in several platforms simultaneously were increased in equal measure. A funda-
mental characteristic of this new way of storytelling is that different stories change
the equation in the development of the storyword, by using different languages to
build autonomous pieces in the narrative framework. These are “intertwined, without
overlaps and keeping their independence from the others” (Maguregui 2010: 107).
Offering multiple points of view of the narrative world enriches the user’s expe-
rience and serves not only to increase the number of works related to the same story,
but also to provide different entry points. For this process to really take place, the
user’s experience must have the same importance as narrative development at design
stage. Unfortunately, it is something generally left to chance by content producers,
who begin to think about these developments but actually think about the story only.

5 Conclusion

The evolution of technology has largely determined the forms to communicate. His-
torically, the incorporation of new systems such as printing, radio or television have
shaped the communicative processes, creating a balance between the adaptation of the
known and the experimentation of the possibilities that are opened. In recent decades,
narratives have mutated constantly influenced by technology. The way of telling
stories is also affected by a mobile and convergent scenario of multiple platforms.
Journalism is moving through a period of rapid and far-reaching changes (Franklin
2016). Although a large part of them are due to the technological effect on production,
distribution, consumption or business models, convergence at the same time shows
cultural and social changes. The user’s behaviours turn towards a more participatory
and interactive communication in a context of interstitial leisure and, above all,
mobile. For this reason, ubiquity, transmediality and micro-contents define emerging
narratives, with a strong link with social media and their associated habits.
Technologies have not only offered opportunities for journalism, but also chal-
lenges, and have required strategic decisions for innovation and experimentation.
5G connectivity, immersive audio, augmented reality and narrative automation are
currently areas of exploration to continue telling stories, once again, with technology
as inspiration to rethink old definitions.

Acknowledgements This article has been developed within the research project Digital native
media in Spain: storytelling formats and mobile strategy (RTI2018-093346-B-C33) funded by the
Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Government of Spain), Agencia Estatal de Inves-
tigación, and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and Narrativas
inmersivas: Realidad virtual y realidad aumentada en relatos de no ficción (POL274, Facultad de
Ciencia Política y RR. II., Universidad Nacional de Rosario), as well as it is part of the activities
38 J. Vázquez-Herrero et al.

promoted by Novos Medios research group (ED431B 2017/48), supported by Xunta de Galicia.
The author Jorge Vázquez-Herrero is a beneficiary of the Faculty Training Program funded by the
Ministry of Science, Universities and Innovation (FPU15/00334).

References

Amar G (2011) Homo mobilis: la nueva era de la movilidad. La Crujía, Buenos Aires
Angulo Egea M (2014) Prefacio. Mirar y contar la realidad desde el periodismo narrativo. In: Angulo
M (ed) Crónica y mirada. Aproximaciones al periodismo narrativo. Libros del KO, Madrid
Ball B (2016) Multimedia, slow journalism as process, and the possibility of proper time. Digit J
4(4):432–444. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2015.1114895
Casals MJ (2001) La narrativa periodística o la retórica de la realidad construida. Estudios sobre el
Mensaje Periodístico 7:195–219
Castells M (2001) La Galaxia Internet. Reflexiones sobre internet, empresa y sociedad. Plaza &
Janes Editores, Barcelona
Chillón A (1999) Periodismo y literatura. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Una
tradición de relaciones promiscuas
Chillón A (2014) La palabra fáctica. Literatura, periodismo y comunicación. Universitat Autònoma
de Barcelona, Barcelona; Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana; Universitat Pompeu Fabra,
Barcelona; Universitat de València, Valencia
De la Peña N, Weil P, Llobera J, Giannopoulos E, Pomés A, Spanlang B, Friedman D, Sánchez-
Vives MV, Slater M (2010) Immersive journalism: immersive virtual reality for the first-person
experience of news. Presence 19(4):291–301
Deterding S, Dixon D, Khaled R, Nacke L (2011) From game design elements to gamefulness:
defining “gamification”. In: Proceedings of the 15th international academic MindTrek confer-
ence: envisioning future media environments. ACM, Tampere, pp 9–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/
2181037.2181040
Deuze M (2003) The web and its journalisms: considering the consequences of differ-
ent types of newsmedia online. New Media Soc 5(2):203–230. https://doi.org/10.1177/
1461444803005002004
Deuze M (2004) What is multimedia journalism? J Stud 5(2):139–152
Deuze M (2007) Convergence culture in the creative industries. Int J Cult Stud 10(2):243–263.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877907076793
Díaz Noci J (2002) La escritura digital. Hipertexto y construcción del discurso informativo en el
periodismo electrónico. Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao
Díaz Noci J, Salaverría R (2003) Manual de redacción ciberperiodística. Ariel, Barcelona
Domingo D (2008) Interactivity in the daily routines of online newsrooms: dealing with an uncom-
fortable myth. J Comput Med Commun 13(3):680–704. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.
2008.00415.x
Domínguez E (2013) Periodismo inmersivo. La influencia de la realidad virtual y del videojuego
en los contenidos informativos. Editorial UOC, Barcelona
Engberg M, Bolter JD (2014) Cultural expression in augmented and mixed reality. Convergence
20(1):3–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856513516250
Franklin B (2016) The future of journalism. J Stud 17(7):798–800
Future Today Institute (2017) 2018 tech trends for journalism and media. Retrieved from https://
futuretodayinstitute.com/2018-tech-trends-for-journalism-and-media. Accessed 1 Apr 2019
Gauthier P (2018) Inmersion, social media and transmedia storytelling: the “inclusive” mode of
reception. Comun Med 37:11–23. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-1529.2018.46952
The Technology-Led Narrative Turn 39

García Marín D (2017) La nueva comunicación sonora. Del podcast al transcasting. In: Aparici R,
García Marín D (eds) ¡Sonríe, te están puntuando! Narrativa digital interactiva en la era de Black
Mirror. Gedisa, Barcelona, pp 145–163
George-Palilonis J (2012) The multimedia journalist. Storytelling for today’s media landscape.
Oxford University Press, Oxford
Gershon RA (2016) Digital media and innovation: management and design strategies in communi-
cation. Sage, Los Angeles
Gómez Mompart JL, Marín Otto E (1999) La irrupción de la información televisiva y la influencia
del periodismo singular. In: Gómez Mompart JL, Marín Otto E (eds) Historia del periodismo
universal. Editorial Síntesis, Madrid
Google News Lab (2017) Storyliving: an ethnographic study of how audiences experience VR
and what that means for journalists. Retrieved from https://newslab.withgoogle.com/assets/docs/
storyliving-a-study-of-vr-in-journalism.pdf. Accesses 1 Apr 2019
Herrscher R (2012) Periodismo narrativo. Cómo contar la realidad con armas de la literatura.
Publicacions y Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona
Hintz A, Dencik L, Wahl-Jorgensen K (2019) Digital citizenship in a datafied society. Polity Press,
Cambridge
Igarza R (2009) Burbujas de ocio. Nuevas formas de consumo cultural. La Crujía, Buenos Aires
Igarza R, Vacas F, Vibes, F (2008) La cuarta pantalla. Marketing, publicidad y contenidos en la
telefonía móvil. Lectorum-Ugerman, Buenos Aires
Irigaray F (2016) DocuMedia: documentales multimedia interactivos en la periferia. El caso Calles
Perdidas. In: Luchessi L, Videla L (eds) Desafíos del periodismo en la sociedad del conocimiento.
Viedma, Editorial UNRN, pp 65–78
Jenkins H (2008) Convergence culture. La cultura de la convergencia de los medios de comunicación.
Paidós, Barcelona
Ksiazek TB, Peer L, Lessard K (2016) User engagement with online news: conceptualizing interac-
tivity and exploring the relationship between online news videos and user comments. New Media
Soc 18(3):502–520. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814545073
Lassila-Merisalo M (2014) Story first. Publishing narrative long-form journalism in digital
environments. J Mag New Media Res 15(2):1–15
Maguregui C (2010) Cruce de plataformas, arquitectura de la anticipación y régimen de indentifica-
ciones en Lost. In: Maguregui C, Piscitelli A, Scolari C (eds) Lostología: estrategias para entrar
y salir de la isla. Cinema, Buenos Aires, pp 101–132
Manovich L (2014) Software is the message. J Vis Cult 13(1):79–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/
1470412913509459
Meyer P (1993) Precision journalism. A reporters guide do social science methods. Indiana
University Press, Bloomington
Murray JH (2017) Hamlet on the holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace. The MIT Press,
London
Paulussen S (2016) Innovation in the Newsroom. In: Witschge T, Anderson CW, Domingo D,
Hermida A (eds) The Sage handbook of digital journalism. Sage, London
Pavlik J (2001) Journalism and new media. Columbia University Press, New York
Pavlik J (2010) The impact of technology on journalism. J Stud 1(2):229–237. https://doi.org/10.
1080/14616700050028226
Pratten R (2011) Getting started with transmedia storytelling. A practical guide for beginners.
Createspace, London
Rost A (2006) La interactividad en el periódico digital. Ph.D. dissertation. Universidad Autónoma de
Barcelona, Barcelona. Retrieved from https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/tesis/2006/tdx-1123106-104448/
ar1de1.pdf. Accessed 1 Apr 2019
Salaverría R (2005) Redacción periodística en internet. EUNSA, Pamplona
Sánchez Laws AL (2017) Can Immersive journalism enhance empathy? Digit J [Online first, 20
Oct 2017]. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1389286
40 J. Vázquez-Herrero et al.

Scolari CA (2009) Transmedia storytelling: implicit consumers, narrative worlds, and branding in
contemporary media production. Int J Commun 3:586–606
Vacas F (2010) La comunicación vertical. La Crujía, Buenos Aires
Valles Calatrava JR (2008) Teoría de la narrativa. Una perspectiva sistémica. Iberoamericana, Madrid
Vázquez-Herrero J, Gifreu-Castells A (2019) Interactive and transmedia documentary: production,
interface, content and representation. In: Túñez-López M, Martínez-Fernández VA, López-García
X, Rúas-Araújo X, Campos-Freire F (eds) Communication: innovation & quality. Springer, Cham,
pp 113–127. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91860-0_8
Watson Z (2017) VR for news: the new reality? Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Uni-
versity of Oxford. Retrieved from https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/vr-news-
new-reality. Accessed 1 Apr 2019
Westlund O (2013) Mobile news. digital. Journalism 1(1):6–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.
2012.740273
Ziegele M, Breiner T, Quiring O (2014) What creates interactivity in online news discussions? an
exploratory analysis of discussion factors in user comments on news items. J Commun 64:1111–
1138. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12123

Jorge Vázquez-Herrero Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Ph.D. in Communica-

tion, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC). He is a member of Novos Medios research
group (USC) and the Latin-American Chair of Transmedia Narratives (ICLA–UNR, Argentina).
He was visiting scholar at Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Universidade do Minho, University
of Leeds and Tampere University. His research focuses on digital interactive narratives of non-
fiction—mainly interactive documentary, micro-formats and transmedia, immersive and interac-
tive narratives in online media.

Xosé López-García Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Professor of Journalism at

Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC), Ph.D. in History and Journalism (USC). He coor-
dinates the Novos Medios research group. Among his research lines there is the study of digital
and printed media, analysis of the impact of technology in mediated communication, analysis of
the performance of cultural industries, and the combined strategy of printed and online products
in the society of knowledge.

Fernando Irigaray Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina. Director of the MA in Inter-

active Digital Communication, and the Multimedial Communication Department at Universidad
Nacional de Rosario (Argentina). He is also Executive Director of the Latin-American Chair
of Transmedia Narratives at the Institute of Latin-American Cooperation (ICLA–UNR). He is
a director and producer of TV programmes and documentaries, and interactive and transmedia
works. He won in 2013 the International Award for Journalism Rey de España in the Digital
Journalism category with his team.
Journalism Innovation and Its Influences
in the Future of News: A European
Perspective Around Google DNI Fund
Initiatives

Ana Cecília B. Nunes and João Canavilhas

Abstract Innovation for journalism has become an increasing matter of survival in

the new digital media landscape. However, we still face a lack of a shared understand-
ing of media innovation within academia combined with an inability to clearly define
what is innovation related to the news industry. This paper contributes to the necessity
of better defining journalism innovation by analyzing seventeen highlighted projects
on Google DNI Fund 2018 Report initiative. We propose a framework of five vari-
ables: implementation stage; innovation mindset; innovation focus/innovation target;
proven journalist outcomes; and potential replicability degree. The conclusions show
that news media innovators are searching for ecosystem solutions rather than worry
about solutions for themselves. News business models and news narratives or for-
mats are strongly connected, which means that media might finally understand that
they should work for real users and not for imagined ones.

Keywords Journalism innovation · Media innovation · Digital journalism · Google

1 Introduction

The development and spread of technology, as well as its consequent media market
changes, has turned innovation into a central theme for news industry survival. Inno-
vation became even more crucial when new incumbents started to steal significant
profits from legacy media groups, a pattern described by Bower and Christensen
(1995) as the disruption theory. Christensen et al. (2012) comment that what is hap-
pening today in the news industry is not much different than what has been seen in
other markets, with new actors entering and taking advantage of their digital born
nature, without a legacy to worry about. The fact is it disrupted the media market,
running all news industry into a no-way-back innovation road. As Küng states: “the

A. C. B. Nunes
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
e-mail: [email protected]
J. Canavilhas (B)
University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 41
J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_4
42 A. C. B. Nunes and J. Canavilhas

requirement for innovation in the media industry has become both more urgent and
more challenging as the pace and scope of technological advance have increased”
(2013: 9).
Despite media innovation becoming a decisive topic, its conceptualisation is still
very diffuse (Dogruel 2013). Academic research on this area experimented a sig-
nificant growth over the past 10 years (García-Avilés et al. 2018), but we need still
“innovation-oriented journalism research that provides clear, foundational definitions
of ‘innovation’ in reference to journalism” (Posetti 2018: 12).
Considering these premises, this paper proposes a discussion around journalism
innovation through the analysis of seventeen Google Digital News Innovation Fund
initiatives highlighted in its three-year report. The Fund is a European project with
a e150 million commitment to support and kick-start innovations targeting to help
journalism growth in the digital age. The projects are divided into four categories:
(1) battling misinformation, (2) telling local stories, (3) boosting digital revenues
and (4) exploring new technologies (Google 2018).
Based on those projects, we argue on the innovation types (Lindmark et al. 2013;
Storsul and Krumsvik 2013), innovation aims, replicability degree and its outcomes
(García-Avilés et al. 2018), proposing a framework to better understand journalism
innovation.
The analysis sets ground to discuss what innovation in the news industry could
really mean, based on the reflection of Lindmark et al. on the difficulty in defining
media innovation: “Where to draw the line between media innovation and routine
media production is not obvious” (2013: 130). We seek to identify the main aspects
from the innovations focused on a medium to long-term impact, such as the majority
of those analyzed here.
The need to understand journalism innovation particularities and, indeed, to pro-
pose a clear concept of what it is and how it has been addressed by different social
actors to influence the future of the news industry is not exclusively an academic
and theoretical demand. It is also a need to the professional field to develop more
innovative initiatives in the market industry.

2 Innovation in Media: The Need of a Particular

Perspective in a Digital Environment

Since the digital expansion, media landscape has faced a growing tension between the
so-called legacy media and the digital-born operations, usually being seen as the most
innovative organizations. This fragmented scenario with an increased competition
market is not the only factor that brought light to innovation within media, but it is
a major topic. If digitalization made possible a spreadable media context (Jenkins
et al. 2018), it also brought sustainability issues, as the need for new business models
and, among other factors, an urge to understand and better develop innovation for
the media and journalism sector.
Journalism Innovation and Its Influences in the Future … 43

Indeed, innovation for the media and journalism has not been a popular or even
a decisive research topic for media studies before the digital disruption. Lavine
and Wackman (1988) are among the first researchers studying challenges regarding
media management before the 2000s. The authors highlighted that the media sector
had particularities, especially because of the perishable nature of the media product,
the highly creative members of the profession, the more flexible and horizontal
media organizational structure, in addition to the social role of media and the blurred
boundaries that separate traditional media. Ferguson (1991) added that the ubiquitous
nature of media, its high visibility, along with the lack of an expertise in the audience’s
vision, the fact that media industry deals with creativity and moreover, how the
managers’ work has influence in the gatekeeping process, working as a discourse
filter to society, are particular and important characteristics to consider when focusing
on media innovation.
Recently, more researchers contributed with new approaches into this subject.
Storsul and Krumsvik (2013) revised the types of media innovation by adapting the
four axis from the Oslo Manual (OECD 2005): product (creation or improvements
in the new product), process (new methods around the news work, both internal or
external from the newsroom), position (how the product is positioned or framed) and
paradigmatic (includes changes in an organization’s mindset, values and business
models). Storsul and Krumsvik (2013) also added a fifth category: social innovation.
According to them, media can use existing products or services in an innovative
manner with the major target on pursuing social goals. A fact that could be especially
connected with the values of journalism, an activity related with the role of journalism
in the democratic societies (Kovach and Rosenstiel 2014).
Those types of innovation can also be related to a more specific media and jour-
nalism innovation target, which is where the contribution of Lindmark et al. (2013)
takes a slightly different approach than the previous authors. According to them,
media innovations should be classified in the realm of content (innovations in the
message itself or in a new narrative form), consumption (new ways of consuming
content), production and distribution (changes in how to produce, reproduce, dis-
tribute or display content) and business model (new business models including new
forms of industry organization). The two perspectives are not contradictory; instead,
they hold a close relation (Fig. 1).
Despite being possible to relate all Lindmark’s et al. (2013) classifications with
Storsul and Krumsvik’s (2013) one, the opposite does not hold true. In fact, Lindmark
et al. (2013) approach appears to be much more related to the innovation aims than
García-Avilés et al. (2018). This research work is based on the views of journalists
who are leading innovation in Spain and produces a model of innovation diffusion in
media outlets. If media is particular regarding innovation types, the work of García-
Avilés et al. (2018) shows it also holds true considering innovation diffusion within
newsrooms (Fig. 2).
It is perceived a close connection between the innovation types (Lindmark et al.
2013) and the aim of the innovation, emerging from the mentioned model. Although
with similarities with the previous concepts discussed, four axis of this proposed
44 A. C. B. Nunes and J. Canavilhas

Fig. 1 Lindmark et al. (2013) and Storsul and Krumsvik (2013). Own elaboration

Fig. 2 A model of the diffusion of innovations in media outlets. García-Avilés et al. (2018)

model shine new lights on journalism innovation. They are: types of players, obsta-
cles, boosters and outcomes. As Lavine and Wackman (1988) have stated before,
media outlets are unique and that is why the particularities of the journalism
innovation constitutes a theme deserving further thoughts.
This research also endorses the relation between competitiveness and innovation
within the news industry. Based on the interviews conducted with newsroom leaders
in Spain, “innovation involves the capacity to respond to opportunities and threats
within the market, thereby ‘managing to beat competitors, identify opportunities and
take risks’, as one editor put it” (García-Avilés et al. 2018: 6).
Finally, among those axis proposed, outcomes captured our attention. Proposed
categories in this axis still somehow subjective, as, for instance, prestige and impact.
Those two topics could be difficult to measure, especially in a systematic way and in
a newsroom environment. In addition, possible outcomes are strongly related with
business goals, on the realm of the organization itself, but not considering the news
or media future as a whole. This can mean that the possibility of this innovation to
spread to other cities, regions or countries, influencing the entire journalism market
Journalism Innovation and Its Influences in the Future … 45

is not something strongly pursued within newsrooms innovation leaders, or perhaps,

something that journalists still do not dare to dream of in the newsroom environment.
To target this issue we need to add a new dimension to the innovations in media
and journalism, that is: replicability degree, or whether this innovation could be used
in other settings and how difficult it would be to implement or adopt it beyond the
sphere of its original environment. It also relates to how the resulted innovation could
inspire others or be replicable in other media and/or journalism companies and/or
other contexts. In our view, replicable innovations are those that can be appropriated
(used with or without modifications) in similar contexts for equivalent or close results.
Indeed, the important role of the press in the proper functioning of democracy depends
on its capacity for innovation as a whole and not on isolated success case studies,
such the importance of innovation replicability to the media ecosystem.
The outcome of media and journalism innovation in a future media landscape can
be of great impact in solving digital propagation challenges and for the continuity of a
sustainable news environment. Therefore, one question remains: in what degree have
innovations around media and journalism been addressing the future and perpetuity
of the news industry? This is a topic that certainly deserves further thoughts, and
something that we would like to start to address in the following sections of this
paper.

3 Innovation in Journalism and Its Impact in the News

Industry

One of the main findings of the 2018 Reuters Innovation in Journalism report (Posetti
2018) is that the search for innovation within the news industry is so much attached
to embrace new technology that it forgets about its purpose or long-term strategy.
Without a navigation plan, the sailor could never reach its destination. It does not
mean that journalism should not embrace technology or, for instance, that Snapchat
Stories should not be tested by newsrooms. It only means that short-term solutions
could bring us small and immediate results, usually in the realm of a unique and par-
ticular company, but it might be the medium and long-term innovation approaches
that could be a game changer for the industry as a whole. As Posetti states, “there
is evidence of an increasingly urgent requirement for the cultivation of sustainable
innovation frameworks and clear, longer-term strategies within news organisations”
(Posetti 2018: 7). It brings us again to the discussion around outcomes, done pre-
viously. It is a pure example that the industry might still be thinking as an isolated
news business unit instead as of a tile in a media ecosystem. Clearly, it will be just
the interconnected innovation thinking that will help us to sail in this turbulent dig-
ital business industry waves. “In the absence of purposeful strategy and reflective
practice, ad hoc, frantic, and often short-term experimentation is unlikely to lead to
sustainable innovation or real progress” (Posetti 2018: 8).
46 A. C. B. Nunes and J. Canavilhas

In this scenario, replicability should be an important topic for media and jour-
nalism innovations, as it is tied to a long-term approach and a vision of field or
group, instead of prioritizing a particular and immediate need inside a single busi-
ness strategy. We argue they are different, tough, from reproducible journalism or
innovations. Reproducible journalism is tied to data and its availability as discussed
in a dedicated panel at Stanford’s Computation + Journalism Symposium in 2016
(Christensen 2016): “This is the question of how data journalism can be reproducible–
how should journalists deal with the question of anonymous sources, or leaked data,
etc.?”. Different from reproducible innovations, replicable ones are flexible, and can
impact more diverse contexts with possibilities to go beyond the mere innovation
itself, inspiring new innovative propositions, leaving room for adaptations.
In data journalism, a program that allows the recombination of several datasets is
a project with a high degree of reproducibility. An example of a project that fits this
model is Stacked Up, created by Meredith Broussard, Pam Selle and Jeff Frankl, in
20131 . This python-based automation on annual school ranks displays an analysis of
the ranking of the best schools in the State of Philadelphia, in the United States, with
the number of books in libraries (especially those used in the ranking of educational
institutions in the region). The result is the indication of the correlation between those
two data points, inferring the need for investment to put schools with fewer books
per student better placed on the list. The result of innovation is the automation of
the relationship between these disperse elements through the python programming
language. It is an interesting initiative, but much different from the Blendle business
model (The Netherlands), an example of replicable innovation. The latter initiative
may inspire others in different contexts with problems of monetization of digital
journalism with similarities to the Dutch context.
The difference between using the term reproducible and replicable, we argue, is in
fact a matter of expectation and emphasis. Hence, reproducible innovations should
tend to have similar results in similar contexts, as the example above. Replicable
ones, otherwise, usually emphasizes an output concept with a longer-term view that
could be tested in different context, but more important, that could inspire others to
also think the same way, not exactly as it was, but as adaptations and replications of
its experience.
The fact is that the news business and work environment itself did not contribute
historically to long-term thinking. Journalism and journalists have always been deal-
ing with the next deadline or big news-reporting feature, focusing on a short-term
plan rather than on a medium or long-term approach. This thinking, however, brought
us to a scenario where journalism is hardly prepared to strategic long-term mindset.
Regardless of being a short, medium or long-term solution, many of the innova-
tion initiatives within journalism are nowadays born from interdisciplinary teams,
often out of the newsroom daily routines, as many examples analyzed further. “It
is acknowledged that ‘longer-term strategies’ in an industry prone to ‘pivoting’ in

1 Theproject resulted in a feature in The Atlantic, written by Broussard: https://www.theatlantic.

com/education/archive/2014/07/why-poor-schools-cant-win-at-standardized-testing/374287/
Journalism Innovation and Its Influences in the Future … 47

response to relentless change is more likely to be understood as 6–24 months, rather

than 5–10 years” (Posetti 2018: 8).

4 Research Methods and Google DNI Fund

Considering the previous discussions, this paper seeks to identify particularities of

journalism innovation in the European context, through the study case of Google
DNI Fund initiatives highlighted in its three-year report.
The referred investment competition is a program with a “e150 million com-
mitment to support and kick-start innovation within the European news ecosystem”
(Google 2018). It was chosen as a way to comprise a quite dispersed topic as inno-
vation, addressing its characteristics and proposing a preliminary framework for
innovation within the news industry.
The projects presented in the report were highlighted between 461 funded initia-
tives within its history and, hence, it is understood that those were the most success-
ful ones according to Google News. All the seventeen projects were analyzed, based
on axis emerged from previous literature review and from the investigation of the
initiatives itself (Fig. 3).
The first axis—Implementation Stage—emerged from the different innovation
phases comprised by the projects: in development, prototype, testing phase or
adoption.
The second—Innovation Mindset—is the result of the previous discussion regard-
ing innovation impact and the same holds true to potential replicability degree. The
level may vary between ecosystem impact (implemented actions towards an industry-
wide effect), ecosystem view (innovation cases without any implemented ecosystem
action, although ambitioning an industry-wide influence) and unitary impact or view
(cases of internal innovation without direct or planned impact outside the companies’
sphere or presenting any prospect or evidence of ecosystem view).
The third axis is a new typification of innovation—Innovation focus/Innovation
target—based on the combination of those three researches (Storsul and Krumsvik
2013; Lindmark et al. 2013; García-Avilés et al. 2018) and are organized in six areas:
news content—narratives, formats or niche news content; journalism production or
processes; channels of news distribution; audiences participation and community
engagement; new business models or impact in journalism sustainability; social—
related to social benefits and with journalism democratic goal. A remark needs to
be done: the innovation focus/innovation target here refers to the innovation impact
direct target, and not the innovation process or innovation development. It means
that the community could be very engaged in the product development, but once
the innovation was out, in the adoption phase, if it is not directly impacting audi-
ence engagement, it was not counted as innovation focus/innovation target for this
initiative.
48 A. C. B. Nunes and J. Canavilhas

Implementation Innovation Proven Potential

Innovation focus/ journalistic replicability
stage mindset Innovation target outcomes degree

News content: Audience Low

In development Ecosystem narratives, growth
impact formats or niche
news content Medium
Prototype
Improvement
Ecosystem in process High
Testing phase view Journalism
production or User
processes satisfaction
Adoption Unitary
impact or and/or
view engagement
Channels of news with journalism
distribution
Increases in
Audiences revenue or
participation and journalism
community sustainability
engagement
Journaism
New business credibility,
models or impact legitimacy and
in journalism social purpose
sustainability

Social: related with

society benefits
and possible with
journalism
democratic goal

Fig. 3 Proposed framework to analyze innovation in journalism. Own elaboration

The fourth axis—Proven journalist outcomes—was inspired in the work of

García-Avilés et al. (2018), which interviewed journalists in Spain leading inno-
vation processes in newsrooms. To avoid subjectivity, only the journalistic outcomes
that had some data indication of success were considered, that is: those presented by
numbers and/or data in each initiative description.2 For example, a rise in journalism
subscriptions indicates an increase in revenue and a user engagement success. On
the other hand, the number of users on a new platform doesn’t mean they are active
users, so no proven indicator of success is found on that number. In the process of
analysis, additional categories than the ones proposed by García-Avilés et al. (2018)
emerged. Also, others had to be adapted in order to better fit with the analyzed cases
and one (prestige and impact) was retracted, due to its difficulty in measurement.
All proven outcomes were analyzed considering its impact in journalism—not the
innovation itself.

2 All data refers to those presented in the Google DNI Fund three-year report (2018). Other sources

of each initiative were not consulted, in order to maintain a pattern.

Journalism Innovation and Its Influences in the Future … 49

Finally, the fifth axis—Potential replicability degree—can assume a three-stage

scale: (a) high replicability, when resources or efforts to experiment this innovation in
other context were simple to be done; (b) medium replicability, when a considerable
investment of resources or considerable process modifications, but not both, was
needed; (c) low replicability degree, investment in both previous aspects was needed.
It is important to mention that the projects were previous categorized by Google
into four clusters (Table 1) and for a better comprehension of each project, this divi-
sion did not considered the main focus of each innovation, as the six axes discussed
have proven to be a more comprised and detailed view of the innovations in question.

Table 1 Projects
Category (Google DNI Project name Country Fund awarded (year)
Fund)
Battling misinformation Full Fact UK 2016
TrustServista Romania 2016
Factmata UK 2016
VIS Media Italy 2017
Full Fact UK 2017
Boosting digital revenues REMP Slovakia 2015
Steady Germany 2016
La Numérique France 2016
Nonio Portugal 2017
REMP Slovakia 2017
Gudbrandsdølen Norway 2017
Dagningen
Exploring new technologies Frames Portugal 2016
Il Secolo XIX Italy 2016
The Buzzard Germany 2017
QuoteBot Belgium 2018
Telling local stories Local News Engine UK 2016
Tagesspiegel LEUTE Germany 2016
The Bureau Local UK 2016
La Voz de Galicia Spain 2016
Own elaboration
50 A. C. B. Nunes and J. Canavilhas

5 Discussion: What Do Google DNI Fund’s Choices Tell Us

About Innovation in Journalism?

Our research is an exploratory work with a mixed approach (quantitative and qual-
itative): due the small dimension of the sample (seventeen projects), we emphasize
the qualitative approach based on the published interviews with those responsible
for the projects supported by Google.

5.1 Implementation Stage

Most of the initiatives (thirteen) were already public, that means, in the adoption
level. One was still in development, two were a working prototype and the other was
in internal testing phase by the time the report was released.
The high percentage of projects at the adoption level proves a trend throughout the
history of journalism: companies test new tools or procedures before the academic
research has results, which is the opposite of what happens in other economic sectors
where products reach the market after tests carried out at universities and research
institutes.

5.2 Innovation Mindset

Collaboration or wider impact is pursued in most cases: more than half of the projects
(nine out of seventeen) held actions towards an ecosystem impact. Besides them, three
more demonstrate an ecosystem view or ecosystem plan within their strategies. It
indicates that even if competition is high in the news industry and an important reason
to innovate (García-Avilés et al. 2018), innovation is also tied with a broader survival
goal and some kind of network approach, support, collaboration or industry-wide
target. Examples of that are the initiatives that were born with an open source strategy
as Local News Engine, in the United Kingdom, or REMP (Readers’ Engagement and
Monetization Platform), in Slovakia. There are also others as Full Fact, which states
as a key goal “sharing of experience, expertise and tools across the fact-checking
community” (Google 2018: 9). More than just a statement, they are already working
together with similar organizations in Argentina and South Africa, even though they
are based in the United Kingdom.
The innovations analyzed come from a wide set of institutions: charity and non-
profitable institutions, new start-ups and legacy media business. Open source is not a
viable or interesting strategy for all of them (in fact, those two are the only ones with
this specific mindset), but that does not mean the spread or ecosystem impact of the
others is set aside. Some of them, such as TrustServista, in Romania, are targeting
an industry-wide impact using a software-as-a-service strategy. In their cases, it is
Journalism Innovation and Its Influences in the Future … 51

also a sustainability road. Ecosystem thinking is not only related to non-profitable

collaborations or interactions but, in fact, connected to a wider innovation impact,
whether profitable or not. Besides those already mentioned, others, as Nonio, in
Portugal, have their own history based on collaboration: this one is the result of
a consortium between media companies, starting from scratch with an ecosystem
impact mindset, even if their impact still needs to be proven.

5.3 Innovation Focus/Innovation Target

There is an interesting point regarding the innovation targets. Seven of the seventeen
projects are directly connected with new business models or impact in journalism
sustainability, precisely one of the goals of the Google DNI Fund. They are doing it
in much diversified ways. For instance, Facmata is using artificial intelligence “to
assess the risk to advertisers of appearing alongside what could be inappropriate
content” (Google 2018: 12). Steady provides “journalists with the technology and
marketing tools they need to build a membership base and generate revenue” (Google
2018: 24). However, most of them are not proposing a change on the traditional rev-
enue streams, most common in the news industry (advertising and subscriptions).
Even Nonio, which results from a collaboration between six Portuguese media com-
panies, is still seeking to monetize journalism by a “compelling digital proposition
for advertisers” (Google 2018: 26). One exception, though, is VIS Media, which is
pursuing a software as a service strategy for its machine learning fact-checking solu-
tion, having a combined innovation focus in new journalism production or processes
and new business models or impact in journalism sustainability.
News content (narratives, formats or niche content) are the focus of six projects and
we know that the news language and/or new user segmentation is a potential variable
to attract readers and, consequently, more revenue. In fact, all six projects related to
this innovation target mention its search for increasing or diversifying revenues as
a desired correlated consequence,3 most of them connected with local communities
or new niches. One example is the German initiative Tagesspiegel LEUTE, which
highlights in its description a 40% rise in subscribers, resulted of providing local news
to readers in twelve districts of Berlin. It is evident that they are innovating in news
content (narratives, formats or niche content) tied with a complementary medium
or long-term desire to increase profits, mostly through the same old and traditional
models, as, for instance, subscriptions. The exceptions of this kind of relation with
business profits are Il Secolo XIX and The Buzzard: the former is an online social
media-training platform targeting in-house journalists to “create compelling stories
that pull readers into the website” (Google 2018: 36) and the latter is a “machine

3A remark: projects can be connected with more than one innovation target, but it should be a
primary focus. In case of news business models it has, for instance, to be related with a paid product
or a solution directly connected with this profits. If it is a secondary goal resulting from a long-term
strategy, as new niche audience to have, in the future, more subscribers, it was not considered as a
new business model primary target.
52 A. C. B. Nunes and J. Canavilhas

learning algorithm to include all sides of a debate and provide users with a balanced,
holistic overview” (Google 2018: 34).
A third group of projects is connected with social innovation (five projects). Those
are related with fact-checking tools (as Full Fact), trustworthiness of news stories
(as TrustServista) or empower hyperlocal news through a user centered perspective
and social mindset (Local News Engine, La Voz de Galicia, The Bureau Local).
Those were considered social as they have mentioned a social related concern in
their description.
The journalism production or processes have the same number (five projects)
as social. It ranges from fact-checking and/or trustworthiness automatization (Full
Fact, TrustServista, VIS Media) to news writing or lead generation automatization
(QuoteBot, Local News Engine). This number shows that the field might be finally
considering to target on processes, rather than just on products.
Channels of news distribution had only two initiatives: it was La Numérique which
has created a new digital evening product and La Voz Galicia, which has created a
platform that indicates the most appropriate media mix to publish and promote the
stories created in newsroom, being so, an innovation in news distribution.

5.4 Proven Journalist Outcomes

Although willing to have an industry-wide impact, seven of the seventeen projects

did not mention any data that could indicate an effective consequence for journalism.
Nonio is one example. There are two numbers highlighted in the report related to
them: one is reachability in the local market and the other is the total amount of users
in the platform. Reachability in local market does not affect journalism itself, even if
it can be a way for the platform to be relevant in the future. The number of registered
users does not mean engagement, as we do not know how many are still using the
product and with what frequency. Il Secolo XIX, an Italian in-house digital media-
training platform for journalists, is another example. Even if one in six journalists
from the company have completed the course so far, there is no evident consequence
or numbers highlighting growth in audience, revenue or other journalistic outcome
for its holding media company.
The other ten projects were able to present numbers related to effective journalistic
impacts or innovation success:
(a) one evidence of audience growth: Frames (Portugal) indicated a 5.6% increase
in pageviews in Observador website;
(b) five evidences of user satisfaction and/or engagement with journalism as well
as five of increasing revenues, two topics strongly connected; as an example,
we can cite the 98% of subscribers retained monthly in a new platform called
Steady (Germany) and an increase in the subscriber base to over 120,000 in
L’Equipe (France) through La Numérique innovation;
Journalism Innovation and Its Influences in the Future … 53

(c) four has shown indicators of improvement in processes, as the 30 min saved
per journalist per day by using QuoteBot, from Belgian financial publisher
MediaFin, or the 60,000 website articles fact-checked per day by TrustServista.4
One topic should be pointed out in relation with proven outcomes: regarding
those directly targeting social impact (related with society benefits and possible with
journalism’s democratic goal), none of them presents numbers capable to prove its
influence in this sphere.

5.5 Potential Replicability Degree

The majority of projects (nine) have a high replicability degree, followed by seven
projects with medium replicability potential. This fact is also true in projects pre-
senting a unitary view, which is an interesting fact: even having a medium or high
replicability potential, some initiatives are still thought with an internal perspec-
tive, mainly focused on solving contextual companies’ problems instead of having
a broader perspective on solving the challenges of journalism as a whole. Many of
them could be easily replicable as a software as a service or an open source strat-
egy, for instance. Others, however, are tied with people investment and/or local data
particularities.

6 Conclusion

Innovation is a key element in any industry, having a central place in the media
ecosystem because of the accelerated digitization in progress since the end of the
20th century. To keep up with the innovation cadence, the media has chosen mainly
one of four paths: building up an internal innovation team, launching its own research
laboratory, outsourcing research or developing stand-alone solutions to specific prob-
lems. In any of these solutions, financial resources are critical, so companies, labo-
ratories and other organizations seek support, and the Google DNI Fund emerge as
one of the financing alternatives. To study the media innovation, in this research we
are analyzing seventeen projects financed by this fund in the last three years and to
carry out this analysis, a grid was developed based on previous researches, but with
adaptations.
Most of the solutions are already in the process of adoption, but they were expected
to arrive on the market only after months or years of development and testing. This
trend is particularly noticeable in projects with impacts on the ecosystem, which
confirms that the innovation is complex and always a long-term process, as mentioned
by Ludovic Blecher, head of the Digital News “In the early days, we saw a lot of
brilliant ideas begin their journeys. But execution takes time and now we’re at the

4 Each innovation initiative could be connected to more than one proven journalism outcome.
54 A. C. B. Nunes and J. Canavilhas

stage where some of these ideas start having an impact where it matters most: in
newsrooms” (Google 2018: 3).
Although media is a very competitive sector, there is a trend towards ecosystem-
oriented solutions. In fact, rather than delivering innovative but single application
solutions, the media need universal solutions because users can only decode the
message if they master a set of intellectual tools. Just as language mastery allows us
to read a text, media literacy is essential to decode news content in terms of language,
organizational structure, etc. The proposal does not target media literacy directly, but
they endorse the same long-term or broader mindset comprised in this thought. That’s
why all the proposals, in some way, are contributing to journalism’s subsistence.
News business models and news narratives or formats are the majority of the
projects innovation goals and they are strongly connected, which highlights a trend
that also appears in the next points: the need to respond to readers’ wishes. In fact,
it is remarkable how most of them are connected directly or complementary with
the search for rising journalism profits. It is interesting, though, that most of them
are still targeting the same traditional revenue models: subscriptions and advertising.
The third goal is social, and it turns around the fact-checking projects and empower-
ment of local news. Although being seen as a particular characteristic on innovation
in journalism, it is remarkable the inexistence of proven outcomes: are they impact-
ing the public view of journalism? Is this effort helping to decrease fake news or
misinformation? If social goal is a major particularity of journalism innovation, the
industry should develop better ways to assess and measure its innovation impacts. It
might not be easy, but necessary.
Although none of the projects have the innovation focus in the community engage-
ment, this is supposed to be one of the major goals of journalism nowadays: how to
better engage readers in journalism. In our perspective, it could be because the media
consider that technologies already exist to bring the newspapers closer to the readers,
they just are not being used correctly. It could also be connected to a mindset that
journalism should still be primarily led by journalists, rather than a shared process
between professionals and the audiences. However, more research is needed in order
to further understand this topic.
In terms of proven outcomes of journalism, we note a concern with the recovery
of proximity to readers and their satisfaction through news content innovation focus.
In this field there is a noticeable distance from the old journalism that advocated
‘we write, you read’. In this goal it is mandatory to highlight the strong connections
between the user satisfaction/engagement with journalism and the increasing of rev-
enues, which proves that the media have already realized that it is not possible to
survive without meeting readers’ expectations.
Also noteworthy are the concerns about the production processes, finally realizing
that, in a way to have multimedia journalists, it is necessary to find tools that facilitate
some of the traditional steps of the production process, such as data collection. In
another view, also noting that journalism production might have an opportunity to
overcome the phase of just using technology, to build up new tools and products from
scratch to the improvement of journalism processes.
Journalism Innovation and Its Influences in the Future … 55

Finally, it should be noted that the highly replicable projects are the most rep-
resented, confirming the situation described above. The crisis forced the media to
think in an ecosystem perspective rather than a demand for individual solutions,
confirming a tendency towards open and autonomous systems over closed owner
solutions. A question remains, however: are other sources of journalism innovation
around the world, also opting for an ecosystem view? Even though it is a noticeable
fact concerning the analyzed initiatives, it is still uncertain if the news industry as a
whole or its majority has already realized that in order to grow they need to focus on a
coopetition (Bengtsson and Kock 2000) rather than a simple competition. Journalism
survival might be depending on that.

References

Bengtsson M, Kock S (2000) “Coopetition” in business networks—to cooperate and compete

simultaneously. Ind Mark Manage 29(5):411–426
Bower JL, Christensen CM (1995) Disruptive technologies: catching the wave. Harv Bus Rev,
43–53
Christensen G (2016) Panel on reproducible journalism. Berkeley initiative for transparency in
the social sciences. Retrieved from https://www.bitss.org/2016/10/26/panel-on-reproducible-
journalism/. Accessed 17 Apr 2019
Christensen CM, Skok D, Allworth J (2012) Breaking news—mastering the art of disruptive
innovation in journalism. Nieman Rep 66(3):6
Dogruel L (2013) Opening the black box. The conceptualising of media innovation. In: Storsul T,
Krumsvik AH (eds) Media innovations: a multidisciplinary study of change. Göteborg, Nordicom,
pp 29–43
Ferguson DA (1991) The domain of inquiry for media management researchers. In:
Broadcast education association annual meeting, conference proceedings, Las Vegas, pp
1–16. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264120088_The_domain_of_
inquiry_for_media_management_researchers. Accessed 20 Apr 2019
García-Avilés JA, Carvajal-Prieto M, Arias F, De Lara-González A (2018) How journalists innovate
in the newsroom. Proposing a model of the diffusion of innovations in media outlets. J Media
Innov 5(1):1–16
Google (2018) Elevating quality journalism: digital news innovation fund report 2018. Retrieved
from https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/dnifund/report/. Accessed 10 Jan 2019
Jenkins H, Ford S, Green J (2018) Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a networked
culture. New York University Press, New York City
Kovach B, Rosenstiel T (2014) The elements of journalism: what newspeople should know and the
public should expect. Three Rivers Press, CA
Küng L (2013) Innovation, technology and organisational change: legacy media’s big challenges. In:
Storsul T, Krumsvik AH (eds) Media innovations: a multidisciplinary study of change. Nordicom,
Göteborg, pp 9–12
Lavine JM, Wackman DB (1988) Managing media organizations: effective leadership of the media.
Longman Pub Group, New York
Lindmark S, Ranaivoson H, Donders K, Ballon P (2013) Innovation in small regions’ media sec-
tors. In: Storsul T, Krumsvik AH (eds) Media innovations: a multidisciplinary study of change.
Nordicom, Göteborg, pp 127–144
OECD (2005) Oslo manual: guidelines for collecting and interpreting innovation data. In: Organisa-
tion for economic co-operation and development. Statistical Office of the European Communities,
56 A. C. B. Nunes and J. Canavilhas

Paris, p 163. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3859598/5889925/OSLO-

EN.PDF/60a5a2f5-577a-4091-9e09-9fa9e741dcf1. Accessed 10 Mar 2019
Posetti J (2018) Time to step away from the ‘bright, shiny things’? Towards a sustainable model
of journalism innovation in an era of perpetual change. Journalism innovation project. Reuters
Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University, Oxford
Storsul T, Krumsvik AH (2013) What is media innovation? In: Storsul T, Krumsvik AH (eds) Media
innovations: a multidisciplinary study of change. Nordicom, Göteborg, pp 13–26

Ana Cecília B. Nunes Assistant Professor at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul–
PUCRS (Brazil) and academic head of IDEAR, an interdisciplinary entrepreneurship and inno-
vation lab at PUCRS. Currently, she is Ph.D. candidate in a joint degree from PUCRS Univer-
sity (Brazil) and the University of Beira Interior (Portugal)—Capes/PDSE fellow. Her research
focuses on challenges of media innovation, particularly in the field of journalism. She is also part
of Ubilab, a digital media lab at PUCRS.

João Canavilhas Associate Professor at Universidade da Beira Interior (Covilhã, Portugal),

where he actually is vice-rector and researcher at Labcom.IFP—Communication, Philosophy and
Humanities. His research work focuses on various aspects of Communication and New Technolo-
gies, particularly in the fields of online journalism, e-politics, social media and journalism for
portable devices.
Innovating Journalism by Going Back
in Time? The Curious Case
of Newsletters as a News Source
in Belgium

Jonathan Hendrickx, Karen Donders and Ike Picone

Abstract Among the slew of innovations piercing legacy news media in order to
maintain their importance, relevance and financial viability, one notable shift in online
newsrooms is the resurgence of newsletters as a controlled means of disseminating
curated news content and controlling incoming traffic on news websites. This is
particularly the case in Belgium, where nearly a quarter of the population indicated
newsletters as their primary source of news in the 2018 Oxford Digital News Report.
In this chapter, we establish three main reasons explaining the sudden rebirth of
newsletters, and zoom in on one leading Belgian media player to show that, how and
why (a) newsletters have emerged as bigger sources of incoming online traffic than
social media and (b) newsletters have effectively altered the daily work of journalists
in online newsrooms, as newsletters have become a focal point in the ‘digital first’
approach adopted by legacy media.

Keywords Digital journalism · Newsletters · Digital first · Innovative journalism

1 Introduction

In recent years, the production of e-mail newsletters has sharply increased, both by
‘legacy’ print and newer digital media publishers. The trend mirrors the continued
strength of e-mails in daily life, and their widespread use in marketing, despite the
advent of more sophisticated and proprietary digital tools (Jack 2016). Written off
entirely a few years ago, and still threatened by social media and chat applications
such as Facebook and Slack, e-mails in general and newsletters in particular have
somehow managed to not merely survive, but even thrive in the era of endless supply

J. Hendrickx (B) · K. Donders · I. Picone

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
e-mail: [email protected]
K. Donders
e-mail: [email protected]
I. Picone
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 57

J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_5
58 J. Hendrickx et al.

of both news and news sources. Zooming out, the renewed adoption of newsletters
in newsrooms is also a compelling example of how certain media forms deemed
obsolete at one point can maintain or regain relevance when it ticks all the right
boxes.
The small, Western country Belgium always makes for interesting case studies
in media research due to its convoluted linguistic and political situations, effectively
yielding multiple media markets within one country (Donders et al. 2019). It is
therefore the more surprising that Belgians appear to be united when it comes to
consuming news via e-mail newsletters. According to data from the 2019 Oxford
Digital News Report (hereafter ‘DNR’),1 e-mail newsletter or notifications are used
by 30% of Belgian news users to access news on a weekly basis. This however
hides a significant difference between Dutch-language northern region Flanders and
French-language southern region Wallonia: 38% and 23% respectively. Even if the
popularity of newsletters is slightly declining over the past years (down from 40%
in 2016), it remains a key access point to news in 2019 in Belgium. Especially in
Flanders, it forms a more popular way to access the news than direct access (34%),
social media (26%) and mobile news alerts (16%). A quarter of Flemish news users
even consider newsletters and notifications via e-mail their main way of accessing
news.
Again, these numbers conceal important differences amongst Flemish news users.
For 30% of news users above 35 years old, newsletters and notifications via mail form
their main way of getting the news. This drops to only 8% for those below 35. A
similar gap can be noticed in terms of people’s education: around a quarter of low-
and middle-educated Flemish news users report newsletters to be their main way of
accessing the news, while this is only 10% among the high-educated.
These important nuances can give us a hint as how to explain the popularity
of newsletters in Flanders. The prominence amongst older news users might point
towards the sustained centrality of mail as a means of communication within older
age groups. Older news users might have gotten accustomed to using newsletters
several years ago, developing into persisting habits. The younger generations how-
ever already seem to connect less with this form of news. The higher adoption across
low- and middle-educated news users might be due to the fact that over recent years
especially more popular news brands have invested in their newsletter offering. For
example, newsletters with the latest updates from one’s town or village formed a
key component of the renewed strategy to focus on local news a few years ago of
the Flemish newspaper Het Nieuwsblad’s, one of the four papers this chapter will
further discuss and analyse. Nonetheless, in no other country included in the 2019
DNR is e-mail so popular as in Belgium, with considerably lower popularity in key
media markets such as the US (21%), the UK (10%), France (17%) and Finland (9%)
(Nielsen et al. 2019).
In this book chapter, we aim to contribute to the thus far very limited amount of
available literature on newsletters in the 21st century. We do this by pinpointing three

1 As the Belgian partner in the Digital News Report Consortium, we have accessed the primary data

to provide these numbers.

Innovating Journalism by Going Back in Time … 59

reasons explaining why editors are including newsletters in their offering, which will
be further elaborated upon in the literature review and analysis parts. We focus on (a)
dependence on social media’s algorithms and the power of platforms in regulating
web traffic; (b) attempts to regain customer ownership and returning to the gatekeep-
ing and agenda setting-functions of journalism and (c) the diversification of news
offers to increase the overall reached online audience. Our findings are based on
literature, ethnographic observations, expert interviews and traffic data analyses of
the Belgian popular newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, part of the Mediahuis media corpo-
ration which owns newspapers, radio stations and classifieds in Belgium (Flanders),
the Netherlands and, since 2019, Ireland. Through Het Nieuwsblad and its pivotal
role for newsletters in news dissemination and media innovation strategies, we are
able to construct the story of why and how this once considered antiquated means of
communication has against all odds become in vogue again.

2 Newsletters’ Rise, Fall, and Rise

The body of literature specifically zooming in on the resurgence of newsletters among

news media is as of yet peculiarly small and in desperate need for expansion, particu-
larly because of the widespread popularity of newsletters throughout both legacy and
online-only media. After a series of intense searches on Google Scholar and in Web of
Science, we found only a small handful of recent publications and reports scratching
the surface of newsletters as a verified news platform in the digital age of journal-
ism (see, among others, Jack 2016; Santos and Peixinho 2017). This book chapter
therefore fills an existing gap in academic research into this small yet indispensable
part of media companies’ digital strategies.
The newsletter is older than one would think and was the precursor of regular
newspapers, and predates the term journalism by about two centuries as that term was
introduced in the English language only in the 1830s. Newsletters had first emerged
in the early 15th century as written and printed translations of foreign events, natural
disasters and supernatural occurrences (Rubery 2010). The notion of providing news
about the contemporary world at regular intervals eventually evolved into the current
multiplatform mass-media age. Interestingly, while being roughly 400 years old,
newsletters have far from disappeared as a useful means of disseminating curated
news content to audiences.
Just a few years ago, funeral services were held around the world to mourn the
demise of e-mails. The advent of instant messaging and social media apps would
logically lead to the end of e-mails, which had been considered an old-fashioned
technology from the early days of the Internet, and until recently most experts seemed
to agree that its death was nigh (Fagerlund 2016).
I thought newsletters were an outdated technology, something for old people. The Washington
Post was quite popular on Facebook, but suddenly they changed their algorithms and we lost
a lot of readers. I realized that I needed to find something where I can control the means of
60 J. Hendrickx et al.

production. Newsletters were one way of doing it (David Beard, director of digital content
of The Washington Post in Fagerlund (2016).

In a report for the LSE’s media think-tank Polis, Fagerlund (2016) describes
the change in attitudes towards e-mail newsletters, claiming that it was initiated
by individual American journalists who decided to reach their audiences directly
through their inboxes, exactly as early adopters of the 1990s had previously already
done through ‘Listservs’ (Jack 2016). Companies like Mailchimp facilitate sending
out e-mail newsletters and have replaced blogs as the main choice to reach (new)
audiences. Online-only media such as The Skimm, Quartz and Buzzfeed launched
their own e-mail newsletters around 2014, swiftly followed by major legacy print
media such as The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times (Fagerlund 2016).
The trend then rapidly spread to other countries around the world, in a similar vein
by first reaching online-only media and only afterwards established media outlets.
While gathering data for their case study of how a new Portuguese online newspaper
nationally pioneered and applied daily newsletters as a tactic to reach audiences,
Santos and Peixinho (2017) found that legacy newspapers in the country too had
started sending out several newsletters a day, often at a set hour.
While newsletters are thus the predecessors of newspapers, it is noteworthy that a
study by Fredriksson and Johansson (2014) specifically found journalists who worked
for organisations producing newsletters to be more often female than male, and more
working as freelance journalists. They also found that this group of journalists is
typically less embracing of the traditional journalistic ideals and tends to promote
the amusement function of journalism.

3 Newsletters’ Resurgence Explained

As discussed in the introduction, we pinpoint three key reasons explaining the ratio-
nale behind media’s increased newsletter output. These will each be discussed sep-
arately underneath. We will take a closer look at the power of platforms, regaining
customer ownership and the diversification of news offers.
In just over a decade, social media have effectively changed the lives of a few
billion people worldwide and the way in which they receive information and con-
sume media content online. News media quickly adopted to the sudden monopoly of
particularly Facebook in acquiring vast amounts of online attention time and engage-
ments by becoming active on them and posting their own content, in order to lure
social media users to news media’s websites. But a few infamous changes in Face-
book’s algorithm have turned social media into necessary evils for both legacy and
online-only news media. Sizeable parts of populations remain active on social media
on a daily basis, so it remains vital to maintain a strong and updated presence to
gain readership—but Facebook is keen on keeping its users inside its own network.
The renaissance of newsletters has thus been realised not in spite, but because of
social media. It is a means to direct traffic to news websites and to ensure consumers
Innovating Journalism by Going Back in Time … 61

are not locked into ecosystems of Google, Amazon and Facebook. Indeed, these
platforms integrate both intermediation and gatekeeping functions. In combination
with their economies of scale and scope, and diversification of activities, the ultimate
aim is to construct an online world where users move from one website to another,
and from one service to another, without actually leaving the platform’s universum.
This already happens from time to time, without consumers realising it (Moore and
Tambini 2018) and was recognized as a key concern by several news media CEO’s
in both Norway and Belgium (Donders et al. 2018).
The move from a media environment dominated by direct discovery to one increas-
ingly characterized by distributed discovery has forced news organisations to succeed
their privileged and dominant position of gatekeepers to the likes of Facebook and
Google (Kalogeropoulos et al. 2019). The dependence of news outlets on social
media has become a thorny issue and has led to a myriad of attempts to regain con-
trol over the customer relationship. Email newsletters can form a key mechanism in
these attempts, as they offer news organisations a direct and unfiltered access to a
place where many Internet users reside and still spend a lot of time: their mailbox.
This feature makes them a key component of news media’s conversion funnel: they
form an attractive entry point for new readers, turn casual readers into engaged ones
by offering curated content, convert engaged readers into paying customers and keep
loyal subscribers interested to reduce churn (Boltik et al. 2017). However, in today’s
news economy, “the supply of public attention is limited, and, since the endless
number of claimants, scarce” (Webster and Ksiazek 2012).
By turning to newsletters, editors try to retain public attention by harnessing the
power of habits, which they once mastered to perfection. News habits have always
been an important aspect of news consumption. News users tend to return to their
favourite news sources throughout the day “to relieve their vague sense of unease
about not knowing what is ‘going on’ in the world” (Hartley 2018: 7, building on
Diddi and LaRose 2006). Here too, news media face tough competition, again in first
instance by social media who with their features such as feeds, ‘likes’, comments,
tags, etc. seem designed to get users ‘hooked’ (Andreassen 2015: 179). Still, email
newsletters are one of the most reliable digital channels editors have to their disposi-
tion to build a ‘habit of news’. Not only are they delivered in mailboxes that are still
central to many people’s Internet use, but they also allow publishers to maintain the
customer relationship and, hence, to collect user data to build behavioural models to
maximize reader attention (Boltik and Mele 2017).
It becomes apparent that newsletter have the potential to help publishers regain
(some) control over the customer relationship and find new revenue streams, but
they are not a magic bullet. In order for newsletter to really convert casual readers
to paying subscribers, they need to be more than a simple collection of links. This
in turn requires newsletter to be given the necessary editorial attention, but on top of
that also synchronized production with the marketing team, testing, and analytical
work (Hansen and Watkins 2019).
Ultimately, the goal of retaining control over the flow of incoming traffic to online
platforms of news outlets is to enhance overall readership and revenue, which sub-
sequently leads to increased advertisement revenues. But journalism is no longer
62 J. Hendrickx et al.

a one-size-fits-all-solution in which one newspaper is printed for the entire popula-

tion. Personalised news is clearly here to stay, and newsletters have the opportunity to
play a key part in this approach. Newsletters can be tailor-made to cater to very niche
groups and communities, ranging from age groups, cities, towns and neighbourhoods
to interests and types of news content. Specific newsletters have millennials, women,
businessmen and-women, football enthusiasts and fans of lifestyle and/or fashion as
target audiences. They can be a complimentary service offered to subscribers by
providing overviews of articles behind paywalls, can contain coupons, discounts and
contests and can be curated by individual editors of journalists offering handpicked
selections of articles, just as the original online newsletters of the 1990s and early
2010s. This allows news outlets to diversify their output to the people who will most
likely read it, bringing their journalism closer to its intended core audience.

4 Newsletters and Mediahuis

Media users’ readership of newsletters is expected to be surprisingly large in Flanders,

as previously shown by Digital News Report figures. We therefore want to investi-
gate if this also shows in the ratio of incoming online traffic for legacy Belgian news
outlets and if and how this has impacted the daily work of journalists working in
Belgian newsrooms. For our study, we rely on ethnographic observations and expert
interviews inside the newsroom of Het Nieuwsblad, the second largest and a popular
Flemish newspaper owned by the Flemish media conglomerate Mediahuis. Since its
inception in 2013 after a successful merger of two previously separately functioning
media companies, it also owns and publishes three of the other in total seven daily
paying Flemish newspapers: quality newspaper De Standaard and regional news-
papers Gazet van Antwerpen and Het Belang van Limburg. We perform an analysis
on incoming traffic numbers of the websites of the four Mediahuis-owned papers
between January and March 2015 and 2019 (going back further in time was not pos-
sible) as found in Traffic, the internal data platform of Mediahuis where all available
user data and official figures regarding readership of online news are aggregated in a
user-friendly platform intended for usage by the journalists working for the company.
With the analysis, we intend to gauge the changes in incoming traffic sources and
try to see what they indicate for Mediahuis, journalism in Flanders, and beyond.

4.1 Newsletters and ‘Digital First’

Legacy newsrooms around the world are in varying stages of converting to a so-
called ‘digital first’ approach, overtly placing news posted on its official website and
app (and its social media accounts) as the key platform to post content as quickly as
possible. Older media (newspapers, TV channels) remain the driving forces, but are
no longer the number one priority in cases of breaking news; in such scenarios it is
Innovating Journalism by Going Back in Time … 63

of course much easier for one online journalist to quickly publish an article of a few
lines explaining the event and updating that article constantly than printing an extra
newspaper or getting an extraordinary TV news broadcast started up technically.
The ‘digital first’ wave sweeping newsrooms not only externally but also internally
wishes to put online news higher up the pecking order: journalists formally writing
for newspapers are encouraged to also write for websites, and in many cases, they
are more and more expected to become all-round journalists, providing self-created
and -edited pieces for the TV and/or radio news and an article for the website on
one given news topic. This is dramatically altering the daily work of journalists in
newsrooms globally and occasionally proves problematic.
Mediahuis and its four newspapers have been no exception. Its main newspaper,
Het Nieuwsblad, announced on its staff day in November 2017 that it had the ambi-
tion to become completely ‘digital first’ by 2020. After that announcement, it would
take nearly 1.5 years for the first fully-fledged trial version to come into effect: in
March 2019, the newsroom became more integrated. Journalists previously being
the only ones to write articles for the website were divided in a so-called “in” and
“out” team, with the former group still providing online news content and the lat-
ter becoming responsible for editing articles and disseminating them across social
media and newsletters. Print journalists are expected to contribute to the website as
well by providing unique news content throughout the day, with their output often
published online behind the paywall and, sometimes in an abridged and/or updated
form, republished in next day’s print newspaper.
Perhaps the biggest change of the ‘digital first’-tactic for Het Nieuwsblad has been
the increase of deadlines and their specific focus on newsletters. Currently, four daily
e-mail newsletters are sent out, each with their own content and focus, and three with
their own deadlines. There are also weekly and other extra newsletters, but for the
sake of brevity, we focus on the four daily ones here. Paying subscribers automatically
receive all newsletters, while non-subscribers can opt into receive separate e-mails.
The morning e-mail is sent out around seven in the morning and focuses on the
main stories of that given morning, both from Het Nieuwsblad and other media. The
second e-mail is due just before noon to give readers the opportunity to read it during
their lunch break, and has a slightly lighter tone. The third newsletter is usually sent
out around 4:30 in the afternoon and contains the biggest stories of the day and
a few more articles behind paywalls to lure readers into considering purchasing a
subscription. Finally, the evening newsletter is sent out at 7:30, but is solely intended
for subscribers of the newspapers, and focuses on five or six main articles for next
morning’s newspaper. For all newsletters, a number of articles is ‘ordered’ to be
finished by then, so that they all have new and unique content to present to their
readers. The decisions on the content are made predominantly by the news editors
who decide what news to present where and when, instructing the online journalists
specifically designated to catering all news dissemination across social media and
newsletters, called the “out” team as they “push out” the news to media users, what to
put where in which newsletter. This highlights the in-between nature of newsletters.
They are both editorial and business products, and unlike an advertisement or a news
story, their place within news organizations is an open question. One could argue
64 J. Hendrickx et al.

this makes newsletters a convincing mirror of the state of the industry today (Porter
2018).
11:45 h, 16:30 h and 19:30 h have effectively become deadlines throughout the
news day at Het Nieuwsblad, at which every day a few articles need to be finished
to be sent out as key articles in the e-mails. The main deadline is still 22:30 h,
which is when next day’s newspaper is sent to the printer and needs to be completely
finished, but the advent of ‘digital first’ and the increased importance given to e-mail
newsletters have thus considerably changed the work of journalists as for many of
them, the only deadline they had was 22:30 h. They are now expected to provide
finished articles at noon or in the afternoon, greatly impacting their daily routine.

4.2 Newsletters in the Mediahuis Data

Have these changes in the daily proceedings of journalists in order to make newslet-
ters more present in their digital strategy and more topical and urgent towards news
users had any effect on readership of e-mail newsletters of said users? When looking
at the available data on incoming web traffic at the internal platform of Mediahuis,
Traffic, we come to an interesting finding which goes against the trend of increased
e-mail newsletter readership: the percentage of visits to the four Mediahuis news
websites through newsletters actually decreased over time. In the table underneath
(Fig. 1), we summarise figures applicable for the first three months of each given
year, in weighed percentages for the four newspapers together. Traffic makes a logical
distinction between direct traffic (e.g. people going straight to the website or app of
a newspaper), social traffic (through social media accounts—this includes so-called
“dark social” traffic which is impossible to trace back to its source and is likely shared

120

100

80

60

40

20

00
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Direct Social Newsletters Organic Referral

Fig. 1 Incoming traffic sources for Mediahuis websites (2015–2019). Internal Mediahuis data
platform
Innovating Journalism by Going Back in Time … 65

through chat applications such as WhatsApp which provide end-to-end encryption),

newsletter traffic, organic traffic (through unpaid search results at engines such as
Google) and referral traffic (through clicking links on other websites).
The curve for newsletter traffic is rather capricious, with 17.9% for early January
to late March 2015 to 14.7% for 2016, 15.9% for 2017, 17.7% for 2018 and finally
16.0% for the first quarter of 2019. The changes in the Facebook algorithm are clearly
reflected as well, as the percentage of social traffic plummeted from 29.0% in 2015
to just 20.9% four years onwards. All this is somewhat saved by the vast increase
in direct traffic, amounting for 35.0% in 2015 and nearly half of all incoming traffic
(49.5%) in 2019. Thus, even though there are of course other assessment factors in
order to gauge the success rate of e-mail newsletters, it appears from the raw user data
presented here that the popularity of newsletters among Belgian news consumers has
not (yet?) created many benefits or enhanced online traffic for the four Mediahuis
news websites.
It is also noteworthy that there are differences between the four different websites
(Fig. 2). Leading newspaper Het Nieuwsblad had the biggest increase in newsletter
traffic (17.9% in 2015 to 21.5% in 2018), but then saw it decrease again to 18.0% for
the first three months of 2019 (overall increase of 0.1%). The other three Mediahuis
papers saw bigger slumps for its newsletter traffic percentages over four years’ time:
De Standaard dropped from 15.4% to 12.3%, Het Belang van Limburg 19.5–12.8%
and Gazet van Antwerpen from 20.2% to 15.0%, respectively signifying 20.3, 34.5
and 25.2% drops in the overall share of incoming traffic sources.
For all newspapers, the share of direct traffic rose considerably over our given time
frame, in line with the numbers of the DNR. Interestingly, popular newspaper Het
Nieuwsblad is the poorest performer here with a 44.6% share for direct traffic in 2019,
whereas its three sister newspapers all exceed the 50%-mark with ease. This finding

25

20

15

10

05

00
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Het Nieuwsblad De Standaard

Het Belang van Limburg Gazet van Antwerpen
Mediahuis

Fig. 2 Share of incoming newsletter traffic on Mediahuis websites (2015–2019). Internal Mediahuis
data platform
66 J. Hendrickx et al.

is to be explained by the increased popularity of applications for mobile phones and

tablets, which allow users to enter the online version of the newspapers directly. We
cannot disclose detailed figures about this matter, but can confirm that daily usage of
the apps of the four Mediahuis newspapers has indeed increased substantially over
four years’ time, yielding much more incoming direct traffic.

5 Conclusions

This chapter has discussed the unexpected increased popularity of e-mail newsletters
as a successful means for legacy and new news media outlets alike to disseminate their
content independently, without having to rely on algorithms of major social media.
We have shown how a leading Flemish media company, Mediahuis, has effectively
applied the newsletters as an integral part of its ‘digital first’ approach, and how this
in its turn has altered the daily work of journalists working for its newspapers as new
deadlines for articles have been added throughout a given working day, deliberately
matching with the fixed points in time in which new newsletters are being sent out.
An analysis of internal and incoming traffic data of the four Mediahuis newspapers
has revealed that in spite of the attempts to put more focus on newsletters, this has not
translated in higher shares for them in the overall incoming online traffic. As a matter
of fact, the total share for newsletters has increased between 2015 and 2019, albeit
not as sharply as has the share for incoming traffic via social media, which confirms
the negative effects of Facebook’s algorithm changes enacted from 2017 onwards.
The share for direct traffic, on the other hand, has seen vast increases, which is to be
explained by the shift towards using mobile phone and tablet applications to enter
online versions of newsletters directly rather than through a social medium, a search
engine or a web browser.
Time will tell if e-mail newsletters manage to either become more popular among
media users and influential among media makers, or if their renaissance has perhaps
already passed its peak. Two lingering issues regarding newsletters arise and will
undoubtedly prove to become challenges for their future in the coming years. Firstly,
newsletters at Mediahuis, and at the overwhelming majority of news media, are at the
moment distributed entirely free of charge and considered as a complimentary service
that news organisations offer its users to attract larger online audiences to its content.
It is to be expected that newsletters will pass a stage in which their monetisation will be
questioned, as manpower is needed to create and sent out the newsletters. Particularly
when their effects on incoming traffic sources are not to be overestimated, as this very
chapter has shown, we gauge that media companies will soon start thinking about
ways to charge users for newsletters, by for instance promising more unique content
and tailor-made newspapers for smaller niche audiences currently un(der)served by
the bulk newsletters meant for all—considering they are not already doing so at the
time of writing.
The second issue endangering a healthy future for e-mail newsletters as a viable
distribution means is fatigue. With many legacy and new news media sending multiple
Innovating Journalism by Going Back in Time … 67

newsletters a day, we venture that media users will reach a saturation point after which
they will start caring less about newsletters because of their sheer abundance. Just as
there is no need to read the same news in four different newspapers, the same applies
to newsletters; a key task of news outlets is to distinguish themselves from their
competition, even within one media conglomerate such as Mediahuis, and present
their content in unique ways which continues to capture the attention and imagination
of its (potential) visitors. Here too, we propose focusing on personalised newsletter
experiences with offered content destined to persuade more receivers of newsletters
to start consuming news content.

References

Andreassen CS (2015) Online social network site addiction: a comprehensive review. Curr Addict
Rep 2(2):175–184
Boltik J, Mele N (2017) Practice, research, & technology. In: Using data science tools for email
audience analysis: a research guide. https://shorensteincenter.org/email-analysis-research-guide/.
Accessed 8 July 2019
Boltik J, Mele N, Practice et al (2017) Using data science tools for email audience analysis: a research
guide. Available at: https://shorensteincenter.org/email-analysis-research-guide/. Accessed 8 July
2019
Diddi A, LaRose R (2006) Getting Hooked on news: uses and gratifications and the formation
of news habits among college students in an internet environment. J Broadcast Electron Media
50(2):193–210
Donders K, Enli G, Raats T, Syvertsen T (2018) Digitisation, internationalisation, and changing busi-
ness models in local media markets: an analysis of commercial media’s perceptions on challenges
ahead. J Media Bus Stud 15(2):89–107
Donders K, Van den Bulck H, Raats T (2019) Public service media in a divided country: governance
and functioning of public broadcasters in Belgium. In: Połońska E, Beckett C (eds) Public service
broadcasting and media systems in troubled european democracies. Springer International Pub-
lishing, Cham, pp 89–107. http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-030-02710-0_5. Accessed 8
July 2019
Fagerlund C (2016) Back to the future-email newsletters as a digital channel for
journalism. Journalistfonden. http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/Polis/documents/Back-to-the-
future—Email-Newsletters-as-a-Digital-Channel-for-Journalism.pdf. Accessed 20 June 2019
Fredriksson M, Johansson B (2014) The dynamics of professional identity. Journalism Pract
8(5):585–595
Hansen E, Watkins EA (2019) News media needs to convince readers to open their wallets. Con-
solidation has not helped. Columbia Journalism Rev. https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/newsroom-
consolidation-product.php. Accessed 8 July 2019
Hartley JM (2018) News audiences and news habits. In: Oxford research encyclope-
dia of communication. https://oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/
acrefore-9780190228613-e-845. Accessed 8 July 2019
Jack A (2016) Editorial email newsletters: the medium is not the only message. https://ora.ox.ac.
uk/objects/uuid:8248179f-83e1-4bb9-81d1-6197d77900f3. Accessed 19 June 2019
Kalogeropoulos A, Fletcher R, Nielsen RK (2019) News brand attribution in distributed environ-
ments: do people know where they get their news? New Media Soc 21(3):583–601
Moore M, Tambini D (2018) Digital dominance: the power of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and
Apple. Oxford University Press, New York
68 J. Hendrickx et al.

Nielsen RK, Newman N, Fletcher R, Kalogeropolous A (2019) Reuters institute digital news report
2019. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2019-06/DNR_2019_FINAL_0.
pdf. Accessed 19 June 2019
Porter C (2018) Making a newsletter: what happens before nonprofit newsrooms hit “send”?
Medium. https://medium.com/single-subject-news-project/survey-workflows-for-newsletters-
vary-across-nonprofit-newsrooms-debfcb1fc6fa. Accessed 8 July 2019
Rubery M (2010) Journalism. In: The encyclopedia of the novel. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
doi/abs/10.1002/9781444337815.wbeotnj003. Accessed 19 June 2019
Santos CA, Peixinho AT (2017) Newsletters and the return of epistolarity in digital media. Digital
Journalism 5(6):774–790
Webster JG, Ksiazek TB (2012) The dynamics of audience fragmentation: public attention in an
age of digital media. J Commun 62(1):39–56

Jonathan Hendrickx Early-career Ph.D. Researcher, studying the effects of media mergers on
supply diversity as part of the inter-university DIAMOND project at the communication sciences
department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium), imec-SMIT.

Karen Donders Professor in Policy Analysis, European Media Markets, and Political Economy
of Journalism at the communication sciences department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Bel-
gium). She is a senior researcher of imec-SMIT. She specializes in (European) media policy,
media economics, competition policy and media, and public service media.

Ike Picone Professor in Journalism and Media Studies at the communication sciences department
of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). He is a senior researcher of imec-SMIT and is also
affiliated with the Data and Design research group.
New Formats for Local Journalism
in the Era of Social Media and Big Data:
From Transmedia to Storytelling

Andreu Casero-Ripollés, Silvia Marcos-García and Laura Alonso-Muñoz

Abstract Local journalism is immersed in a scenario of structural transformation

that questions its future. In this context, it is fundamental to bring innovation derived
from social media and big data into the sector. The goal of this chapter is to provide
a typology and classification of the new formats linked to social media that can be
used by local journalism in news production. Based on an exploratory analysis six
broad categories have been identified: storytelling, interactivity, multimedia, image,
streaming, and transmedia. Within these six categories twenty-one different formats
are located. On the whole, they suppose a broad and varied range of options so that
local journalism introduces innovation to fight for its survival in the digital scenario.

Keywords Journalism · Local journalism · Social media · New formats

1 Introduction: An Uncertain Scenario for Local

Journalism

Local journalism is immersed in a scenario of structural transformation as a result of

the emergence and consolidation of digital technologies. These are introducing new
ways to produce, distribute and consume news (Hess and Waller 2016; Salaverría
2019). So, they are challenging both the journalistic routines and the business models.
For a decade, local journalism has been undergoing a strong economic reconversion
accentuated by the impact of the economic crisis. As a result, the bases of its classic
business model have been significantly weakened, and as of yet, no valid alternatives
have been found to resolve a situation that seriously threatens the newspaper industry

A. Casero-Ripollés (B) · S. Marcos-García · L. Alonso-Muñoz

Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
S. Marcos-García
e-mail: [email protected]
L. Alonso-Muñoz
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 69

J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_6
70 A. Casero-Ripollés et al.

(Casero-Ripollés 2010; Picard 2014). In this scenario, local journalism faces an

uncertain future that questions its existence (Nielsen 2015).
Aside from challenges, the digital environment also opens up new opportunities
for local journalism (López-García 2008). The low entry and operating costs poten-
tially allow the emergence of new local and even hyper-local media (Negreira-Rey
et al. 2018). Social media permits the implementing of new mechanisms of relat-
ing and interacting with the public, new strategies for community building and new
narrative formats for the news (Newman 2009; Campos-Freire et al. 2016). All this
favors the introduction of innovation in this sector. In fact, journalists perceive tech-
nology as a key element for innovation (García-Avilés et al. 2018). Discovering and
taking advantage of the opportunities and developing new products and services are
two pillars of innovation that apply to journalism (Küng 2015). It is not so much
about incorporating digital technology into the production of news but about using
it creatively and efficiently to renew journalistic content (Jarvis 2014).
In this context, local journalism must face the challenge of producing new content
without abandoning the civic issues linked to local communities (Firmstone 2016) to
help people define and maintain neighborhood identities and a sense of community
belonging (Kim and Ball-Rokeach 2006). To do this, new formats to provide added
value to local journalism amidst this uncertainty are essential (Casero-Ripollés 2014).
Many of these, in addition, are based on the growing importance big data is acquiring
in the field of journalism (Lewis and Westlund 2015). The abundance of information
and the ease of access to the data that social media provides allows the creation and
implementation of useful new formats for local journalism such as interactive maps
or the geo-location of news. As a result, big data can be converted into a key ally of
local journalism when it becomes time to innovate.
Social media has its own distinctive languages and communication codes. Like-
wise, these have generated specific new forms to narrate, configure, and disseminate
journalistic information. These are characterized by the strong protagonism, on the
one hand, of the visual elements and video (Kalogeropoulos and Nielsen 2018) and,
on the other, by the increasing introduction of transmedia content (Vázquez-Herrero
et al. 2018) and of big data. Local journalists are faced with the need to adapt to this
new scenario and learn about their possibilities to produce news. For this reason,
developing a catalogue capable of systemizing what these new information formats
fostered by social media are becomes essential.
The aim of this chapter is to provide a typology and a classification of new for-
mats linked to social media that can be used by local journalism in news produc-
tion. In addition, the aim is to determine, in a critical way, characteristics, strengths
and weaknesses of each of the identified formats. With this, a complete catalogue
of new informational formats linked to social media is provided that local media
can use to apply journalistic innovation and reach new audiences to cope with the
uncertain situation affecting the sector.
The methodology applied is based on an exploratory approach supported by the
technique of content analysis and it focuses on the study of three significant aspects
of the new information formats for local journalism in social media. In the first place,
is the typology of new formats linked to social media currently applied or likely to be
New Formats for Local Journalism in the Era of Social … 71

used in local journalism. Secondly, are the defining characteristics of each of these
formats to know what their potential and limitations in information terms are. Finally,
the applicability of these formats to different local news events is considered.

2 Towards a Classification of New Formats in Social Media

for Local Journalism

The following is a proposal for a classification to catalogue the new formats that
the media can currently adopt, especially local media, in their news production and
distribution processes. It specifically presents six major categories: storytelling, inter-
activity, multimedia, image, streaming, and transmedia. These categories integrate
twenty-one different formats grouped according to their common characteristics
(Table 1).

Table 1 Classification of
Category News formats
new informational formats for
local media linked to social Storytelling – Tweet magazine
media – Short messages published by journalists
– News summaries through WhatsApp or
Instagram stories
– News coverage via WhatsApp or Telegram
– Teaser
– Videos using Instagram IGTV
Interactivity – Interactive reports
– Chat meetings
– Voice notes using WhatsApp
– Surveys, questions and questionnaires
through Instagram
Multimedia – Media reports
– The expander
– Atmosphere
– Facebook instant articles
– Podcasts
Image – Infographics
– 360° image and video
Streaming – Live broadcasts through social media
– Liveblogging
Transmedia – Transmedia reporting
– Collaborative reporting
Own elaboration
72 A. Casero-Ripollés et al.

3 Storytelling

The concept of storytelling is understood as a set of techniques and strategies used to

tell and share a story with the goal of creating added value to the news and generating
public interest. It allows the use and combination of any type of language and format
of the digital environment (text, image, video, audio, graphics, etc.) to build a story
with a full narrative structure that is attractive to the audience. Thereby, information,
adapted to the different tastes and demands of the audience can be presented truthfully
without renouncing creativity.
In journalism, therefore, this technique is applied to any context that involves
explaining the news in a way that differs from the conventional to be more attractive
to the audience.

3.1 Tweet Magazine

It is a format built from the collection of tweets published by different users, usually
the public, on their respective Twitter accounts. The journalist assumes the content
curator role, since their function is to search, group and share what the most relevant
published content has been on a topic or event in this platform.
One of the most significant advantages of this format is the ability to gather
different views in the same space, favoring the contrast of news sources. The journalist
can group tweets with different points of view to offer the user a comprehensive
overview of the issue and generate debate. The overabundance of news is an obstacle,
since the same subject can generate thousands of Twitter messages, so it is necessary
to make a journalistic choice. Likewise, in the digital environment, where fake profiles
and false news predominate, this requires the task of thoroughly fact-checking the
messages and data provided by the user.
This format is especially useful to cover issues of great social interest, where great
diversity of opinion may exist, so as to stimulate greater participation and discussion
on the part of the users.

3.2 Short Messages Published by Journalists

It is presented as a news piece composed of brief messages written by the journalist

during the development of a topic or event, which can be published in the media
communication website or in the journalist’s own blog. The origin of the news comes
mainly from the investigation and follow-up by the journalist, as well as that of the
press agency. In some cases, however, it can also include messages sent by other
users in social media like Twitter or Facebook, among others.
New Formats for Local Journalism in the Era of Social … 73

Its use is effective in breaking news, since it quickly and concisely reports the
known details about the issue. The need for immediacy in updating the data, never-
theless, increases the risk of committing verification and spelling errors. This is its
main weakness.

3.3 News Summaries Through WhatsApp or Instagram

Stories

Consisting of a summary of the most important news that has occurred throughout
the day or week, it depends on the volume of news happening in the city where the
media is based. Its approach is based on sending or publishing between three and five
brief headlines, along with a link to the full post, which allows the user with scarce
time to know the most relevant news. The use of this format in two of the social
media with the greatest growth in recent years, WhatsApp and Instagram, allows
the media access to a large number of people, especially the young. In addition, the
inclusion of the link to the piece of news makes it easy for those users who wish to,
to access the complete story in a simple way, thus increasing the number of web site
visits.
The main limitation is the condition that WhatsApp users must subscribe to the
media mailing list to receive the news.

3.4 News Coverage via WhatsApp or Telegram

This format allows the user to follow an event or news through these instant messaging
platforms as a journalistic chronicle. The quick updates this type of coverage requires
means it is based on the use of short messages and a few visual resources, intended
only to supplement or amplify the information.
The functionality of WhatsApp and Telegram allows messages to arrive directly
to the users’ mobile devices, so it is important to limit the sending of messages to
avoid information overload. The use of this media is only possible after users have
signed up to the WhatsApp mailing list or the Telegram broadcasting channel.
Its applicability is broad and it allows local media to be able to offer audiences
a useful service for their day to day news or for certain events which they cannot
attend, but that are of keen interest to the general public.
74 A. Casero-Ripollés et al.

3.5 Teaser

This format, originating in the field of advertising, is used to awaken the curiosity and
intensify the intrigue of the audience. The most widely used media format consists
of short videos that anticipate a few details that keep you guessing what the subject
matter or the main protagonist of the piece of news may be. It is usually spread days
before the publication of the news or feature to generate buzz.
Its brevity and audio-visual nature make it a format completely adapted to social
networks, where the use of eye-catching visual resources is widely accepted on the
part of the users. Similarly, its diffusion in this space allows, from the comments and
other mechanisms of interaction it receives, the communications media to be able
to foresee if the piece will create interest or generate debate in the audience. It is
usually reserved for particularly relevant or innovative news or reports.

3.6 Videos Using Instagram IGTV

IGTV is a tool similar to a television channel built into the Instagram application with
which users can publish and consume audio-visual content. Unlike another known
resource from this social media, the stories, these videos can last up to ten minutes
(60 min if the profile is verified by Instagram) and remain stored in the user profiles
that publish them, so they can be consulted or seen again over time.
Its vertical format and high sound and image quality are useful to the local media
in broadcasting their reports, interviews, featurettes, tutorials or other news videos
through mobile devices.
Moreover, IGTV allows users to leave comments that enhance both the interaction
between the medium and its audience, as well as among the followers themselves,
thus creating a community that shares the same tastes and interests. This enhanced
public loyalty is key to local media.

4 Interactivity

Interactivity has a double meaning. On the one hand, it consists of creating several
reading routes or itineraries. In this formula, the information consumption is no
longer necessarily linear. The public has the freedom to choose how it wants to
consume news content. On the other hand, the interactivity makes reference to the
public participation through comments, “likes” or shares. These formulas allow the
user to express their opinion, but also to create a much more direct relationship with
the local media to articulate communities of users.
New Formats for Local Journalism in the Era of Social … 75

4.1 Interactive Reports

Inspired by the philosophy of ‘choose your own adventure’ books, this format allows
the public to be able to freely choose the information it wants to consume and in the
order it wants to do so. Some of these stories arise in the form of games with a series
of questions that guide readers through different scenarios, based on gamification.
The diverse reading routes are achieved by combining links and multimedia
resources such as videos, animations or infographics. The format also requires work-
ing with different multimedia resources such as audio, images or text. It can also
include content coming from social media or invite the public to use the platform for
story-related purposes.
Its features make it particularly useful in investigative journalism or data reporting,
as it allows information to be presented in a simple, visual and attractive way, thus
facilitating audience utilization.

4.2 Chat Meetings

This format consists of digital encounters between an interviewee, users of a chat

or social media and a journalist. The latter acts as an intermediary between the
interviewee and audience. It is characteristically highly digital because, although the
interviewee and the journalist are in the same physical space, the interview is through
different digital communications channels such as the media website, a forum, etc.
They are also collaborative interviews since, although the journalist proposes ques-
tions to talk about, the questions and comments that users send previously or live are
its main ingredient.
This formula energizes the community of followers and increases their engage-
ment, since they abandon their passive role in the consumption of news and participate
actively by proposing the themes and issues to be dealt with throughout the interview.
In addition, it is an attractive format for the interviewees, since it allows them closer
and more direct contact with users, but under the moderation of a journalist.

4.3 Voice Notes Using WhatsApp

Considered one of the most widely used features of WhatsApp, this format makes it
possible to send short or long duration audios, easily and immediately. Its use allows
the news to be complemented with statements by witnesses or other relevant sources
to an event, so lending the news greater credibility. They are also relevant to giving
users a voice, who can share opinions on a theme proposed by the medium.
This format is particularly useful in local journalism for approaching sources
that are difficult to access, since in many cases there are insufficient economic or
76 A. Casero-Ripollés et al.

material resources to travel to the location. The use of this format, however, requires
the exhaustive task of identifying the sources and controlling its content to prevent
fake news.

4.4 Surveys, Questions and Questionnaires Through

Instagram

Surveys, questions and questionnaires are three formats available in Instagram Stories
and they serve to encourage user participation. Their use is particularly interesting
for the local media, as it allows them to get the public’s opinion on various current
issues. In addition, knowing what the views of the followers are makes it possible to
identify who the target audience is and what their interests and concerns are. This is
something that can be combined with big data techniques to create user profiles.
The functionality of these formats means that users can interact and feel involved
in the news production process. In this sense, the media can use these formats to ask
their followers what topics they would like to have more news on. Moreover, through
questions, surveys or creative questionnaires, the media can create sets of questions
that inform while entertaining users, activating loyalty strategies.

5 Multimedia

This category brings together those formats that combine multiple forms of expres-
sion to present or disseminate news. These major resources mainly include text,
image, sound, video, or animation.

5.1 Media Reports

A media report is an informative piece that incorporates all the features of the dig-
ital environment such as hypertextuality (non-sequential linking of text, image and
sound), interactivity (the ability to relate to users) and multimedia technology (the
combination of several resources such as, for example, image, text and sound).
Its objective is to offer an in-depth account of the news, including large numbers
of detail, but in an attractive and visual way. By its nature, its format is very versatile
and applicable to any subject type. Its use is particularly interesting in questions that
involve a lot of data, many protagonists or that require detailed coverage. Its main
limitation is cost, which can be high for local media with limited budgets.
New Formats for Local Journalism in the Era of Social … 77

5.2 The Expander

This format serves to broaden the news on a particular concept, fact or element that
is within the journalistic story. It can be a complement to the multimedia reports.
The media offers its readers a kind of link through which they can learn more details
about a question that requires in-depth explanation, but without leaving the home
page.
The objective of this format is to make it easier for users interested in expanding
their knowledge on the subject to be able to do so. So, they might read only the
story or better understand its most relevant details by using the expander. It is a
useful element in reports on complex issues, which include a lot of data, whose full
explanation in the content of the report could hinder the public’s understanding of
the information.

5.3 Atmosphere

This is a format which accompanies the news with sounds whose goal is to create an
appropriate atmosphere for reading. It is, therefore, a multimedia complement, as it
extends and enhances the user experience, who may feel part of the reality reported
in the news. It can feature music, ambient sounds, a recording or a statement made
in the same place as the events. The choice of this format, however, must be done
carefully since a very shocking or out of context audio may be a distraction for the
users and provoke a loss of interest in regard to the news content.

5.4 Facebook Instant Articles

This format, integrated into Facebook, allows journalistic content to be consumed

from the same social media. Its employment by users is simple, since they can quickly
access the full articles in a highly visual interface, as well as share news they consider
interesting with their friends. A factor that can lead to an increase in the notoriety
of the contents, since sharing articles through this platform makes them more viral
and, thus, increases their spread of circulation.
The format, moreover, opens the contents of the local media to a potential audience
composed of all active Facebook users. Likewise, it enables them to build loyalty
to the page of the media in this social network from subscribers interested in easily
accessing the contents. The main problem of this type of format, however, is that
it’s possible that users do not access the media webpage, limiting themselves to only
consuming the news that this shares through this application.
78 A. Casero-Ripollés et al.

5.5 Podcasts

This format consists of the publication of a periodical digital audio or video and
can be consumed asynchronously through a webpage, blog or social network, or
downloaded to be heard or viewed on computers or mobile devices. The audience
may consume the content at any time or place. Podcasts usually offer specialized
content intended for an audience interested in the subject. For this reason, their
inclusion in social media leads to greater interaction on the part of the users, who
can give their feedback or raise new topics or issues to journalists.
Its creation is simple and economical, since it does not need any specific record-
ing and editing software nor specific expertise. Furthermore, there are currently a
multitude of technological tools and platforms for storing and sharing this content.

6 Image

The great growth in numbers of users of social media such as Instagram or YouTube
has placed audio-visual content in a preferential position. Currently, the use of pho-
tographs, videos, graphics and other elements of a visual nature are a claim for the
internet audience and are increasingly demanded by users. Being able to view the
elements that make up the news allows the public to immerse themselves within the
events journalists report.

6.1 Infographics

The infographic is an informative visual representation on a topic. Its aim is to

simplify complex ideas and facilitate the understanding of the most significant infor-
mative aspects. It is especially useful in very specialized subjects where technical
language is employed, or in matters in which a multitude of data or protagonists is
involved.
Its approach can be static if it consists only of text and illustrations, icons or graph-
ics; or interactive, if it includes videos, audios, animations, or links through which
to consult greater information. This latter modality encourages greater interaction
on the part of the reader, who chooses the data they want to expand as they progress
with the visualization and understanding of the news provided by the infographic.
This format is directly related to big data since, thanks to the information available
in social media, often published by users, interactive maps can be created. Also,
thanks to the activity data in social media, maps can be prepared where the news
scenarios appear geo-located. Infographics and visualization can make sense of large-
scale datasets and provide journalistic meaning.
New Formats for Local Journalism in the Era of Social … 79

6.2 360° Image and Video

360° images and videos are two formats of immersive journalism. Through them, the
public can focus on a scene from all directions and possible angles, moving freely
through the scenario on show. Thus, one of the main attractions that these formats
offer is that the audience can decide which part of the reality they want to see and
experience the events or situations that occur in it in the first person. Currently, social
networks such as Facebook already allow the taking and publishing of this type of
image from within the application itself. Likewise, phones, tablets and computers
are already adapted to the quality demanded in these formats and allow them to be
uploaded and viewed normally.
However, its use at the professional level is still a challenge for the local media,
especially for those owning fewer resources. Using these formats requires sizeable
economic investment for both the recording devices as well as the editing programs.
Additionally, they need specialized professionals with knowledge in virtual reality
and 3D animation. This can create an obstacle for some local media when it comes
to applying these formats.

7 Streaming

Streaming encompasses the formats that narrate events minute by minute or connect
live with the scene of events. These formats, originating in radio and television, have
recently been incorporated as a regular resource in the digital press, often through
social networks, which have specific tools for broadcasting live.

7.1 Live Broadcasts Through Social Media

Live streaming through social media enables a quick and easy connection to any
point where the news is found. This format allows users to follow events at the same
time as they are happening, but with the particularity of actively being able to take
part in its development, by simultaneously publishing comments. With this formula
the media may interact with its followers. Thus, community participation may be
encouraged, raising questions that can be answered live or finding out impressions
and what is generating most interest between users at the same time as events take
place.
Currently, social media such as Facebook, Instagram or YouTube feature free
built-in tools to make live video retransmissions. This has potential for local media,
which does not have to face any additional economic costs for its use. In this way,
any journalist with a mobile device with an internet connection can retransmit any
80 A. Casero-Ripollés et al.

event. Even, those of a local or hyperlocal nature, which are often left out of the news
coverage due to a lack of sufficient human or material resources.

7.2 Liveblogging

This format combines the essence of streaming with the practice of blogging. This
allows the construction of the journalistic story as a blog post. The greatest potential
of live blogging is the real-time transmission of the comments and the analysis of
current events in chronological order, in combination with such resources as, for
example, summaries, quotes, links, social media posts or multimedia elements.
In this way, users can continue to follow an event live that they have not been able
to personally attend. At the same time, they can converse with other users. It also
counts on a space for debate and discussion. In this context, the possibility arises for
the media to boost its commitment from its followers, inviting them to contribute
their point of view on the event and involving them in the process of news production.
Some applications, such as ScribbleLive, make it possible to make extensive
journalistic coverage, including images, videos, links, user-aimed surveys and spaces
to leave comments. Once the event is over, it gives the option to keep the full coverage,
which makes it easier for the public to see the contents afterwards.

8 Transmedia

This category brings together those formats that transcend the space of a single
platform and expand the news through various broadcasting channels (newspapers,
television, radio, web, social media, etc.), combining different languages and formats
(text, image, video, audio, infographics) and encouraging the participation of the
public. The aim of these formats is to build several stories about the same event, that
are interrelated, but which may be consumed on their own without that affecting the
users’ comprehension of the content.

8.1 Transmedia Reporting

This format is based on the construction of journalistic content across different plat-
forms. This type of narration combines different interrelated stories, but at the same
time they maintain their independence and make separate complete sense, thus adapt-
ing themselves to different styles and perspectives according to the channel selected
for their diffusion.
Although the digital context, with its many social media, websites and blogs, has
become the preeminent space of this type of format, it can overcome virtual barriers
New Formats for Local Journalism in the Era of Social … 81

and extend to the real world. Thus, part of the narratives it relates can be translated
into offline actions like books, conferences, educational projects, photographic exhi-
bitions, contests, etc. The fact of combining different perspectives, according to the
languages, formats and channels used, makes one of the main virtues of this format:
the capacity to enrich the news story, making it more immersive, integrating and
participatory.
It is a format that offers a multitude of possibilities to local media, who using the
online and offline space can expand the reach of their news coverage, establishing
greater contact with their audience and inviting it to actively participate in its contents.
It is, however, a complex and expensive format that implies knowing the language
of each platform (television, radio, digital media, blog, social media) and expressive
resource (video, podcast, text, hypertext, streaming), to adapt the different stories
that make up the universe surrounding the news. Besides, it is a format that needs
a broad theme or event with sizeable, amounts of data and stories to tell, which
implies dedicated research and production time. This is an obstacle for local media
with scarce economic resources.

8.2 Collaborative Reporting

This format is based on reporting produced between journalists and citizens. Its
approach is based on the proposal of a topic by journalists, who through social
media ask their followers to send them information, statements or ideas related to
the subject. Likewise, they can ask the users to be the ones who suggest topics or
ideas they find relevant or controversial within their city, that usually do not feature
in the national media.
Unlike other formats, citizen participation is not limited to commenting or dis-
seminating journalistic content through different platforms. On the contrary, citizens
participate actively and directly in the creation of content. In this way, the media
can count on multiple sources of information that allow the enrichment of content
and the raising of awareness of issues that would otherwise be left out of the public
agenda.
For this reason, its success depends directly on the initiative of the users. If
they do not send their proposals, comments or content the format fails for lack
of collaboration.

9 Conclusions: New Formats and Big Data to Ensure

the Future of Local Journalism

Local journalism faces an uncertain future (Nielsen 2015) due to the impact of digital
technologies that are structurally transforming the sector. Faced with this situation,
82 A. Casero-Ripollés et al.

it must place its bets on innovation (Küng 2015) to reconnect with the public and
offer attractive content of a civic character that adds value (Casero-Ripollés 2014).
These may be able to redefine the business models, that were strongly weakened by
the converging economic crisis and digitization (Picard 2014).
With the aim of producing news adapted to the digital environment that is better
able to connect with the audience, six broad categories of formats based on social
media for local journalism have been identified. These are: storytelling, interactiv-
ity, multimedia, image, streaming, and transmedia. In turn, these six categories are
divided into twenty-one formats among which are, including others, live blogging,
the tweet magazine, summary information through WhatsApp or Instagram Stories,
Facebook Instant Articles, the expander, the teaser, collaborative reporting, surveys,
questions and questionnaires through Instagram or 360° image and the 360° video.
Many of these formats incorporate the use of big data for local journalism, improv-
ing its potential, when it comes to collecting, processing, analyzing, compiling and
disseminating information. These formats make up a catalogue that represents a wide
and varied range of options that can allow local journalism to introduce innovation
in news production and, with it, to regain the confidence of the public, ensuring its
survival and future in the digital scenario.

Acknowledgements This work is part of the research project UJI-B2017-55, funded by the
Universitat Jaume I of Castelló, within the Plan of Promotion of Research (2017).

References

Campos-Freire F, Rúas-Araújo J, López-García X, Martínez-Fernández VA (2016) Impacto de las

redes sociales en el periodismo. El Profesional de la Información 25(3):449–457. https://doi.org/
10.3145/epi.2016.may.15
Casero-Ripollés A (2010) Prensa en internet: nuevos modelos de negocio en el escenario de la
convergencia. El Profesional de la Información 19(6):595–601
Casero-Ripollés A (2014) La pérdida de valor de la información periodística: causas y consecuen-
cias. Anuario ThinkEPI 8:256–259
Firmstone J (2016) Mapping changes in local news. Journalism Pract 10(7):928–938. https://doi.
org/10.1080/17512786.2016.1165136
García-Avilés JA, Carvajal-Prieto M, Arias-Robles F (2018) Implementation of innovation in Span-
ish digital media: analysis of journalists’ perceptions. Revista Latina de Comunicación Soc
73:369–384
Hess K, Waller L (2016) Local journalism in a digital world. Palgrave, London
Jarvis J (2014) Geeks bearing gifts: Imagining new futures for news. CUNY Journalism Press, New
York
Kalogeropoulos A, Nielsen RK (2018) Investing in online video news: a cross-national analysis of
news organizations’ enterprising approach to digital media. Journalism Stud 19(15):2207–2224.
https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1331709
Kim YC, Ball-Rokeach SJ (2006) Community storytelling network, neighborhood context, and
civic engagement: a multilevel approach. Hum Commun Res 32(4):411–439
Küng L (2015) Innovators in digital news. IB Tauris, London
New Formats for Local Journalism in the Era of Social … 83

Lewis SC, Westlund O (2015) Big data and journalism: epistemology, expertise, economics, and
ethics. Digit Journalism 3(3):447–466. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2014.976418
López-García X (2008) Ciberperiodismo en la proximidad. Comunicacion Social Ediciones y
Publicaciones, Sevilla
Negreira-Rey MC, López-García X, Rodríguez-Vázquez AI (2018) Los cibermedios locales e
hiperlocales en España y Portugal. La fase de búsqueda de modelos. Sur le journalisme 7(2):50–63
Newman N (2009) The rise of social media and its impact on mainstream journalism. Reuters
Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford
Nielsen RK (2015) Local journalism: the decline of newspapers and the rise of digital media. IB
Tauris, London
Picard RG (2014) Twilight or new dawn of journalism? Evidence from the changing news ecosystem.
Journalism Stud 15(5):500–510. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2014.895530
Salaverría R (2019) Digital journalism: 25 years of research. Review article. El Profesional de la
Información 28(1):e280101. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2019.ene.01
Vázquez-Herrero J, Negreira-Rey MC, López-García X (2018) Transmedia discourse at the local
and hyperlocal sphere. In: 13th Iberian conference on information systems and technologies
(CISTI). IEEE, pp 1–5

Andreu Casero-Ripollés Professor of Journalism and Dean of the School of Humanities and
Social Sciences at Universitat Jaume I (UJI). Previously, he was head of the Department of Com-
munication Sciences and director of Journalism Studies. He holds a degree from the Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona and a Ph.D. from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He is a member of the
Institut d’Estudis Catalans. He works on the transformations of digital journalism and political
communication.

Silvia Marcos-García Ph.D. in Communication Science, a degree in Journalism and a Master’s in

New Trends and Processes of Innovation in Communication from Universitat Jaume I (UJI). Her
lines of research focus on political communication and journalism on social media. Specifically,
her work is based on the study of the use of social media such us Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
by political actors, media and citizens.

Laura Alonso-Muñoz Ph.D. in Communication Science and Postdoctoral Research fellow from
the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness of Spain in the Department of Communi-
cation Sciences at Universitat Jaume I (UJI). She has a degree in Journalism and a Master’s in New
Trends and Processes of Innovation in Communication from UJI. She also is graduated in Political
Science and Administration from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She works on the transformations
of digital journalism and political communication.
Information Visualization and Usability:
Tools for Human Comprehension

Ángel Vizoso

Abstract This chapter makes a review on the progress of two growing areas in
the field of communication: information visualization and usability. Information
visualization has experimented a lot of changes during the last few years, especially
with its arrival to the Internet and the development of different narrative forms by
taking advantage of the main characteristics of the new environment. Something
similar has occurred with the concept of usability. The following sections explore
the significance of this young idea whose spread took place especially with the start
of the Internet. With the objective of completing this theoretical framework, a small
usability test was conducted with five renowned visualizations. The results of this
test show that even the most salient journals do not fulfill many of the main usability
recommendations. Hence, this area still has a considerable way to go regarding its
appliance to information visualization.

Keywords Information visualization · Usability · Infographics · User-centered

design

1 Milestones and Development of Information Visualization

Information visualization has been one of the areas with a major development in the
field of communication. Its main goal is the presentation of information and data
in a comprehensive and orderly way (Uyan Dur 2014). Thus, this discipline can be
defined as “the representation and presentation of both data and information that
takes advantage of our visual capability in order to expand our knowledge” (Alcalde
2015: 20). Likewise, it is “the use of visual representations to explore, make sense
of, and communicate data” (Few 2014: 2). As noted through these definitions, there
have been many efforts to define and delimit the area, and most of them highlight
the power of information visualization as a communicative tool for the knowledge
enrichment (Olmeda-Gómez 2014).

Á. Vizoso (B)
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 85

J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_7
86 Á. Vizoso

When talking about information visualization we are analysing a booming area,

especially in journalism. Thus, it is not a new area or an exclusive communicative
tool of our days (Figueiras 2014). It is possible to find antecedents of this visual genre
in books like William Playfair’s The Commercial and Political Atlas and Statistical
Breviary published in 1786 and 1801 respectively. As pointed out by Cairo (2008),
these books contain the first examples of bar, line and pie charts. A few years later, in
1854, it is possible to find another great milestone in the development of information
visualization. The British doctor John Snow showed the geographical spread of more
than five hundred deaths due to cholera during ten days in the Soho district, London.
Snow’s map combines two datasets. First of all, the number and location of the
cholera deaths and, secondly, the water sources location. Hence, thanks to this map
it is possible to find out the relation among the deceases and the contamination of
some water sources in the neighbourhood. Edward Tufte highlighted the importance
John Snow’s contribution by opening a new way of providing “direct and powerful
testimony about a possible cause-effect relationship” (1997: 6).
Less than a decade later, the French engineer Charles Joseph Minard published
one of the most iconic visualizations ever, a chart of the losses of Napoleon’s army
during its Russian Campaign (1812–1813). Minard’s chart shows the development of
different variables: “the size of the army, its location on a two-dimensional surface,
the direction of the army’s movement and temperature in various dates during the
retreat from Moscow” (Tufte 2001: 40). All of that in a very visual chart which
reflects the regression of Napoleon’s army both during its advance towards Moscow
first and its withdrawal then.
Although the examples previously noted are considered a key part of the devel-
opment of information visualization, they were not published by the press, at least,
initially. It exists a deep debate among some scholars about the start of press info-
graphics. Thus, many of them consider that the description of Admiral Vernon’s
attack to Portobello’s bay is the first example of infographics available in the printed
press (Sullivan 1987 in Franco 2005). It was published by the Daily Post on the 29th
of March 1740. However, it exists broad agreement among scholars in identifying
the graphic published by the British diary The Times on the 7th of April 1806 about
Isaac Blight’s homicide as the first example of infographics in press (Peltzer 1991).
This graphic contains a draw of the view of Mr. Blight’s house as well as a plan of
its inside with an explanation of the itinerary followed by its murders (Cairo 2008).
However, information visualization experts tend to coincide in highlighting the
launching of the newspaper USA Today as one of the main milestones in the devel-
opment of this field. Launched in September 1982, USA Today changed the way in
which press journalism was produced by introducing a new design idea based on the
use of colour instead black and white, an increase in the use of images and a clear
commitment in the use of infographics (Lallana 1999). After the emergence of this
journal, some global events like, for instance, the Gulf War and the difficulties for
accessing audiovisual materials during its course, had a great influence in the devel-
opment of this genre. The media tried to soft the shortage of videos and pictures of
this conflict by using visualizations to explain both the development of the war as
well as the weapons and materials used by the armies.
Information Visualization and Usability: Tools for Human … 87

1.1 From Printed to Interactive Infographics

As pointed out before, information visualization has its origin in many works related
with disciplines like economics or demographics. Then, the genre reached a new
characterization with its adoption by the media and, more concretely, by the printed
press. This integration resulted in the development of printed infographics, a partic-
ular way of informative communication which can be defined like “an informative
contribution based on both iconic and typographic elements, which allows the com-
prehension of facts, actions or current topics or, at least, some of their main aspects
by accompanying or replacing an informative text” (Valero-Sancho 2001: 21).
Following Cairo (2008), infographics are not an ornamental object with the objec-
tive of make the pages of the newspaper more light, dynamic or colourful. It has to
work as a tool for the reality analysis improving readers’ comprehension.
Through these two definitions it is possible to assess two ideas. Firstly, the nature
of infographics as a journalistic genre, similarly to others like reports or interviews.
Secondly, the power of infographics as a vehicle for information transmission. More-
over, concerning its production, it has experimented an evolution during the last two
decades. Nowadays infographics are increasingly the result of the work of journal-
ists with design and data management abilities while, in the past, it was produced by
artists who adapted its know-how to the needs of journalism (Cairo 2017).
The advance of infographics since the 90s has been continuous, as noted before.
All of that thanks to the inclusion of new visual forms and technological tools which
have allowed the adaptation and improvement of this genre. In addition, these changes
have led into the birth of a new form of visualization, multimedia infographics,
considered a completely new communicative form by many scholars (Arévalo 2009).
Wibke Weber, defines an interactive information graphic as “a visual representa-
tion of information that integrates different nodes into a coherent whole and offers
at least one navigation option to control the graphic” (2013). The youth of the use of
this genre by the online media has provoked the emergence of a wide range of ways
to name it. Thus, leveraging its characteristics—multimedia, hypertext, and interac-
tivity, a lot of nomenclatures have emerged. Some of them are, for instance: digital
infographics (Pinto Rodrigues 2012), online infographics (Nogueira 2018), inter-
active infographics (Dick 2013), or multimedia infographics (Salaverría and Cores
2005). Another ones are data visualization (Iliinsky 2012) or information visualiza-
tion (Anderson 2017). However, it exists a deep debate among scholars. While some
of them consider that infographics are a subdiscipline of information visualization,
others think that both infographics and information visualization are part of the same
reality.
Despite these diverse ways to name it, which is undeniable is that multimedia
infographics have experimented a huge advance in the last few years. This advance
has its explanation in the fact that, while printed infographics do not rely on a close
connection with technology, multimedia does. Thus, it is possible to notice different
stages in the development of multimedia infographics which, following Gomes-
Amaral (2010), are:
88 Á. Vizoso

• Content replication. It was the initial stage of the publication of infographics

online. Therein, newspapers replicated the same content published before on their
printed version without any interactivity or multimedia capability.
• Addition of certain interactivity. The second stage was marked by the integration
of a certain level of interactivity in the infographic pieces previously published in
the printed edition of the media.
• Inclusion and combination of multimedia elements. The main characteristic of
this third stage is the use of audio, video, text, images and hyperlinks in a product
conceived for its publication online.
• Data based infographics. Visualizations linked to a database with real-time updat-
ing. This fourth stage allows the highest level of personalization and exploration
for the reason that each individual use can refer to a specific part of the data in
order to obtain an individual and exclusive experience.
Hence, when talking about infographics—both printed and multimedia—we are
talking about a flexible and efficient journalistic genre and communicative tool which
can be a complement for the information or present it autonomously (Zwinger and
Zeiller 2016). In addition, infographics have demonstrated its capability to deal with
data from many disciplines, and it is the reason why its use is becoming more frequent
in disciplines like art (Li 2018) or economy (Gatto 2015).
Although the development of information visualization was steady during the last
twenty years, further challenges have emerged during the last decade. The onset of
new devices like mobile phones or tablets provoked new needs in the production
of news graphics, especially the journalistic ones. Journalists, designers and pro-
grammers who carry out the task of data extraction and content production for these
news products have now the need of adapting its visual appearance and its functions
to these different ways of consumption. Hence, concepts like responsive design or
usability play now a central role when producing information visualization.

2 The Concept of Usability and Its Relevance

for Information Visualization

Usability has been defined by the International Organization for Standardization

(ISO) as “the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve
specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context
of use” (International Organization for Standardization 2018: 15). Although this
agency opens its definition to all products, the historical development of the concept
has been centered mainly in computing tools in both software—computer programs,
video games or, more recently, mobile apps, and hardware sides—computers in its
different variants, mobile phones or tablets among other devices.
In 1993 Jakob Nielsen talked about the growing importance of user interfaces
in the computing of that time. Nielsen pointed out that the changes in the use of
computers—from specialized users to the popularization of these machines—lead
Information Visualization and Usability: Tools for Human … 89

to the need of “making life easier for the user” (Nielsen 1993: 8). Hence, in the
last years the concept of usability is more related with realities like the “learning
agility and the ease of use of a product” (Rache et al. 2014: 180) and linked very
closely to the idea of the user-centered design (UCD) where one of the main focus
when producing a technological product is the capability to adapt it to the final user
(Mayhew 1999). Regarding this idea, Nielsen (1993: 26) established five attributes
to usability:
• Learnability. Systems should be easy to learn in order to make possible a quick
adaptation of the user.
• Efficiency. This attribute refers to the ease of learning how the product works in
order to increase users’ knowledge.
• Memorability. This characteristic points out the need of making systems whose
use would be easy to remember. Thus, when users come back after a certain period
of time without using it, it would not be necessary to learn how it works.
• Low error rate. Errors should not appear or, at least, their appearance should be
scarce. Therefore, the system should be capable of recovering itself from an error.
• Satisfaction. Nielsen pointed out that systems should be pleasant to use, a feature
that would lead the users to a major satisfaction.
As it is foreseeable, the major development of both the theory about this concept
and the design of interfaces and devices with the most recommended usability cri-
teria has been taking place from the beginning of the Internet, democratisation of
computers and, in the last few years, mobile phones (Souza and Maciel 2018).

2.1 The Challenges of Usability Evaluation

In the communicative context of our days, “users are surrounded by a broad range
of networked interaction devices” (Yigitbas et al. 2018: 231). This fact has provoked
a lot of changes in the production of communicative products and tools. However,
one of these changes stands out among the others: the user has become a central part
in the designing process. This phenomenon is what experts call the user-centered
design, “an iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their
needs in each phase of the design process” (Interaction Design Foundation 2019).
Hence, at the present time, those professionals who produce tools and products both
in the area of communication or in other ones have to put the final users in the middle
of their projects in order to provide them with efficient and attractive experiences.
In the course of this designing process as well as after its launching, both these
teams and some outside bodies conduct different usability tests and experiments.
These evaluations are used to assess the efficacy and the pertinence of both the
products and the techniques employed in its production and can be performed in
different ways.
90 Á. Vizoso

For instance, Rache et al. (2014) explained the existence of two types of methods
for the evaluation of usability. First of all, there would be techniques where the
presence and participation of the users are needed. These could be:
• User testing. In this method, the users are required to interact with the interface in
both free and directed navigation.
• Card sorting. Researchers present different cards to the users. They are required
to group them in different categories relevant for them for, finally, naming these
categories.
• Interviews. These could be directed, semi-structured or non-directional. All these
three types have the objective of knowing user’s perceptions on the use of a product.
• Questionnaire. It exists some pre-determined and standardized questionnaires
like the Website Analytics Measurement Inventory (WAMMI) or the Usability
Measurement Inventory Software (SUMI).
• Creativity methods. Example of these techniques could be brainstorming or
association of ideas, among others.
• Critical incident. Qualitative interview where the interviewed user identifies differ-
ent events. The person highlights these events, how they evolved and their impact
and consequences.
• Observation. In this method, researchers are observers of the normal performing
of users’ activities.
These authors noticed that another possibility is the use of techniques where the
presence of the user is not required. These methods are performed only by researchers
or experts which can notice the usability particularities of any product by using
different procedures:
• Heuristic analysis. Inspection of the interface with the objective of detecting the
positive and negative aspects of its usability.
• Cognitive walk-through. Simulation of the user’s cognitive behaviour. The authors
identified three phases in the implementation of this method: (1) definition of the
scenario and the aims of the study; (2) evaluation phase with questions for each
task performed; (3) identification of any possible usability problem by using the
answers given to the previous questions.
• Personas. Analysis of both the needs and profiles of the potential users of a product
with the objective of creating fictional characters. Then, designers can refer to these
profiles when producing a new interface.
• Automated evaluation. Use of algorithms for the automatic analysis of the quality
of the presentation.
• Evaluation by expertise. Identification of any usability problem by an expert or a
group of experts.
• Analysis of documents and reports. Review of documentation from diverse sources.
With the use of this method, researchers can make their own judgements on
different products.
• Creativity methods. As previously noted, this method involves the utilization of
brainstorming or the association of ideas and it is valid for research in both the
presence and the absence of the users.
Information Visualization and Usability: Tools for Human … 91

3 Method

To complete the theoretical approach presented in this chapter with an empirical

experience, a small heuristic usability test was conducted in order to see if some of
the most recognized visualizations published in the last few years fulfill the main
usability criteria set by different authors. To reach this objective, an analysis card
used by de Oliveira and Guimarães (2017) adapted by selecting twenty of the items
contained on it. It is necessary to point out that these authors reviewed previous
research in order to set up this tool. It is necessary to note that there are different
methods for usability evaluation as pointed out by Rache et al. (2014). Then, five
visualizations were chosen. These multimedia infographic examples were awarded
in the Malofiej Awards’ Best of Show—Online from 2015 to 2019. After its identi-
fication, the analysis card was applied to these items in an heuristic analysis in order
to compare the presence of the chosen criteria in these renowned works. The twenty
elements reviewed in this analysis card are listed in Table 1 and were scored from 0
to 5 points. Thus, each visualization could obtain an overall score from 0 to 100 in
fulfilling the established items.
The authors are aware that this experience is not representative about the develop-
ment of the usability criteria or the user-centered design implementation. However,
it will be very useful for pointing out some of the key strengths and weaknesses of
five significant visualizations awarded by an international jury.

3.1 Selected Works

In this section we will describe briefly the works which integrate our sample, five
prize-winner visualizations at the Malofiej Awards, the most relevant recognition
for infographics. Malofiej Awards take place at the University of Navarra every year
since 1993, thanks to the joint effort of both the University of Navarra and the Spanish
Chapter of the Society for News Design, one of the most important associations in
the professional field of information visualization. For a few days, professionals and
scholars from around the world share their experience in workshops and conferences.
However, one of the main events is the awards ceremony where the most salient
visualization examples in different categories are recognized. For instance, in 2019
there were prizes for both digital and printed visualizations in categories like ‘Best
of Show’, ‘Best Map’, ‘Climate Change and Environmental Commitment’, ‘Human
Rights’, ‘Equality and Women’s Promotion’ as well as the classic ‘Gold’, ‘Silver’ and
‘Bronze’ qualifications for breaking news and features printed and online graphics.
As previously stated, the five online visualizations awarded as the ‘Best of Show’
from 2015 to 2019 were selected. They will be briefly described before displaying
the main findings of our small heuristic usability test.
92 Á. Vizoso

Table 1 Usability criteria reviewed in the analysis card

Name Questions about each topic
User control and freedom Does the user have the freedom to control the
visualization?
History Does the visualization tell a story by itself?
User control Is the user allowed to control the data?
Orientation and help Does the visualization provide guidelines
about its utilization?
Provide multiple levels of detail Does the visualization offer the possibility to
access multiple levels of detail for the
information?
Details on demand Does the information provide the possibility
to ask for any further data?
Spatial organization How good is the placement of the elements in
the visualization?
Grouping and distinguishing items by format Does the visualization distinguish items by its
format?
Grouping and distinguishing items by location Does the visualization distinguish items by its
location?
Help and documentation Does the visualization provide any
documentation or context details about the
topic?
Legibility What is the ease to read the data in the
visualization?
Aesthetic and minimalist design Is the design minimalist?
Information density What is the density of the provided data?
Cognitive complexity Is this visualization difficult to understand to a
medium user?
Multivariate explanation Does the visualization use multiple variables
for explaining the information?
Put the most data in the least space Is the visualization efficient in using the
space?
Formulate cause and effect Does the visualization provide the cause and
effect of the data or information showed?
Consider people with colour blindness Does the visualization avoid colours like red
and green?
Conciseness Is the visualization concise by avoiding data
redundancies?
Integrate text wherever relevant Does the infographic use text only when
necessary for extend the information?
Source de Oliveira and Guimarães (2017)
Information Visualization and Usability: Tools for Human … 93

Areas Under Isis Control.1 This visual story, whose last update was on the 28th
December of 2015, describes the advance of both the Iraqi Army and the ISIS mili-
tants in their fight for the lands of Iraq, Syria and Jordan. The user only has to scroll
down in order to find a great variety of maps—up to thirty, charts and pictures of the
conflict zone. Although the content does not show any interactivity, The New York
Times visualization team tried to tell the whole story with the use of charts, maps,
text and images.
Unaffordable Country2 allows the user two possibilities. First, it is possible to reach
historical information from 1995 to 2014 about the house price in every single region
of the United Kingdom. It is possible to find out the highest, lowest and median price
of a house in the chosen area. Then, the users have the option of entering their salary
in order to check how affordable could be buying a house with their current earns.
All of that in an interactive choropleth map where a chromatic scale from blue to red
shows the price of the housing.
Olympic Races Social Series.3 The Olympic Races Social Series were a set of visual-
izations published by The New York Times during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro’s Olympic
Games in order to give an account of the development of the athletics or swimming
races among others. There were explanations about the most successful countries
in each discipline. All the visualizations followed very similar patterns. They were
built-in news stories as an animated content that the users could play. Then, a simple
and lineal representation of the swimming pool or the running track was presented
with an iconic draw of the athletes and its distance and position during the course
of the races. At the end, the visualization showed which athlete won the gold, silver
and bronze medal as well as the distance between the first competitor and the rest
of the participants. The main point of these items is that they were shared as GIFs
through The New York Times’ social media accounts, being a very visual content
whose simplicity and clarity could attract more readers to the whole information,
which was completed with text, images and, sometimes, other graphic examples.
Although the whole series were awarded, the authors selected one example of this
set, the news piece about Usain Bolt’s victory in the 100 m race published on the
14th of August 2016.
The Science of Hummingbirds.4 This visualization has the objective of explaining the
particularities of hummingbirds, one of the smallest bird species. In this work, the

1 Published by The New York Times in 2014 and awarded in 2015. Available at https://www.

nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/the-iraq-isis-conflict-in-maps-photos-and-
video.html.
2 Published by The Guardian in 2015 and awarded in 2016. Available at https://www.theguardian.

com/society/ng-interactive/2015/sep/02/unaffordable-country-where-can-you-afford-to-buy-a-
house.
3 Published by The New York Times in 2016 and awarded in 2017. Available at https://www.nytimes.

com/2016/08/15/sports/olympics/usain-bolt-100-meters-justin-gatlin-results.html?smid=pl-share.
4 Published by National Geographic in 2017 and awarded in 2018. Available at https://www.

nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/07/the-science-of-hummingbirds/.
94 Á. Vizoso

user can access a lot of information about these birds like their speed, comparisons
about their size, the particularities of their tongue or their brain. All of that with
a combination of real images, draws, text, and charts in order to provide a lot of
information on these creatures.
A Window into Delhi’s Deadly Pollution.5 This visualization is the result of the
placement of a camera in the top of a building in Delhi in order to advert the pollution
levels in the city. The resulting story was composed by a map with the location of the
camera and the presentation of hundreds of images from that point. The user has to
scroll down the piece to make a journey across the pollution levels between the 29th
of October and the 8th of November 2018. The story offers comparisons between
different hours of the day as well as charts with data collected from pollution measure
stations in the city.

4 Findings of the Usability Test

As explained in the method section, five renowned visualizations were reviewed in

order to find how they apply some of the most common usability characteristics.
Thus, in this section the main strengths and weaknesses of each visualization will
be highlighted by pointing out those areas where each work is salient as well as
noting those ones were not. Therefore, before explaining the singularities of each
visualization regarding its usability patterns, the final score of each test will be showed
in Table 2. It is necessary to note that due to the smallness of the sample this will
serve just for monitoring some trends and especially for making a slight comparison
among different visualizations which obtained the same award.
As shown in Table 2, The Guardian’s Unaffordable Country reached the highest
score in our usability test. This visualization obtained the maximum rating of five
points in the following categories: user control and freedom, user control, details
on demand, spatial organization and formulate cause and effect. Compared with the

Table 2 Final results of the usability test

Title Publication Year Final score
Unaffordable Country The Guardian 2016 83/100
Areas Under ISIS Control The New York Times 2015 77/100
The Science of Hummingbirds National Geographic 2018 75/100
A Window into Delhi’s Deadly Pollution Reuters 2019 70/100
Olympic Races Social Series The New York Times 2017 49/100
Own elaboration

5 Published
by Reuters in 2018 and awarded in 2019. Available at https://graphics.reuters.com/
INDIA-POLLUTION/01008173281/index.html.
Information Visualization and Usability: Tools for Human … 95

other four examples, the user can control which data are displayed and it offers the
highest possibilities when looking for the data of a particular area. It is a good example
of spatial organization because the map is optimized for an efficient displaying in
any screen without any infill material. The lowest scores for this work were the three
points obtained in both history and cognitive complexity. Compared with the rest
of visualizations reviewed, the story narrated in this one is not as evident as the
other ones. Something similar occurs with its cognitive complexity. A certain level
of literacy in the use of interactive maps is needed for navigating through this work.
The highest values for Areas Under ISIS Control were reached in the following
items: history, provide multiple levels of detail, grouping and distinguishing items by
location, and formulate cause and effect. Due to the extent of this example and as in
contrast with the previous one, the narration of a whole history in this visualization
is a good example of how this journalistic genre can be combined with elements
like images, videos or text in order to narrate complex data and facts. Thus, in this
case, The New York Times used a cascade of maps and charts that, together with text
and images, completes a whole story which formulates the causes and effects of the
described scenario by itself. In sum, these materials are correctly grouped both by
its format and its location, which simplifies the ease of its read. However, the lowest
values for this example were given in areas like its informative density—it constitutes
an in-depth visualization with a lot of information—or the lowest possibilities for
its control by the user. Moreover, this visualization does not have any interactive
possibility at all.
National Geographic’s The Science of Hummingbirds obtained a very similar
qualification if compared with the previous example. This is thanks to its salience
in criteria like the fact that it narrates a whole story by itself—history—or different
qualities related to its design. For instance, this visualization uses text only wherever
it is relevant, considers people with colour blindness and puts the most data in the least
space. However, it obtained a score of two points in areas like control possibilities
for the user or the existence of the possibility of obtaining data on demand.
A Window into Delhi’s Deadly Pollution had a score of 70 points. This visualization
combines the highest score obtained in fields like the integration of text wherever
it is relevant or its conciseness with the fact that users do not have any control
possibility, or they do not have the opportunity of obtaining details on demand. It is
a good example of what some experts call ‘scrollytelling’. Scroll is the main action
that users are allowed to perform in this visualization without any other exploration
possibilities apart from those ones established by the designers.
Finally, The New York Times’ Olympic Races Social Series obtained the lowest
qualification in our study. This is due to the nature of the visualizations, designed for
being played without any possibility of interaction. Therefore, although this example
reached the highest rates in areas like considering people with colour blindness or
the ease of its comprehension by any user, all those categories related with the level
of details provided or the control options available for users had low scores. Then,
watching these results, it is possible to notice that this visualization was envisaged
with a supplementary and visual function, not as the main way for displaying the
information.
96 Á. Vizoso

5 Conclusions

In sum, the aim of this chapter was to highlight the growing importance of usability
in the present context of information visualization. As noted in the previous sections,
information visualization has been one of the journalistic genres with a major devel-
opment since the 1990s decade. Especially with the arrival of the Internet, this way
of communication has explored new narrative forms and capabilities.
However, in this context, usability and efficiency criteria play now a central role.
As stated, information visualization teams have to pay more attention than ever to
this side of the development. Here, journalists, designers and programmers try to
make visualizations where efficiency, attractive and informative relevance have to be
present in one single product.
To prove how important is following usability patterns in nowadays’ journalism, a
small usability test was conducted. This brief experiment has allowed us to appreciate
some of the weaknesses and strengths of high-renowned visualization works in order
to highlight the importance of considering as much usability criteria as possible when
producing informative pieces like these.

Acknowledgements This chapter is prepared within the framework of the project Digital native
media in Spain: storytelling formats and mobile strategy (RTI2018-093346-B-C33), from the Min-
istry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Government of Spain). The project is co-funded by
the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This text is also prepared as part of the activities
of Novos Medios Research Group (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, GI-1641), supported
by the programme Consolidation and Structuration of Competitive Research Units of the Galician
Regional Government (ED431B 2017/48). The author is also beneficiary from the Education’s Uni-
versity Faculty Training Programme (FPU), financed by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and
Universities (Government of Spain).

References

Alcalde I (2015) Visualización de la información: de los datos al conocimiento. UOC, Barcelona

Anderson C (2017) Social survey reportage: context, narrative, and information visualization
in early 20th century American journalism. Journalism 18:81–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/
1464884916657527
Arévalo G (2009) La infografía interactiva: Un género por desarrollar. Chasqui 107:64–67
Cairo A (2008) Infografía 2.0: visualización interactiva de la información en prensa. Alamut, Madrid
Cairo A (2017) Nerd journalism: how data and digital technology transformed news graphics. PhD
dissertation, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
de Oliveira MR, Guimarães C (2017) Adapting heuristic evaluation to information visualization—a
method for defining a heuristic set by heuristic grouping. In: Proceedings of the 12th international
joint conference on computer vision, imaging and computer graphics theory and applications.
SCITEPRESS—Science and Technology Publications, Porto, pp 225–232
Dick M (2013) Interactive infographics and news values. Digit J 2:490–506. https://doi.org/10.
1080/21670811.2013
Few S (2014) Why do we visualize quantitative data? Visual Business Intelligence. Retrieved from
http://www.perceptualedge.com/blog/?p=1897
Information Visualization and Usability: Tools for Human … 97

Figueiras A (2014) How to tell stories using visualization. In: 2014 18th international conference
on information visualisation, Paris, France, 15–17 July 2014, pp 18–26
Franco G (2005) La infografía periodística. Anroart, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Gatto MAC (2015) Making research useful: current challenges and good practices in data visuali-
sation. Reuters Institute. Retrieved from https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:526114c2-8266-4dee-
b663-351119249fd5
Gomes-Amaral RC (2010) Infográfico jornalístico de terceira geração: análise do uso da multimidi-
alidade na infografia. PhD dissertation, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
Iliinsky N (2012) Why is data visualization so hot? Visually Blog. Retrieved from https://visual.ly/
blog/why-is-data-visualization-so-hot/
Interaction Design Foundation (2019) What is user centered design? Retrieved from https://www.
interaction-design.org/literature/topics/user-centered-design
International Organization for Standardization (2018) ISO 9241-11:2018, ergonomics of human-
system interaction—part 11: usability: definitions and concepts. Retrieved from https://www.iso.
org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:9241:-11:ed-2:v1:en
Lallana F (1999) Diseño y color infográfico. Rev Lat Comun Soc 13. Retrieved from http://www.
revistalatinacs.org/a1999c/150lallana.htm
Li Q (2018) Data visualization as creative art practice. Vis Commun 17:299–312. https://doi.org/
10.1177/1470357218768202
Mayhew DJ (1999) The usability engineering lifecycle. In: CHI’99 extended abstracts on human
factors in computing systems, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15–20 May, pp 147–148
Nielsen J (1993) Usability engineering. Academic Press, San Diego
Nogueira AG (2018) Controvérsias sobre a tipificação e a identidade da Infografia Online como
Género Jornalístico. Rev Asoc Esp Investig Comun 5:50–65. https://doi.org/10.24137/raeic.5.9.7
Olmeda-Gómez C (2014) Visualización de información. Prof Inf 23:213–220. https://doi.org/10.
3145/epi.2014.may.01
Peltzer G (1991) Periodismo Iconográfico. Rialp, Madrid
Pinto Rodrigues SM (2012) Infografia digital: Expresso e Público, a que distância ficam do New
York Times? Prisma.com 19:1–24
Rache A, Lespinet-Najib V, Andre JM (2014) Use of usability evaluation methods in France:
the reality in professional practices. In: 2014 3rd international conference on user science and
engineering (i-USEr). IEEE, Shah Alam, pp 180–185
Salaverría R, Cores R (2005) Géneros periodísticos en los cibermedios hispanos. In: Salaverría R
(ed) El impacto de internet en los medios de comunicación en España. Comunicación Social,
Sevilla, pp 145–185
Souza M, Maciel F (2018) Adding eye tracking data collection to smartphone usability evaluation:
a comparison between eye tracking processes and traditional techniques. In: Ahram TZ, Falcão
C (eds) Advances in usability, user experience and assistive technology. Springer, Cham, pp
272–282
Tufte ER (1997) Visual and statistical thinking: displays of evidence for making decision. Graphics
Press, Chesire
Tufte ER (2001) The visual display of quantitative information. Graphics Press, Cheshire
Uyan Dur BI (2014) Data visualization and infographics in visual communication design education
at the age of information. J Arts Humanit 3:39–50. https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v3i5.460
Valero-Sancho JL (2001) La infografía. Técnica, análisis y usos periodísticos. Universitat Autònoma
de Barcelona—Servei de Publicacions, Barcelona
Weber W (2013) What is an interactive information graphic? In: Malofiej infographic world
summit—infographic awards. Malofiej Graph
Yigitbas E et al (2018) Usability evaluation of model-driven cross-device web user interfaces. In:
Bogdan C et al (eds) Human-centered software engineering. Springer, Cham, pp 231–247
Zwinger S, Zeiller M (2016) Interactive infographics in German online newspapers. In: Aigner W
et al (eds) Proceedings of the 9th forum media technology, FMT 2016 and 2nd all around audio
symposium 2016, St. Pölten, Austria, 15 Nov, p 54
98 Á. Vizoso

Ángel Vizoso Ph.D. Student at Universidade de Santiago de Compostela’s Contemporary Com-

munication and Information Ph.D. programme and member of Novos Medios research group at
the same university. His research is focused mainly in the area of information visualization, fact-
checking and journalistic production for online media. He is also beneficiary from the Education’s
University Faculty Training Programme (FPU), financed by the Ministry of Science, Innovation
and Universities (Government of Spain).
Use of 360-Degree Video
in Organizational Communication: Case
Study of Humanitarian Aid NGOs

Sara Pérez-Seijo and Berta García-Orosa

Abstract Virtual reality and 360-degree video are being used in several areas. Jour-
nalism is among them. In fact, the use of these technologies and formats has given way
to a novel trend known as Immersive Journalism. But organizational communication
and, more specifically, humanitarian aid NGOs have found in 360 video storytelling
an opportunity to bring the realities where they work closer to the society. The aim of
this immersive narrative is to allow users to become witnesses through a first-person
experience of the stories’ events. And connected to this, to promote the creation of
ties with ‘the others’ and their realities. In this study, it is analyzed from a critical
and ethical point of view the 360-degree video content produced by five well-known
NGOs: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Doctors
Without Borders, UNHCR, Save the Children and World Vision International.

Keywords Organizational communication · 360 video journalism · Immersive

journalism · Public relations

1 Introduction

The relationship between journalism and organizational communication has been

the subject of debate in academia and in the profession due to the mutual and con-
tinuous incursions in the different phases of information production that register a
co-evolving development (Löffelholz 2004) that turned them into interdependent
systems (Grossenbacher 1986). Schönhagen and Meißner (2016) point out how in
the 1980s the relationship between public relations and journalism aroused interest
in the Communication Sciences, but as the influence of Public Relations had already
been discussed in the 1920s at the 7th Conference of German Sociologists in 1930 in
Berlin, and in 1866 Wuttke had already lamented the great influence in journalistic

S. Pérez-Seijo (B) · B. García-Orosa

Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
B. García-Orosa
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 99

J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_8
100 S. Pérez-Seijo and B. García-Orosa

reporting of what were known as press offices (Pressbüros), especially in political

parties.
Since then, the interrelation and influence of the organizational communication,
understood as departments for the management of communication between the orga-
nization and its public, went through the press agent model with asymmetrical and
unidirectional communication up to the dircom and his influence on the media agenda
have been continuous. Although there are no conclusive studies on its incidence and
its determining factors, the production of journalistic information today is hardly
imaginable without the support of institutional sources.
On this journey, the arrival of digital communication represents a new stage in
this evolution for several reasons: citizens’ access to sources directly, sources of
information 2.0, influence of digital organizational communication and advances
and technological innovations and adaptation of organizational communication to
the network. The ongoing debate lies between the possibilities of democratizing
information by Internet and the homogenization of access to it due to the greater
influence of the organizational communication.
During the last 25 years, journalism has undergone changes in all phases of the
productive system, combining old and new media (Jenkins 2003) and building a
hybrid system of media and journalistic practices (Chadwick 2013; Hamilton 2016)
that seeks formulas to combine immediacy with depth and obtain the citizen engage-
ment, above all in the form of permanence on the page and, therefore, economic
benefits.
This is one of the objectives, as will also be explained throughout the chapter. The
cabinets also interfered in the digital world from the beginning, using the Internet as
a repository for documentation and giving rise to the so-called 1.0 cabinets. Over the
years, the projects have been modified, seeking above all interactivity and, at the final
stage, the citizen engagement. From the beginning with the web and the e-mail with a
unidirectional and asymmetric communication being cabinets 1.0; in a second stage
with the blogs (2004), Facebook and YouTube (2004–2006), and Twitter (2007) and
a last one with the search of new narratives and, as it happens with journalism, in a
hybrid communication.
Within this latest phase, one of the emerging, most relevant and least studied
innovations are the new narratives (Brubaker et al. 2018; Fraustino et al. 2018) as an
outstanding element for influencing different audiences, but especially in the media.
New technological trends on the Internet (Serrano-Cobos 2016) and an important
commitment to innovation and experimentation (Peñafiel 2016; Bender 2004) have
opened the journalism and organizational communication to digital narrative. Ini-
tially migrated (mainly textual), they evolved from an initial adaptation to the char-
acteristics of the Internet (Bolter 1991), towards narratives conceived as digital and
multiform with incipient characteristics and analysis approaches.
The search for new ways of counting tries to attract the attention of the receiver
and, above all, to get his commitment and this has become a key element in online
organizational communication (López-Hermida-Russo and Vargas-Monardes 2013;
Maarek 2014; D’Adamo and García-Beaudox 2016). Its definition is not yet univo-
cal (García-Orosa et al. 2017) although important advances have been made since
Use of 360-Degree Video in Organizational … 101

Todorov (1969) coined the term ‘narratology’ to designate the new theory of liter-
ary narration (Smith 1981; Phelan 2005; Ochs and Capps 2001; Seale 2000) which
gave rise to different models of analysis. With these antecedents, scientific litera-
ture approached narratives from three important moments: the primacy of the text
as a documentary source; narrative is approached as a specific textual structure; it is
observed as a polymorphic phenomenon determined by its communicative context.
In this last phase, it is understood that narration goes beyond traditional limits of nar-
ratology and fiction and it is conceived as a valid theoretical framework to confront
the transformations and characteristics of digital narrative in political parties, the nar-
ration is assumed as a representation of the experience constructed through discourse
in which meaning is given, communication is made possible and action is oriented
(Hyvärinen 2008). From this concept of digital narrative, we will approach the subse-
quent analysis, but also bearing in mind that language is the hybridization processes
(Chadwick 2013; Hamilton 2016) and the search for new narratives (Jenkins 2003;
Shin and Biocca 2017). Today, digital language is multichannel, polysynthetic and
is integrated within a narrative with hyper-fragmented textualities and with narrative
programmes in which the combination of different elements and actors participating
in the elaboration of the messages is sought (Herring and Androutsopoulos 2015;
Adami 2016).
Different conceptualizations of these changes have been established which, except
the last, form part of a broad semantic family: crossmedia, multiplatform, multi-
modality, hyperseriality, hyperdiegesis, hybrid media, transformation, transmedial
narratives, multiple platforms and intertextual merchandise (Rodríguez-Ferrándiz
and Peñamarín 2014; Guerrero-Pico and Scolari 2016) and immersive (De la Peña
et al. 2010; Domínguez 2013), in which this article will focus due to its characteris-
tics and special relevance in the relationship between journalism and organizational
communication.
This innovation acquires a special relevance in public relations in NGOs due to its
need for interaction and, above all, commitment to the audiences that are the core of
its existence. In this sense, Fraustino et al. (2018) point out the increase in the use of
360-degree in NGOs and demonstrate that it has a greater impact on the public, above
all due to the sense of spatial presence. Suh et al. (2018) also highlight engagement
and Cummings and Bailenson (2016) refer to virtual reality and 360-degree video
with two advantages and one challenge: engagement, presence, both emotional and
spatial, and ethics.

1.1 360 Video Journalism and Humanitarian

Communication

The use of 360-degree videos to tell the news broke the prevailing models of infor-
mation consumption. For the first time, users could cross the window that the screen
represented until then and to be there, within the scene. Not only in real-image,
102 S. Pérez-Seijo and B. García-Orosa

since the use of virtual reality techniques also brought new opportunities to recreate
places, persons and even situations based on real evidence. In this sense, Nonny de
la Peña was a pioneer in the use of such resources to create factual recreations trough
computer-generated imagery, as is the case of the virtual reality film Hunger in Los
Angeles (2012). De la Peña saw in the immersive narratives an opportunity to report
social realities and to bring it closer to the users.
In 2015 the use of the 360-degree videos and the virtual reality began to spread
among newsrooms from news outlets all over the world (Doyle et al. 2016), as in
the case of The New York Times, Chosun Ilbo, Russia Today, El País, The Guardian,
Associated Press or the British Broadcasting Corporation. And simultaneously, the
NGOs, and humanitarian communication as a whole, also saw in these resources
an opportunity to bring closer the social realities where they work (Nash 2018;
Soler-Adillon and Sora 2018). In fact, in 2015 was released Clouds Over Sidra, a
360-degree documentary about the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan produced by
Gabo Arora and Chris Milk, and in collaboration with the United Nations and the
technology company Samsung. But while this type of content production opened new
opportunities to storytelling, it also brought ethical challenges (Kent 2015; Bartzen
2015; Kool 2016; Aitamurto 2018; Pérez-Seijo and López-García 2019a, b; Sánchez
Laws and Utne 2019).
These resources have opened a new evolutionary stage of multimedia (Salaverría
2016) in which immersion on scene and place illusion are particularly significant
(De la Peña et al. 2010). The use of virtual reality and 360-degree video to create
news stories has been called Immersive Journalism. De la Peña et al. defined this new
model as “the production of news in a form in which people can gain first-person
experiences of the events or situation described in news stories” (2010: 291).
But we can distinguish two main modalities within this trend: 360 video jour-
nalism or 360 storytelling (Van Damme et al. 2018; Elmezeny et al. 2018); and VR
storytelling or VR journalism (Sánchez Laws and Utne 2019). However, the 360-
degree video is the most common format in the immersive production of news outlets
(Hardee and McMahan 2017), especially the real-image ones. Behind this general-
ization there are several reasons, such as the economic cost—equipment and creation
process, the production times and the possibility of a multi-platform dissemination
(Pérez-Seijo and López-García 2018). In this respect, media and news outlets tend
to publish and spread their contents through the main social platforms, such as Face-
book, YouTube and even Vimeo (Sidorenko et al. 2017; Van den Broeck et al. 2017;
Pérez-Seijo et al. 2018). A decision, or strategy, that ensures a greater democrati-
zation of the user’s access to the spherical videos (Pérez-Seijo and López-García
2018).
Immersive Journalism came as a journalistic revolution. A new form of non-
fiction content production based on three main elements: place illusion, empathy
and user engagement. The first one, the feeling of being present there, on the scene,
through the use of a virtual reality headset or a low-cost version such as the Google
Carboards. These immersive films allow users to get a first-person experience of the
news events with a limited but possible interaction: 360-degree view and, sometimes,
an interactive navigation.
Use of 360-Degree Video in Organizational … 103

Secondly, some authors and professionals claim that virtual reality and 360-degree
films enhance the feeling of empathy with the others and their realities (Milk 2015;
Constine 2015; Kool 2016; Sánchez Laws 2017). Nevertheless, there is still not
enough scientific evidence to endorse this thought (Shin 2018; Van Damme et al.
2018). Even so, this brings new possibilities to humanitarian aid communication.
And thirdly, several studies suggest that immersive technologies create higher levels
of audience engagement (Suh et al. 2018; Wang et al. 2018; Bindman et al. 2018;
Shin and Biocca 2017).
Immersive Journalism allows users to become ‘immersive witnesses’ (Nash 2018)
of the others suffering, although with the moral risks involved in putting themselves
in the place of others and try to understand a social reality from a far removed
and privileged view. Chouliaraki understands this improper distance as “practices
of communication that (…) make use of imaginative textualities that problematize
the act of representation itself and, thereby, privilege the voices of the West over the
voices of suffering others” (2011: 365).
But to promote these aspects, professionals and journalists carry out some prac-
tices that sometimes are not based on an ethical decision-making. Pretending that
sources/characters and users are face to face is one of the main strategies that news
outlets and virtual reality producers use to strengthen the link between viewer and
story. And this, together with the re-enactment of the sources/characters actions and
even the staging, has opened an ethical discussion on what the limits should be and
for what purpose (Kool 2016; Kent 2015; Bartzen 2015; Aitamurto 2018; Pérez-Seijo
and López-García 2019a, b; Sánchez Laws and Utne 2019).

2 Methodology

The aim of this study is to gain an in-depth understanding about the use of the
360-degree video by NGOs. In particular, how these entities produce immersive
experiences that act as awareness campaigns for the general public. However, the
purpose of this document is twofold: on the one hand, to observe and to compare
the formal features of these type of contents; and on the other hand, to reflect on the
ethical challenges that these videos put on the table.
To this end, we have combined a literature review on the topic—directly or indi-
rectly related to this—with a comparative analysis of cases, specifically five 360-
degree videos produced by five of the major humanitarian aid NGOs: Rescuing people
in the Mediterranean, by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cres-
cent Societies (IFRC); We fled a war, then we nearly drowned, by Doctors Without
Borders (MSF); Step inside a Rohingya tent Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh,
by UNHCR; On board our life-saving ship, by Save the Children; and Ali’s story by
World Vision International (WVI).
This represents a diverse sample, but our goal was to get an overview of how
these NGOs apply the immersive storytelling on their contents. We have selected
the five above mentioned videos because they are real-image, and they address the
104 S. Pérez-Seijo and B. García-Orosa

Table 1 Data sheet of the five selected cases

Video Rescuing We fled a war, then Step inside On board our Ali’s story
people in the we nearly a Rohingya life-saving ship
Mediterranean drowned tent
Kutupalong
refugee
camp
NGO IFRC MSF UNHCR Save the WVI
Children
Year 2016 2016 2017 2016 2016
Form/genre Simple video Report Report Report Documentary
Duration 0:04:07 0:01:39 0:01:17 0:00:54 0:05:32
Language – English (subtitle) English English English
Image Real Real Real Real Real
Topic Migrant Refugees in a Life of Migrants rescue Life of a
rescue in the Greek camp Rohingya operations at the family in a
Mediterranean refugees in sea Lebanese
sea the refugee camp
Kutupalong
camp
YouTube IFRC Médecins Sans UNHCR, SaveTheChildren World Vision
channel Frontières/Doctors the UN International
Without Borders Refugee
Agency
Own elaboration

same topic from different angles: the migrant crisis. Furthermore, all these pieces are
available on YouTube—in the NGOs principal accounts, so users can watch them
through a mobile device, a desktop computer or even a virtual reality headset. This
last option is important as it is considered the most immersive form of consumption
(Table 1).

3 Results

3.1 Formal Features

As mentioned above, this study is based on the comparative analysis of five 360-
degree videos produced by five of the most influential humanitarian aid NGOs.
These contents present several differences regarding its conceiving and purpose, but
we have also found formal likeness and similar approaches.
In this regard, the aim of each immersive video is the first common feature that it
is possible to observe. Although we selected these five pieces because they address
migrant issues, we have noted that the main objective of the NGOs was to reflect
Use of 360-Degree Video in Organizational … 105

the actual reality of these people. However, each spherical video allows a distinct
perspective, as explained below.
• Rescuing people in the Mediterranean (IFRC): users witness first-hand how a
rescue operation is carried out by an NGO ship.
• We fled a war, then we nearly drowned (MSF): a video about the life in a Greek
refugee camp.
• Step inside a Rohingya tent Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh (UNHCR):
as anticipated in the title, the purpose of this immersive experience is to raise
awareness about the reality in a Rohingya refugee camp located in Bangladesh.
• On board our life-saving ship (Save the Children): diverse images of a migrant
rescue at sea accompanied by an invitation to donate money.
• Ali’s story (WVI): the video is about the life of Ali, a thirteen-years-old child, and
his family in a Lebanese refugee camp.
All these pieces are real-image videos, so we have not found any scene produced
through computer-generated imagery (CGI) nor even hybrid. Nevertheless, there are
significant differences with regard to the form. While we have described Rescuing
people in the Mediterranean as a simple video—later we will explain why, the
remaining videos are more elaborate. On the one hand, Ali’s story is an immersive
documentary. On the other hand, We fled a war, then we nearly drowned, Step inside a
Rohingya tent Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh and Ali’s story are 360-degree
video reports.
Except in Rescuing people in the Mediterranean, all the videos include a narrator.
In the case of Ali’s story, a voice-over of a female journalist guide users through the
documentary as well as two human sources give their own testimonies. In contrast,
the role of storytellers is assumed by a human source in the reports We fled a war,
then we nearly drowned (male voice-over and present on the scene) and Step inside
a Rohingya tent Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh (the UNHCR Emergency
Response Coordinator explains the situation there). And in the case of On board our
life-saving ship, the narrator is a text instead a human voice.
It should be noted that despite the issues addressed, none of the videos contains
graphic or sensitive content. This represents an important finding because we also
wanted to see whether the producers had included images of that kind in pursuit of a
more powerful effect. As mentioned in a previous section, some authors attribute to
360-degree videos the possibility of experience higher levels of empathy although
there is yet no significant evidence of that. However, this has brought new ethical
challenges as some practices and procedures carried out by journalists and profes-
sionals are not based on an ethical decision-making (Pérez-Seijo and López-García
2019a, b).
106 S. Pérez-Seijo and B. García-Orosa

3.2 Postproduction and Staging

One of the main challenges of the Immersive Journalism is the image integrity. As
place illusion is the main goal of these experiences, journalists and professionals
can be attempted to take decisions that go against the existing ethical guidelines. As
already mentioned, digital manipulation and staging are among these practices. The
first technique is often used to remove the tripod from the image to not interfere with
the possible user’s feeling of place illusion. The second one, to pretend that human
sources/characters are face to face with the users, as if the viewers were really there,
on the scene.
Regarding the erasing of the camera support, we have found this situation in
two of the five videos analysed. Specifically, the tripod disappears in the report On
board our life-saving ship and in the documentary Ali’s story. No unified criteria
were observed in We fled a war, then we nearly drowned, as in some scenes it is
visible and in others it has completely vanished. By contrast, in Rescuing people
in the Mediterranean and in Step inside a Rohingya tent Kutupalong refugee camp,
Bangladesh the support has been replaced by an image, a black circle and the logo
of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies respectively. On the contrary, it is also
possible to observe some superimposed elements on the images of all videos, but
none of these has further impact as its function is to hide the camera support (circle
and logo) or to add basic information (location, title and NGO logo).
On the other hand, no visual or sound effects have been found in these immersive
videos. However, two of them include extradiegetic music from the begging to the
end: On board our life-saving ship and Ali’s story. The music is instrumental in
both cases. Nevertheless, manifold ethical codes warn about the power of music to
introduce subjectivity and therefore biases in the stories. In this sense, The Radio
Television Digital News Association (2015) states in its guidelines for Ethical Video
and Audio Editing that
Music, especially, has the ability to send complex and profound editorial messages. […]
However, if the music is a soundtrack audio recording, then journalists must ask themselves
whether the music adds an editorial tone to the story that would not be present without the
music. (The Radio Television Digital News Association 2015)

So, the question here is if humanitarian communication should be considered as

journalism or as a marketing strategy for social purposes. In fact, On board our life-
saving ship is a clear invitation from Save the Children to donate. On the other hand,
UNHCR also includes a request to donate in the YouTube’s description of the video
Step inside a Rohingya tent Kutupalong refugee camp.
It should be noted that there is a clear staging in Step inside a Rohingya tent
Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh. Users are face to face with the source when
he is on the scene, in others we can only hear him in voice-over. It seems the man is
talking to us as he and those persons accompanying them also look at us, although they
are actually staring at the camera. However, if users try to figure out what is behind
their backs, they will find a journalist who at certain moments gives indications to
the source for staring at the camera, even he shows him a written paper.
Use of 360-Degree Video in Organizational … 107

In Step inside a Rohingya tent Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh is Joung-ah

Ghedini-Williams, UNHCR Emergency Response Coordinator, who carries the cam-
era while recording. She explains the situation of the newcomers by also addressing
us (“as you can see”). Perhaps this is not staging as such.

3.3 Users on the Scene

As the aim of the Immersive Journalism is to create place illusion, we also wanted
to observe how users are represented on scene. In these particular cases, they access
to the narrative world (the news world or reality) as themselves, and not as a char-
acter or an avatar. But, obviously, their bodies are invisible on the scene. Despite
this invisibility, users are noticed—although it is pretended—by the characters or
sources of the story (face to face, gazes or even allusions) in Step inside a Rohingya
tent Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh and On board our life-saving ship. This
simulation allows viewers to leave their passive role as observers and to become
witnesses of the realities. Users not only gain a first-person view through a virtual
reality headset, but also could experience place illusion and feel that characters or
sources address him or her, as in the aforementioned videos.
This opens new opportunities for humanitarian communication since the public
can immerse themselves in the places where NGOs work, and therefore know first-
hand the diverse social realities and contexts. From being at home to being in a
refugee camp in Bangladesh thanks to the use of a virtual reality headset.
On the other hand, users do not maintain a steady height throughout the video.
In the case of Rescuing people in the Mediterranean and in Step inside a Rohingya
tent Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh a person is holding the camera, so the
perspective adopted by the user is strange. In the remaining videos, the height of
the tripod changes in some scenes. In On board our life-saving ship it is because a
camera person is holding a long tripod and its length varies at certain moments of
the video, but which calls to mind a high-angle shot. Finally, in Ali’s story and in We
fled a war, then we nearly drowned we found a combination of ‘shots’ and heights.

4 Conclusions

NGOs may have found a narrative that meets three of the digital communication
requirements: to have a democratized access and consumption; to promote user
engagement; and to be innovative. 360 video journalism is a novel storytelling form
that allows NGOs to produce content that draw audience attention to their stories on
specific social realities and also encourage the engagement of the viewers. And this
represents the key of the organizational communication in the online sphere.
Through this study, we have noted that the mission of NGOs is to promote social
awareness by taking advantage of the features and possibilities of the 360-degree
108 S. Pérez-Seijo and B. García-Orosa

video. Thanks to the use of a virtual reality headset, users can go from being in their
living room to being in a Lebanese refugee camp. This immersive storytelling allows
NGOs to bring closer the realities where they help to the society.
But this closeness poses also ethical challenges that NGOs in particular, and orga-
nizational communication in general, should deal with. The introduction of possible
bias in pursuit of a specific reaction or emotion is one of these. Although this is not a
new conflict, it is compounded by the power of the immersion in 360-degree video.
A possibility that some authors has connected to a more empathic experience, even if
there is yet no convincing evidence of that. And this is where an important question
emerges: Where are the limits between reporting and marketing? Does one lead to
the other? In the documentary Ali’s Story, World Vision International first tells the
story of Ali and his family and then the NGO takes the opportunity to emphasize the
importance and need for its schools and services to children like Ali. Obviously, NGO
communication is intended to generate a social impact and to obtain an economic
return, as it is fundamental to do their work on the ground.
The biggest benefit of 360-degree videos is allowing users to experience first-hand
the social realities, to turn them into witnesses on the scene thanks to the use of a
virtual reality headset. However, this immersive storytelling form also can serve to
put users in the shoes of a particular person in a specific situation and therefore see
the world through his or her eyes. But behind these possibilities there is a moral risk:
to create improper distance and to convey a Western and privileged vision.
In short, NGOs have a dual responsibility. On the one hand, to not misrepresent
the social realities to make a greater impact. An ethical decision-making is crucial to
respect the affected people. And on the other hand, to use the possibilities offered by
novel narratives to communicate better the messages, not to seek a direct and specific
empathetic reaction. Here is where the ethical boundaries arise.

Acknowledgements This research has been developed within the project Digital native media in
Spain: storytelling formats and mobile strategy (RTI2018-093346-B-C33), from the Ministry of
Science, Innovation and Universities (Government of Spain) and co-funded by the ERDF structural
fund. Furthermore, this study has been developed within the framework of the activities of the
Novos Medios Research Group (GI-1641) from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela,
supported by the Program of Consolidation and Structuring of Competitive Research Units of
Regional Government of Galicia—Xunta de Galicia—(ED431B 2017/48). On the other hand, the
author Sara Pérez-Seijo is beneficiary of the Training University Lecturers’ (FPU) Program funded
by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Spanish Government).

References

Adami E (2016) Multimodality. In: García O, Flores N, Spotti M (eds) The Oxford handbook of
language and society. Oxford Handbook Online, Oxford, pp 451–473
Aitamurto T (2018) Normative paradoxes in 360 journalism: contested accuracy and objectivity.
New Media Soc 21(1):3–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818785153
Bartzen K (2015) Virtual journalism: immersive approaches pose new questions. Center for
Journalism Ethics. Retrieved from https://goo.gl/9937LN
Use of 360-Degree Video in Organizational … 109

Bender W (2004) The seven secrets of the media lab. BT Technol J 22(4):5–6. https://doi.org/10.
1023/B:BTTJ.0000047629.12018.33
Bindman SW, Castaneda LM, Scanlon M, Cechony A (2018) Am I a bunny?: the impact of high and
low immersion platforms and viewers’ perceptions of role on presence, narrative engagement,
and empathy during an animated 360° video. In: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI conference on
human factors in computing systems. ACM, New York
Bolter JD (1991) Writing space. The computer, hypertext, and the history of writing. Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey
Brubaker P, Church S, Hansen J, Pelham S, Ostler A (2018) One does not simply meme about
organizations: exploring the content creation strategies of user-generated memes on Imgur. Public
Relat Rev 44(5):741–751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2008.06.004
Chadwick A (2013) The hybrid media system: politics and power. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Chouliaraki L (2011) ‘Improper distance’: towards a critical account of solidarity as irony. Int J
Cult Stud 14(4):363–381
Constine J (2015) Virtual reality, the empathy machine. TechCrunch. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/
VYOK1w
Cummings JJ, Bailenson JN (2016) How immersive is enough? A meta-analysis of the effect of
immersive technology on user presence. Media Psychol 19(2):272–309
D’Adamo O, García-Beaudox V (2016) Comunicación política: narración de historias, construcción
de relatos políticos y persuasion. Comun Hombre 12:23–39
De la Peña N, Weil P, Llobera J, Giannopoulos E, Pomés A, Spanlang B, Friedman D, Sánchez-
Vives M, Slater M (2010) Immersive journalism: immersive virtual reality for the first-person
experience of news. Presence: Teleoperators Virtual Environ 19(4):291–301. https://doi.org/10.
1162/pres_a_00005
Domínguez E (2013) Periodismo inmersivo: La influencia de la realidad virtual y del videojuego
en los contenidos informativos. Editorial UOC, Barcelona
Doyle P, Gelman M, Gill S (2016) Viewing the future? Virtual reality in journalism. Retrieved from
https://goo.gl/ZJX4UG
Elmezeny A, Edenhofer N, Wimmer J (2018) Immersive storytelling in 360-degree videos: an
analysis of interplay between narrative and technical immersion. J Virtual Worlds Res 11(1)
Emblematic Group (2012) Hunger in L.A. Retrieved from https://emblematicgroup.com/
experiences/hunger-in-la/
Fraustino J, Lee JY, Lee SY, Ahn H (2018) Effects of 360° video on attitudes toward disaster
communication: mediating and moderating roles of spatial presence and prior disaster media
involvement. Public Relat Rev 44(3):331–341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.02.003
García-Orosa B, Vázquez-Sande P, López-García X (2017) Narrativas digitales de los principales
partidos políticos de España, Francia, Portugal y Estados Unidos. Prof Inf 26(4):589–600. https://
doi.org/10.3145/epi.2017.jul.03
Grossenbacher R (1986) Hat die “Vierte Gewalt” ausgedient? Zur Beziehung zwischen Public
Relations und Medien [Is the ‘fourth estate’ disused? On the relationship between PR and media].
Media Perspekt 17:725–731
Guerrero-Pico M, Scolari C (2016) Narrativas transmedia y contenidos generados por los usuarios:
el caso de los crossovers. Cuadernos.info 8:183–200. https://doi.org/10.7764/cdi.38.760
Hamilton J (2016) Hybrid news practices. In: Witschge T, Anderson C, Domingo D, Hermida A
(eds) The SAGE handbook of digital journalism. Sage, London, pp 164–178
Hardee GM, McMahan R (2017) FIJI: a framework for the immersion-journalism intersection.
Front ICT 4(21):1–18
Herring S, Androutsopoulos J (2015) Computer-mediated discourse 2.0. In: Tannen D, Hamilton
HE, Schiffrin D (eds) The handbook of discourse analysis, 2nd edn. Wiley, Chichester, pp 127–151
Hyvärinen M (2008) Analyzing narratives and storytelling. In: Alasuutari P, Bickman L, Brannen
J (eds) The SAGE handbook of social research methods. Sage, London, pp 447–460. https://doi.
org/10.4135/9781446212165.n26
110 S. Pérez-Seijo and B. García-Orosa

Jenkins H (2003) Transmedia storytelling. Moving characters from books to films to video games
can make them stronger and more compelling. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved from https://
www.technologyreview.com/s/401760/transmedia-storytelling/
Kent T (2015) An ethical reality check for virtual reality journalism. Medium. Retrieved from
https://goo.gl/DQUe1Q
Kool H (2016) The ethics of immersive journalism: a rhetorical analysis of news storytelling with
virtual reality technology. Intersect 9(3):1–11
Löffelholz M (2004) Ein privilegiertes Verhältnis. In: Löffelholz M (ed) Theorien des Journalismus.
VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden
López-Hermida-Russo AP, Vargas-Monardes J (2013) La política relatada: el storytelling de Barack
Obama en el marco de la Operación Gerónimo. Palabra Clave 16(1):12–44. https://doi.org/10.
5294/pacla.2013.16.1.1
Maarek P (2014) Politics 2.0: new forms of digital political marketing and political communication.
Trípodos 34:13–22
Milk C (2015) How virtual reality can create the ultimate empathy machine. In: Ted talks 2015,
Vancouver. Retrieved from https://goo.gl/ZW1Nj9
Nash K (2018) Virtual reality witness: exploring the ethics of mediated presence. Stud Doc Film
12(2):119–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/17503280.2017.1340796
Ochs E, Capps L (2001) Living narrative. Creating lives in everyday storytelling. Harvard University
Press, Cambridge
Peñafiel C (2016) Reinvención del periodismo en el ecosistema digital y narrativas transmedia.
AdComunica 12:163–183. https://doi.org/10.6035/2174-0992.2016.12.10
Pérez-Seijo S, López-García X (2018) Las dos caras del Periodismo Inmersivo: el desafío de
la participación y los problemas éticos. In: López Paredes M (ed) Nuevos escenarios en la
comunicación: retos y convergencias. Centro de Publicaciones PUCE, Quito, pp 279–305
Pérez-Seijo S, López-García X (2019a) Five ethical challenges of immersive journalism: a proposal
of good practices’ indicators. In: Rocha Á, Ferrás C, Paredes M (eds) Information technology and
systems. ICITS 2019. Advances in intelligent systems and computing, vol 918. Springer, Cham,
pp 954–964
Pérez-Seijo S, López-García X (2019b) La ética del Periodismo Inmersivo a debate. Hipertext.net
18:1–13. https://doi.org/10.31009/hipertext.net.2019.i18.01
Pérez-Seijo S, Melle Goyanes M, Paniagua Rojano FJ (2018) Innovación en radiotelevisiones públi-
cas europeas: narrativas inmersivas y organización de los contenidos 360 grados en plataformas
digitales. Rev Lat Comun Soc 73:1115–1136
Phelan J (2005) Living to tell about it. A rhetoric and ethics of character narration. Cornell University
Press, Ithaca
Radio Television Digital News Association (2015) Code of ethics. Retrieved from https://www.
rtdna.org/content/rtdna_code_of_ethics
Rodríguez-Ferrándiz R, Peñamarín C (2014) Narraciones transmedia y construcción de los asuntos
públicos. CIC—Cuad Inf Comun 19:9–16
Salaverría R (2016) Los medios de comunicación que vienen. In: Sádaba C, Martínez-Costa MP,
García JA (eds) Innovación y desarrollo de los cibermedios en España. EUNSA, Pamplona, pp
255–263
Sánchez Laws AL (2017) Can immersive journalism enhance empathy? Digit J [Online first, 20
Oct]
Sánchez Laws AL, Utne T (2019) Ethics guidelines for immersive journalism. Front Robot AI
6(28):1–13
Schönhagen P, Meißner M (2016) The co-evolution of public relations and journalism: a first
contribution to its systematic review. Public Relat Rev 42(5):748–758
Seale C (2000) Resurrective practice and narrative. In: Andrews M, Sclater SD, Squire C, Treacher
A (eds) Lines of narrative. Psychosocial perspectives. Routledge, London-New York
Serrano-Cobos J (2016) Tendencias tecnológicas en internet: hacia un cambio de paradigma. Prof
Inf 25(6):843–850. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2016.nov.01
Use of 360-Degree Video in Organizational … 111

Shin D (2018) Empathy and embodied experience in virtual environment: to what extent can virtual
reality stimulate empathy and embodied experience? Comput Hum Behav 78:64–73
Shin D, Biocca F (2017) Exploring immersive experience in journalism. New Media Soc 20(8):1–24.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817733133
Sidorenko P, Cantero de Julián JI, Herranz de la Casa JM (2017) La realidad virtual y el formato
multimedia en 360° como mecanismo de enriquecimiento de los contenidos periodísticos. In:
Sierra J (ed) Nuevas tecnologías audiovisuales para nuevas narrativas interactivas digitales en la
era multidispositivo. McGraw Hill, Madrid, pp 99–108
Smith BH (1981) Narrative version, and narrative theories. In: Mitchell WJT (ed) On narrative.
University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Soler-Adillon J, Sora C (2018) Immersive journalism and virtual reality. In: Pérez-Montoro M (ed)
Interaction in digital news media. From principles to practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp
55–83. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96253-5
Suh A, Wang G, Gu W, Wagner C (2018) Enhancing audience engagement through immersive
360-degree videos: an experimental study. In: International conference on augmented cognition.
Springer, Cham, pp 425–443
Todorov T (1969) Grammaire du Decameron. Mouton, La Haya
Van Damme K, All A, De Marez L, Van Leuven S (2018) 360° video journalism: experimental
study on the effect of immersion on news experience and distant suffering. J Stud [Online first,
3 Jan]
Van den Broeck M, Kawsar F, Schöning J (2017) It’s all around you: exploring 360° video viewing
experiences on mobile devices. In: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM on multimedia conference.
ACM, Mountain View, CA, pp 762–768
Wang G, Gu W, Suh A (2018) The effects of 360-degree VR videos on audience engagement:
evidence from the New York Times. In: International conference on HCI in business, government,
and organizations. Springer, Cham, pp 217–235

Sara Pérez-Seijo Ph.D. Student in Communication and Contemporary Information from Univer-
sidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC) and member of the Novos Medios research group at the
same university. She is beneficiary of the Training University Lecturers’ (FPU) Programme funded
by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Spanish Government). Her research
is linked to non-fiction digital storytelling, focusing on the VR and 360° video storytelling and
the immersive narratives as a whole.

Berta García-Orosa Professor of Journalism at Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. She

holds a degree in Journalism and in Political Science and Administration, also a Ph.D. in Journal-
ism. Her main research interests are digital media and organizational and political communication.
Her latest publications include Language in social networks as a communication strategy: public
administration, political parties and civil society and Algorithmic communication and political
parties: Automation of production and flow of messages.
Shared Spaces for News Content
Production in Spanish Online Media

Ainara Larrondo Ureta, Koldo Meso Ayerdi and Simón Peña Fernández

Abstract This chapter explores three dynamics underlying the evolution of the
professional, entrepreneurial and structural aspects of the digital ecosystem in which
journalism now takes place: direct interaction between the media and audiences,
an expanding range of formats for disseminating content and new opportunities
for branding. Analysis covers professional practices and profiles, business models,
cross-branding strategies and mobile audience engagement and impact in the Spanish
media market. The sample employed for this study, composed of seven media of
record that collectively represent a broad spectrum of media and communication
groups active in Spain today, includes two newspapers offering both print and online
editions (El País and El Mundo, published respectively by the Prisa Group and
Unidad Editorial), one regional newspaper (Diario de Navarra), the Spanish public
broadcasting company RTVE and three digital native news enterprises that publish
exclusively online editions (El Diario, El Español and El Huffington Post).

Keywords Innovation · Media · Strategy · Spain

1 Introduction

Digitalization and the application of new technologies have transformed the way in
which news is consumed and triggered a structural reorganization of the manner in
which news content is produced.
News enterprises accustomed to focusing on a single medium have been obliged
to alter their internal and external operational frameworks and pursue multiplatform
models that require adapting content for delivery in multiple formats (Salaverría

A. Larrondo Ureta (B) · K. Meso Ayerdi · S. Peña Fernández

University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
K. Meso Ayerdi
e-mail: [email protected]
S. Peña Fernández
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 113

J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_9
114 A. Larrondo Ureta et al.

2010). As a consequence, the structures and processes that characterized journalism

throughout the twentieth century have been gradually supplanted by others linked to
the requisites and possibilities of the digital twenty-first century world (Salaverría
and Negredo 2008). While journalists’ functions and competences may have changed
substantially during this period, public expectations concerning journalism’s role in
society are as high (or higher) than ever, a circumstance that is making the work of
professional communicators more difficult (McQuail 2013).
In a media landscape made considerably more challenging by the ubiquitous pres-
ence of technology (Rondón and Leyva 2017), digital convergence has upped the
ante by facilitating the integration of tools, spaces, working methods and languages
formerly pertaining to distinct and separate operations (López García and Pereira
2010)—a multi-faceted process that has irrevocably affected the technological, busi-
ness, professional and editorial aspects of journalism. There are nevertheless a variety
of factors currently conditioning or hindering fuller convergence in all of these areas,
the most patent of which are constrained operating budgets, a difficult-to-bridge gen-
eration gap in newsrooms, incompatibilities between conventional and online content
production processes, a dearth of specialized professionals in key areas, a lack of
entrepreneurial vision and integrated strategies, a shortage of funds for implemen-
tation and the slow pace of technological renovation in the sector (Killebrew 2005;
Dupagne and Garrison 2006; Larrondo et al. 2016).
Individuals engaged in emerging fields such as data journalism and immersive
and transmedia journalism are expected to perform a broad spectrum of tasks (López
García, Rodríguez and Pereira 2017). This has supposed a need for a new approach
to professional training (Lewis and Westlund 2016) that strikes the right balance
between traditional competences such as writing and technical skills (Deuze 2017).
Multi-channel strategies pursued by Spain’s leading news outlets involving the
dissemination of cross-media and transmedia content via social media platforms
have begun to pay off from the perspective of multiplatform audience engagement.
Cross-media strategies, the objective of which is to disseminate given content via
as many platforms as possible, are admittedly less sophisticated and ambitious than
transmedia strategies, which call for parcelling out a story in bits through the channels
best suited for conveying specific angles and if properly designed generate much
higher levels of user interaction and engagement and favor the virilization of content.
A number of scholars have noted that most news organizations in Spain distribute
cross-media and transmedia content via social media to “improve their relationships
with users but do not explore into other aspects of social media communications
such as production or the differentiated management of platforms” (García Orosa and
López García 2016: 127). This study has focused on determining the degree to which
media outlets of reference in Spain have implemented cross-media and transmedia
strategies for social networking platforms and gaining a clearer understanding of the
most important challenges they face in terms of the management of related in-house
tasks, content production and the development of formats specifically for these sites
and multiplatform promotion.
News organizations have begun to restructure their editorial and production pro-
cesses so as to move in this direction and innovate to the extent that their particular
Shared Spaces for News Content Production … 115

characteristics and resources allow. This study posits that the implementation of
multi-channel strategies has prompted media enterprises in Spain to rethink their
branding and external communications processes (Tosoni et al. 2017). They have
also attempted to differentiate between these organizations’ incursions into cross-
media and transmedia branding, the latter of which has yet to be widely exploited by
the sector but has nevertheless sparked growing interest among news professionals
and media scholars (Siegert et al. 2015).

2 Methodology

This chapter provides an overview of strategies pursued by a representative spectrum

of mainstream players in the Spanish news sector. Representativity has been deter-
mined on the basis of a combination of standard objective criteria employed by the
Oficina de Justificación de la Difusión (OJD), the Estudio General de Medios (EGM)
and Comscore to measure audience share and engagement and newspaper circula-
tion in Spain and further, more specific, criteria used to ascertain the relevance of
individual media organizations to the objectives of this study that took factors such as
innovation, organizational and operational characteristics and business models into
account. The sample compiled by means of this process was composed of Diario
de Navarra, El Diario, El Español, El Mundo, El País, the Spanish version of The
Huffington Post and Radio Televisión Española (RTVE). In-depth interviews were
conducted with high-level representatives of all seven organizations.
The general objective of this research has been to gain a deeper understand-
ing of the visions and strategies presently being pursued by Spanish media outlets.
To this end, the authors examined the activities of a variety of sector enterprises,
some of which have taken initial or tentative steps toward newsroom integration and
employed basic multi-channel social media strategies to promote conventional forms
of journalism and others of which have fully integrated their newsrooms, developed
multimedia job profiles and implemented coordinated strategies for producing and
disseminating cross-media and transmedia content.
Researchers also defined following interrelated specific objectives:
• analyze the latest trends in online news consumption;
• determine the processes, routines and dynamics related to news organizations’
internal content creation strategies;
• ascertain the purposes for which news organizations use social media channels
(branding, audience loyalty schemes, redirecting traffic to a corporate website,
etc.); and
• determine how organizations developed multiplatform and transmedia strategies
for disseminating news content and promoting their brands in the light of condi-
tioning factors such as individual corporate visions, media category and available
resources.
116 A. Larrondo Ureta et al.

3 Mobile Ecosystem, Active Audiences

The introduction of Web 2.0 a decade after the emergence of online media, the
expansion of mobile phone use shortly after and the game-changing debut of the
iPhone in 2007 have progressively transformed the ways in which news content is
produced and consumed. Since that time, mobility and interactivity have shaped the
contours and parameters of media consumption (Masip et al. 2015) by allowing users
not only to choose precisely what the content they consume, but how and where they
consume it as well.
The proliferation of mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) has opened a new
channel for disseminating content that far from serving as a merely complement to
traditional media has become the main source of traffic to their online sites (Peña
et al. 2016).
Veteran media outlets have managed to satisfy their audiences by promoting inter-
activity and user participation that for the most part takes place on the profile pages
they have established on social networking platforms, which have allowed them to
boost their visibility exponentially and explore new ways of disseminating news and
entertainment content to readers and viewers.
The upshot has nevertheless been the coalescence of a new set of circumstances
under which conventional media have lost their monopoly of symbolic power in
the news market and ceded a significant portion of the space they once controlled
to brash new upstarts in an increasingly complex ecosystem. News distribution has
undergone a sudden, radical decentralization (Casero Ripollés and López Meri 2015)
marked by a shift from a culture anchored in ownership to a culture focused on
access. Modern technology has made it possible for almost anyone to produce and
disseminate content, much of which is low quality but has broad public appeal (Ufarte
et al. 2018).
A breakdown of traffic sources for each of the news organizations in the sample
confirms the strong shift in news consumption habits underway in Spain.
As can be observed in Fig. 1, social media networks currently generate 8.3% of
the total traffic to the online news sources analyzed, which has, in any case, fallen
considerably due to a series of recent changes in Facebook algorithms. Direct access,
which is responsible for 45.2% of incoming traffic, and online search (normally
understood as searches using the name of the news source as a key search term),
which is responsible for another 39.1%, continue to be the primary modes of user
access. These figures indicate that roughly one out of three visitors to the online
news sources analyzed for this study accessed their sites indirectly by means of either
social networking platforms or general queries via search engines. Newsrooms pursue
strategies for capturing as much of this indirect traffic as possible. As a representative
of El Mundo noted during an interview conducted for this study:
SEO and social media traffic are very important. They may be more fickle than other types
of traffic but are crucial if you’re looking to be a leader and sell advertising at a higher price
than your competitors, which is what [sector] leadership hinges on. (interviewee El Mundo,
pers. comm., March 2019)
Shared Spaces for News Content Production … 117

RTVE

Huffington Post

El País

El Mundo

El Español

Eldiario.es

Diario de Navarra

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Direct Referrals Search Social Mail Display

Fig. 1 Traffic sources. Similarweb

The primary traffic sources of the news media examined here vary. Whereas brand
identity constitutes a major pull factor for conventional, well-established outlets
newer, digital native competitors have been notably more adept at connecting with
audiences via social networking platforms. Facebook generates 52.4% of the traffic
to digital native outlets and Twitter (which in the case of their conventional rival El
Mundo generates much more conversation than traffic) generates 34.1% (Fig. 2).
According to media representatives interviewed, the vast majority of Spaniards
now prefer to consume news content on the run: more than 70% of the traffic for
the sample was mobile. Mobile access peaks at 10 pm and remains high throughout
weekends and holiday periods. Morning consumption, on the other hand, tends to
take place via desktop computers.

RTVE

Huffington Post

El País

El Mundo

El Español

Eldiario.es

Diario de Navarra

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Facebook Twitter Youtube WhattsApp Other

Fig. 2 Traffic from social media. Similarweb

118 A. Larrondo Ureta et al.

The growing use of mobile devices has clear implications for the future of news
organizations. Mobile users are more likely to surf the news than individuals using
home computers, consuming an average of only 3.1 pages per session and over half
(56.2%) of this audience connects for less than 30 s. In other words, mobile consump-
tion (primarily via smartphones) tends to be much shorter in terms of page views and
time frames than desktop consumption. The representative of The Huffington Post
interviewed for this study observed:
Mobile-user attention is really brief. We’re talking about an average of a minute and thirty
seconds per story. It’s true there are plenty of short three-paragraph articles a reader can
absorb in a flash. But I see this, in any case, as one more sign that what the majority of
people do is read a story headline, take a quick look at the related photo and the opening line
and move on. (interviewee The Huffington Post, pers. comm., April 2019)

News organizations’ ability to track and analyze the public’s growing habit of
consuming content in bits and pieces is undoubtedly having a knock-on effect on the
way that news stories are being composed. A representative of the Diario de Navarra
recounted (Fig. 2):
We have a tool that allows us to measure not only the overall time visitors spend on our
site but also the time they remain fixed on a given scroll position, approximately how long
it should take them to read an entire article and the amount of time they really devote to a
piece. On the basis of this data we can compare the percentages of shorter and longer articles
that actually get read. On the average this works out to around 35 or 40 percent. (interviewee
Diario de Navarra, pers. comm., February 2019)

4 Shared Newsroom Strategies

Generally speaking, the conventional news enterprises covered by this study were
conscious of the impact that the widespread use of mobile devices and social net-
working sites was having on news consumption habits, had successfully weathered
their respective analogue to digital transitions and had sufficient financial and human
resources to meet this challenge.
Unlike their digital-native competitors, conventional news outlets have had to
adapt longstanding routines to accommodate new online editions. Editorial meet-
ings at which current events are analyzed and contextualized and decisions taken
concerning content, format and placement are a case in point. At El Mundo, for
instance:
The morning meeting is largely devoted to the digital edition whereas the afternoon session
starts off with a discussion about the front page content of the print edition and Web matters
and the next day’s homepage content are the last things on the agenda. (interviewee El Mundo
pers. comm., March 2019)

Newspapers like El País and El Mundo have created job profiles that have helped
them to segue from the classic routines of conventional print journalism to new
Shared Spaces for News Content Production … 119

modes of content creation and dissemination. In such scenarios, new professionals

work hand in hand with those carrying out more traditional roles, ongoing training
programmes keep employee skills up to date, new technologies are exploited, multi-
disciplinary teams are formed and new narratives are developed. The representative
of El Mundo told researchers:
We hold SEO meetings, a social media staffer comes and gives us a brief rundown of what
in particular people have been doing searches on that morning, the topics generating the
most traffic on social networking platforms and even the topics generating the most traffic
to competitors. We then review our homepage, determine whether the topics being covered
there are working, what, if anything, needs to be tweaked and what is performing particularly
well and could be worth beefing up before reviewing the traffic being generated by news
stories and figuring out which are the hottest topics. (interviewee El Mundo, pers. comm.,
March 2019)

The findings of this study nevertheless indicate that some media outlets in Spain
continue to maintain two separate newsrooms, each of which operates according to
its rules and customs, a circumstance that obviously hinders the development of even
the most basic multiplatform strategy. Some sector professionals cite the differing
paces of work in print and digital journalism as a justification for this segregation.
The representative of the Diario de Navarra interviewed explained:
Unfortunately, we haven’t managed to unify our newsrooms. Each one has its own rhythm.
Print newsroom staffers are busiest in the afternoon with their daily deadline and stick to a
fairly traditional routine. The work schedule in the digital newsroom is longer, starting at
six in the morning and lasting until midnight with the exception of special occasions that
require a night shift. (interviewee Diario de Navarra, pers. comm., February 2019)

One must therefore conclude that despite a general industry shift towards the
fusion of separate and independent newsrooms into single, unified units operating in
the same space, under the same editorial leadership and sharing common technology
(Salaverría and Negredo 2008), outlets reluctant to take the leap are demonstrating
that in certain circumstances maintaining separate print and digital newsrooms can
be a viable option (Rondón and Leyva 2017).
The reorganization of newsrooms implies hiring new staffers who know how to
(a) multitask (Hamilton 2016), (b) use the latest generation of tools for creating new
types of narratives (Paulussen 2016) and (c) take full advantage of the opportunities
that social networking platforms offer (Hermida 2016; Jensen 2016).
The media organizations examined for this study felt it was important to recruit
individuals with relevant technological training capable of creating quality content
in line with industry standards and willing to continually update their skills. The
Diario de Navarra and El Español both consider writing skills important:
The first thing on our checklist when recruiting a new employee is determining whether a
candidate is a good journalist. We know that people are capable of picking up digital skills
on the job fairly quickly. (interviewee Diario de Navarra, pers. comm., February 2019)
We seek versatile people who are quick on their feet and have a sound understanding of
syntax. A candidate must, above all, be a journalist (…) and have a journalistic mentality.
(interviewee El Español pers. comm., April 2019)
120 A. Larrondo Ureta et al.

Some news enterprises need professionals with very specific skills. RTVE, for
example, is interested in people “well versed in multimedia and editing who are
good at visualizing data” and considers “a good command of HTML to be a major
plus”. Others search the labor market for professionals with non-journalistic profiles.
According to the spokesperson for the Diario de Navarra researchers interviewed,
that newspaper is always looking for “web designers, SEO specialists, technically
oriented professionals such as developers and digital marketing specialists”.
Several of the individuals interviewed for this study stated that age was also an
important factor. The interviewee from the Diario de Navarra observed:
It’s a fact that the younger people we’re hiring now enter with far broader digital skill set.
(…) Staffers who have been here for twenty years were not exposed to computers when they
were university students. The only tool they knew how to use when they started out here was
a typometer. (interviewee Diario de Navarra, pers. comm., February 2019)

Journalists today have no option other than to accept the challenge of mastering
and using digital tools: digital technology is essential to their work and broadens the
horizons of their profession (García Avilés 2007).
People with a good working knowledge of how to implement SEO and social
media strategies appear to be in high demand. The representative of the Diario de
Navarra who participated in this study explained:
We consider SEO a high priority area: our Web personnel have solid training and, in fact,
we’ve had a SEO expert in the newsroom for a year now. Once we finished that project we
realized that we didn’t really need a SEO person to review every word we wrote and that
individual journalists needed to internalize the concept. (interviewee Diario de Navarra,
pers. comm., February 2019)

The majority of the news organizations examined have developed SEO strategies,
because as RTVE points out, “a media organization doesn’t exist if people don’t see
it”. The spokesperson for El Mundo recounted:
We’ve worked a lot with news writers to ensure that everyone has a basic grasp. In digital,
news stories must contain keywords, headlines need to be tagged in HTML, etc. We’ve
worked with every section, explaining, providing hands-on support and teaching people
about SEO, and this has made a vital difference. This is obviously easier to do with younger
staffers, but everyone has had to gear up. It’s been harder to educate older print journalists
who didn’t understand why you were changing their headlines. Now we’re over the hump,
but I remember some pretty big confrontations years ago with sports and culture writers
who tended to come up with very poetic headlines: I hear you [I‘d tell them] but the point
is that people aren’t reading you. We’re losing a big opportunity to attract traffic and what’s
important here is that the articles you write get read, so you need to change your tack.
Start the headline like this followed by two dots and then add your poetic title. This was
evidently harder to get across to veterans, but we did it with them too and it worked out well.
(interviewee El Mundo, pers. comm., March 2019)

Another thing the news outlet examined for this study had in common in an addi-
tion to the experience of overcoming their journalists’ initial doubts concerning the
benefits of SEO is a strong conviction that journalists should actively promote their
work via social media. While all believed, like The Huffington Post, that “journalists
Shared Spaces for News Content Production … 121

are in better position than anyone else to sell the content they generate”, the represen-
tative of the Diario de Navarra interviewed emphasized that convincing journalists
to assume this responsibility requires time and effort:
As far as social media goes, it depends a little on whether a person is into it or not. At
the beginning, we didn’t obligate anyone to use or stop using it. What we have done is
offered training and developed a few guidelines regarding what people could and couldn’t
do. Everyone understands it opens up new opportunities to disseminate content. (interviewee
Diario de Navarra, pers. comm., February 2019).

5 Content Creation and Dissemination

Findings indicate that the fight to capture audience attention minute by minute in
a broad range of formats has generated new narratives as well as new practices.
The representative of The Huffington Post interviewed by the authors explained the
dilemmas that newspapers face today when developing content:
What audiences want to read is insubstantial stuff about what’s happening on television,
accidents and robberies, things that have gone viral on the Internet, etc. If you publish an
article about the eight-year war in Syria, you’ll be lucky if as many as a thousand people
read it. An article about what went on last night during a TV show like El Hormiguero, on
the other hand, will get read by 150,000. And the difference lies in the fact that the latter
could be churned out in ten minutes and the former about Syria took several days to write.
(interviewee The Huffington Post, pers. comm., April 2019)

Some news organizations develop sophisticated methods for tracking the perfor-
mance of content published that contribute to an outlet’s success. The spokesperson
for El Mundo reported:
Editors and section chiefs review the results on a daily basis to analyze factors beyond
quantity, such as the number loyal users who have read a given article, the time site visitors
took to read the story and whether or not they read the entire piece. This information guides
our judgements about what type of topics have the most potential appeal to readers, which
should have more weight, which should be changed, etc. (interviewee El Mundo, pers. comm.,
March 2019).

In other words, the thrust of content creation strategies being pursued by the news
organizations analyzed oscillates between a purely quantitative focus on reaching the
greatest number of readers possible and a more qualitative focus centered on offering
higher quality content targeting mainly loyal readers. At El Español, for example:
Some sections are interested in traffic and others are more preoccupied with building influ-
ence, quality and brand image, etc. Sections under pressure to generate traffic are used to
pump up the page views that guarantee advertising revenue and profitability and what Pedro
J. refers to as influence sections have a greater potential to foster a dialogue with more fickle
audience segments, generate viral content and have mass appeal. (interviewee El Español,
pers. comm., April 2019)
122 A. Larrondo Ureta et al.

Newsroom personnel involved in content creation are gradually interiorizing the

fact that news has become a dynamic rather than a static product that needs to be
realigned with what the public is interested in consuming at any given moment. The
El Mundo spokesperson interviewed for this study acknowledged there had been a
change of habits at that daily, noting:
Analytically minded people in the newsroom are quick to detect opportunities for boosting
traffic and where we’ve made a false step that has resulted in slumping numbers and they
are now more accustomed to making decisions on the spot. That’s to say, taking action the
moment an opportunity strikes and not up to an hour later, which means inserting the right
key word right away. (interviewee El Mundo, pers. comm., March 2019)

Media outlets have acquired a range of tools, many of which are automated, that
allow them to position front page content hierarchically according to the interests of
the audiences they serve and opt for the headlines that produce the best results. The
spokesperson for El Mundo informed the authors:
We have a tool for testing headlines that allows us to try out three or four headlines for a
given article that we use a lot for front-page stories. It allows us to release the same article
with different headlines to various segments of our readership and we go with the one that
people click on the most (…) Before, we’d publish whatever headline a journalist prepared
for an interview he or she had conducted but now we test ten different headlines and in-text
quotes and readers are the ones who decide which are the most interesting. (interviewee El
Mundo, pers. comm., March 2019)

Such practices naturally affect the manner in which headlines are formulated and
leave online news outlets facing the dilemma of whether they should or should not
employ click bait strategies to boost traffic to their sites. The spokesperson for The
Huffington Post bemoaned the ramifications of this situation:
We have real-time measurement tools and it’s really frustrating to compare how the same
story performs with and without click bait, the latter of which generates 50% more reads.
We’re talking about the very same story! Faced with the possibility of attracting twice the
number of readers, what do I do? Do I go with a journalistic headline? I believe there is
a happy medium that doesn’t entail going whole-hog with click bait but doesn’t involve
using journalistic headlines either because on the basis of my personal experience here,
what doesn’t grab people’s attention is of little interest. (interviewee The Huffington Post,
pers. comm., April 2019)

6 Multiplatform and Transmedia Strategies

In addition to monitoring content in real time, digital news outlets employ a variety of
transversal (multiplatform, cross-media and transmedia) strategies to boost audience
engagement with their brands, a practice referred to in the industry as cross-media
branding. Multiplatform strategies are employed to stimulate user engagement in
general by means of the dissemination of content via a wide range of formats and
distribution channels (press, radio, television, apps, social media, websites). Trans-
media strategies, on the other hand, which focus on interaction with content and by
Shared Spaces for News Content Production … 123

definition require active user participation in the form of sharing, producing, forward-
ing, etc., are used to stimulate spontaneous user engagement with a mass media brand
or its products (news shows, entertainment series and other types of programmes).
The possibility of employing such strategies—be they basic (cross-media) or
more complex (transmedia)—hinges upon two factors: a news enterprise’s business
model and other characteristics (e.g. whether it is a print, audiovisual or digital native
enterprise) and the type and format of the content involved (standard news coverage,
special news reports, entertainment content, audiovisual content, etc.).
Findings indicate that the degree to which media outlets in the sample have adopted
a transversal approach to content varies widely in function of the category they fall
into. Press enterprises that publish online newspapers tend to pursue multiplatform
strategies centered on mobile apps, an option widely perceived as being particularly
suited for fostering audience engagement with newspapers and the content they
publish (cross-branding). Apps tend to be viewed as multi-distribution mechanisms
in the context of news content and as transmedia tools useful for attracting and
engaging audiences at a deeper level in the context of entertainment content. The
spokesperson from El País noted during his interview, “this approach is particularly
evident in the case of audiovisual outlets. In our case, we have developed a really
strong application (…) but we don’t generate content exclusively for the platform”.
According to the professional contacted at RTVE, the public broadcasting company
has adopted a multi-faceted strategy:
We have an application called Informativos TVE (…) that was intended to replicate what
was being aired on television (…) whereas transmedia platforms like Playz are managed by
digital teams that produce content for a totally different audience. (interviewee RTVE, pers.
comm., February 2019)

The media organizations in the study sample employ different strategies for dif-
ferent types of news and journalistic content. Transmedia strategies are reserved for
in-depth news programming such as special reports, but multiplatform and cross-
media strategies are applied in a more or less de facto manner to daily news pro-
gramming, undoubtedly due to the shorter shelf-life and less ambitious production
and distribution efforts this type of content calls for. The RTVE spokesperson who
participated in this study explained:
If the topic being covered is considered to have sufficient weight, our lab develops high-
impact strategies entailing different formats for every social media platform (…) a more
elaborate Web presence with live videos on Instagram, for example, and different live videos
on Facebook. (interviewee RTVE, pers. comm., February 2019)

The Diario de Navarra focuses heavily on tailoring its strategies and the content
it offers to its business model, and, above all, to its format model. The fact that
certain types of content are only suitable for presentation via one medium limits this
digital newspaper’s options for pursuing complex strategies for news, entertainment
and promotional content that requires a mix of media formats. Others such as El
Mundo consider multiplatform strategies to be essential even though employing
them supposes approaching the production and distribution of news content from
124 A. Larrondo Ureta et al.

a different angle. The spokesperson from that newspaper interviewed made it clear
that his organization had made a substantial investment in this area, pointing out that:
All of our content is responsive (…) we’ve assimilated the idea that content should be
viewable via any type of device (…) our operations, product and social media teams take
care of this issue. (interviewee El Mundo, pers. comm., March 2019).

There was a general consensus among the professionals interviewed for this study
that video content was especially useful in the context of multiplatform and branding
strategies. The professional interviewed from El Español thought that producing
videos with the potential to go viral was important but stressed that they needed to
be “videos that boosted visibility and engagement”.
The situation at RTVE was interesting in terms of the manner in which internal
hierarchies not only structured the work flow involved but also influenced the type
of advanced cross-media branding strategies were implemented on a daily basis.
Especially worth noting is the fact that all initiatives undertaken at RTVE involving
several media are now handled by a designated transmedia unit.
Various forms of audience participation (content sharing and resending, input,
voting, etc.) have been integrated into RTVE’s multiplatform (cross-media) content
dissemination and promotional activities. The broadcasting company considers its
decision to develop a specific strategy for digital content distributed via various
platforms to have been a positive move, but is conscious of the risk of focusing too
much attention on the Web and failing to maintain a truly convergent, global strategy
that exploits both traditional offline and online channels. The professional contacted
at RTVE noted:
There is a consciousness of the need to establish new digital strategies for content dissem-
ination that go beyond adapting offline for digital application (…) This is a new facet of
our personality (…) However, for the rest of the corporation (…) the development of purely
digital strategies has nothing to do with their part of day-to-day business. (interviewee RTVE,
pers. comm., February 2019)

The unit is aware that the benefits RTVE derives from its transmedia initiatives
in terms of audience building and audience engagement are not commensurate with
the financial and human resources the broadcasting company devotes to them. All of
the sector professionals interviewed for this study admitted that their organizations
consider the cross-media and transmedia activity they engage in as an outward sign
of their ongoing commitment to innovation and a springboard for exploring new
ways of doing things. While transmedia is producing some interesting results in the
area of entertainment content, organizations like RTVE acknowledge that more work
needs to be done in order to apply it effectively in the context of news programming
and reaching and engaging new audiences. As far as news presentation goes, second
screens continue to be used as ‘mirror applications’ to replicate content.
Capacity building and the organization and management of workflow are major
issues for enterprises like El Mundo, El País and El Español whose business models
are focused on the dissemination of news content. The professional from digital-
native El Español interviewed for this study, for example, admitted, “our capacity to
Shared Spaces for News Content Production … 125

generate news content vastly outpaces our capacity to distribute it through a range
of channels” (interviewee El Español, pers. comm., April 2019).

7 Conclusions

In addition to attending to the more traditional aspects of journalism, online news

outlets have spent much of the last decade developing strategies for satisfying the
demands of their increasingly active and mobile respective audiences and adapting
to their changing news consumption habits.
The ongoing debate regarding the functions and job profiles of professional jour-
nalists has become more intense as the business of journalism has evolved. The sector
continues to grapple not only with purely technical considerations but other issues
as well such as the search for alternative business models and narratives, newsroom
reorganization, the new competences journalists are now being expected to demon-
strate and the new roles they are being obliged to assume. A novel environment is
remoulding the figure of the reporter into a journalist who narrates in multiple for-
mats and ways (multimedia, transmedia, etc.) (López García, Rodríguez and Pereira
2017). This reporter accepts that certain journalistic practices are inevitably being
redefined ant that the job profiles emerging in the sector thus are, and will continue
to be, dynamic (López García, Rodríguez and Pereira 2017).
Newsroom professionals have learned to carry out tasks related to SEO and the
dissemination of content via social media platforms in tandem with other journalistic
responsibilities and have developed tools that facilitate the detailed monitoring of
audience behavior in real time. The insight gained through such activities nevertheless
comes at a price. Journalism now takes place in a market driven by the preferences
of consumers accustomed to receiving a constant, dynamic response to their whims,
a circumstance that affects not only the manner in which news stories are written but
also their on-screen positioning and hierarchy on a digital newspaper’s agenda.
In terms of the introduction of new formats, an increasing number of news organi-
zations see newsroom convergence as the first logical step of their digital transitions
and are only venturing into multiplatform content once this has been achieved. The
emergence of spaces that permit average people to comment on, interact with and
recirculate mass media content has had an impact on sector job profiles, professional
routines, short- and medium-term planning processes, audience relationships and the
role of audiences.
The model now emerging is marked by a trend toward transversality that
constitutes the nucleus of sector innovation.
An ever-stronger focus on content promotion and broader dissemination has had a
notable impact on how news enterprises perceive themselves, their business models
and how their internal operations are organized.
A close examination indicates that the individual idiosyncrasies, business models
and visions of media enterprises greatly determine the degree to which they pursue
transversal strategies. Although each of the companies studied here has adopted its
126 A. Larrondo Ureta et al.

own particular approach to transversal media, all have explored the possibilities of
social media platforms and apps to some extent, using news and entertainment content
to strengthen brand engagement and seeking to enhance the visibility of content they
offer by disseminating it via as many channels as possible and leveraging the ability
of digital audiences to circulate it further share and virilization.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the representatives of the media enterprises
interviewed for this study for their participation and insight.
The topic and focus of the chapter proposed is a natural outflow of two projects carried out
by the researchers with funding from the Mini0stry of Economy and Competitiveness, the first
of which analyzed the role of active audiences and user-generated content in journalism today
(CSO2012-39518-C04-01) and the second of which examined the role active audiences play in set-
ting public agenda (CSO2015-64955-C4-1-R). This work is also part of the scientific production of
the Consolidated Research Group (A) ‘Gureiker’, (IT1112-16), funded by the Basque Government.

References

Casero Ripollés A, López Meri A (2015) Redes sociales, periodismo de datos y democracia mon-
itorizada. In: Campos F, Rúas J (eds) Las redes sociales digitales en el ecosistema mediático.
Sociedad Latina de Comunicación Social, La Laguna, pp 96–113
Deuze M (2017) Considering a possible future for digital journalism. Revista Mediterránea de
Comunicación 8(1):9–18
Dupagne M, Garrison B (2006) The meaning and influence of convergence. A qualitative case study
of newsroom work at the Tampa News Center. J Stud 7(2):237–255
García Avilés JA (2007) Nuevas tecnologías en el periodismo audiovisual. Revista de Ciencias
Sociales y Jurídicas de Elche 1(2):59–75
García Orosa B, López García X (2016) Las redes sociales como herramienta de distribución on
line de la oferta informativa en los medios de España y Portugal. Mediatika 21(40):125–139
Hamilton JM (2016) Hybrid news practices. In: Witschge T, Anderson CW, Domingo D, Hermida
A (eds) The Sage handbook of digital journalism. Sage, London
Hermida A (2016) Social media and news. In: Witschge T, Anderson CW, Domingo D, Hermida A
(eds) The Sage handbook of digital journalism. Sage, London
Jensen JL (2016) The social sharing of news: gatekeeping and opinion leadership on Twitter.
In: Jensen JL, Mortensen M, Ormen J (eds) News across media: Production, distribution and
consumption. Routledge, New York
Killebrew KC (2005) Managing media convergence. Blackwell Publishing, Iowa
Larrondo A, Erdal I, Masip P, Van den Bulck H (2016) Newsroom convergence: a comparative study
of European public service broadcasting organisations in Scotland, Spain, Norway and Flemish
Belgium. In: Franklin B, Eldridge S (eds) The Routledge companion to digital journalism studies.
Routledge, London, pp 556–566
Lewis SC, Westlund O (2016) Mapping the human-machine divide in journalism. In: Witschge T,
Anderson CW, Domingo D, Hermida A (eds) The Sage handbook of digital journalism. Sage,
London
López García X, Pereira X (2010) Convergencia digital: reconfiguración de los medios de
comunicación en España. Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela
López García X, Rodríguez AI, Pereira X (2017) Competencias tecnológicas y nuevos perfiles
profesionales: desafíos del periodismo actual. Comunicar 25(53):81–90
Masip P, Guallar J, Peralta M, Ruiz C, Suau J (2015) Audiencias activas y periodismo. ¿Ciudadanos
implicados o consumidores motivados? Brazilian Journalism Research 11:240–261
Shared Spaces for News Content Production … 127

McQuail D (2013) Journalism and society. Sage, Los Angeles

Peña S, Lazkano-Arrillaga I, García D (2016) European newspapers’ digital transition: new products
and new audiences. Comunicar 46:27–36
Paulussen S (2016) Innovation in the newsroom. In: Witschge T, Anderson CW, Domingo D,
Hermida A (eds) The Sage handbook of digital journalism. Sage, London, pp 192–209
Rondón LA, Leyva VH (2017) Redacciones integradas en Cuba: entre el reto y la necesidad. Santiago
144:607–623
Salaverría R (2010) Estructura de la convergencia. In: López García X, Pereira X (eds) Convergencia
digital: reconfiguración de los medios de comunicación en España. Universidad de Santiago de
Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, pp 27–40
Salaverría R, Negredo S (2008) Periodismo integrado. Convergencia de medios y reorganización
de redacciones. Editorial Sol90, Barcelona
Siegert G, Förster K, Chan-Olmsted SM, Ots M (2015) Handbook of media branding. Springer,
Switzerland
Tosoni S, Carpentier N, Murru MF (2017) Present scenarios of media production and engagement.
Lumière, Bremen
Ufarte MJ, Peralta L, Murcia FJ (2018) Fact checking: un nuevo desafío del periodismo. El
profesional de la información 27(4):733–741

Ainara Larrondo Ureta PhD. in Journalism (UPV/EHU) and Senior Lecturer at the Department
of Journalism II of the University of the Basque Country. Director of Gureiker group (Basque Uni-
versity System, IT 1112-16) and active member of several research projects on Online Journalism
and Media Innovation (Spanish MINECO, FEDER, etc.). Her main educational and research inter-
ests are the transformation of journalism in the digital environment, the feminism and the media,
and the political communication. Visiting researcher at the CCPR of the University of Glasgow.

Koldobika Meso Ayerdi Ph.D. in Journalism (UPV/EHU) and Senior Lecturer. Head of Depart-
ment of Journalism II at the University of the Basque Country (Spain). Member of Gureiker
research group (UPV/EHU) and main researcher of national and international research projects
(Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness—MINECO and the European Regional
Development Fund—FEDER). Visiting researcher at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil).
His main research interests are the transformation of journalism in the digital environment, the
audiences and the interactivity.

Simón Peña Fernández Ph.D. in Journalism (UPV/EHU) and Senior Lecturer. Dean of the Fac-
ulty of Social Sciences and Communication of the University of the Basque Country (Spain).
Codirector of Gureiker research group (UPV/EHU) and researcher of national and international
research projects (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness—MINECO and the Euro-
pean Regional Development Fund—FEDER, Erasums+, Emakunde). His main research interests
are the transformation of journalism in the digital environment, the journalism education, and
journalism and cinema.
Social Media Guidelines for Journalists
in European Public Service Media

Sabela Direito-Rebollal, María-Cruz Negreira-Rey

and Ana-Isabel Rodríguez-Vázquez

Abstract Strategies and productive routines within the information arena are
increasingly oriented towards social networks, as journalists use them to connect
with the audience, gather information, disseminate content and build their own brand.
Their activity on their personal profiles impacts the credibility of the media they work
for, which is why these develop policies for the use of such platforms. In this chapter
we analyze the social media guidelines developed by the public service broadcasting
corporations of the European Union—BBC, ORF, RTÉ, Sveriges Radio, TVR, YLE,
EITB, NDR and VRT —with the objective of clarifying the recommendations for their
journalists. The analysis of these documents reveals that organizations place special
emphasis on regulating the personal and professional use of social media accounts,
the relationship with the audience, reporting, as well as on transparency and the
treatment of confidential information.

Keywords Social media · Guidelines · Public service media · Journalistic practices

1 Introduction

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the news industry has faced the
challenge of adapting to the radical and disruptive changes caused by the digital
shift (Paulussen 2016). The Internet and its social and interactive features have pro-
foundly transformed both newsroom culture and journalistic practices (Zeller and
Hermida 2015). In this context, newsrooms are immersed in a “makeover process”
(García-Avilés et al. 2014: 10) adapting their strategies and productive routines to

S. Direito-Rebollal (B) · M.-C. Negreira-Rey · A.-I. Rodríguez-Vázquez

Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
M.-C. Negreira-Rey
e-mail: [email protected]
A.-I. Rodríguez-Vázquez
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 129

J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_10
130 S. Direito-Rebollal et al.

an information environment increasingly oriented towards social networks (Welbers

and Opgenhaffen 2019).
The growing popularity of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and their use
in collecting and distributing pieces of news offers new opportunities, but also new
challenges for professional journalism (Nielsen et al. 2016; Welbers and Opgenhaf-
fen 2019). As Kramp and Loosen (2017: 213) point out, “journalistic roles were
confronted with differentiated tasks and practices” that have influenced not only the
work of journalists, but also the responsibilities they have to assume (Adornato and
Lysak 2017). As well as their traditional work, editors are now expected to perform
new tasks in order to meet the demands of an active and participatory audience that
seeks to interact in a reciprocal and bidirectional way with the media themselves, as
well as with their staff (Canter 2013).
Given this scenario, individual journalists have started using social media to con-
nect with their audiences, but also to gather information, find ideas and sources,
report news, promote stories and build their personal brands (Al-Rawi 2017; Bar-
berá et al. 2017; Duffy and Knight 2019; Paulussen and Harder 2014; Thurman 2018).
As their activity on these platforms determines not only their personal image, but
also the corporate brand of the company, publishers and managers can put pressure
on their journalists to become active users of social networks (Hedman and Djerf-
Pierre 2013). However, with an awareness of the risks that improper use of this type
of platforms can cause on their reputation and that of their journalists (Lee 2015),
some media have started to regulate their journalists’ personal use of social networks
through policies and guidelines. In this way, they seek to preserve the transparency,
the objectivity, the authenticity of the sources, the truthfulness of the contents that
are published and shared, and the independence of the media themselves and the
people who work for them.
In this chapter we analyze the social media guidelines developed by the Euro-
pean broadcasting corporations. Our main objective is to elucidate the guidelines or
recommendations that these corporations make to their journalists in order to guar-
antee the right usage of their personal social media profiles. Based on the existing
literature, five major categories on which media organizations place special empha-
sis have been identified: regulating the characteristics and activity of the personal
and professional accounts of their journalists (personal and professional activity),
the appropriate use of content—especially content generated by users—and sources
(content and sources), the relationship with the audience and the management of
complaints or criticisms (audience relationship management), social media reporting
(reporting), as well as transparency in their activities and the treatment of confidential
information (transparency). This analysis has focused on nine publicly owned cor-
porations whose social media guidelines are accessible through their websites: the
state-owned BBC (United Kingdom), ORF (Austria), RTÉ (Ireland), Sveriges Radio
(Switzerland), TVR (Romania) and YLE (Finland), and the regional EITB (Spain),
NDR (Germany) and VRT (Belgium).
The chapter begins by examining the pros and cons of the use of social channels in
the journalistic field. It then goes on to review those works that have analyzed, from
various perspectives, the implementation of social media guidelines within media
Social Media Guidelines for Journalists … 131

outlets and news agencies. Through the analysis of the policies designed by the
European broadcasting corporations, we were able to identify a series of preventative
recommendations that are designed to keep their journalists from damaging, through
their personal activity in social networks, core values for public service media such
as independence, excellence, responsibility and transparency. Thus, the present study
contributes to an emerging field of work that, according to various authors (Adornato
and Lysak 2017; Lee 2016), has not yet received the necessary attention from the
academy.

2 Pros and Cons of Social Media Usage by Professional

Journalists

The rise of social media and its gradual incorporation into newsrooms precipitated the
transition towards a new journalism model where content is produced, distributed
and consumed through multiple platforms (Kramp and Loosen 2017). Networks
such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram and messaging services such
as WhatsApp have already become fixtures for many users, especially the youth,
to access the news (Newman et al. 2019). According to data from the latest Digital
News Report, 57% of the population between 18 and 24 years old (Generation Z) and
43% of those between 25 and 34 years old (Generation Y) receive the news through
these kinds of platforms (Newman et al. 2019). Following the media social profiles
and those of the journalists working on them has also become a way for some users
to stay informed (Hermida et al. 2012).
Therefore, social networks have been consolidated as a channel of direct commu-
nication with the audience, transforming the classic top-down relationship into an
open conversation (Paulussen and Ugille 2008). The establishment of this dialogue
with the readers “offers a chance for journalists to achieve greater accountability and
transparency” (Lasorsa et al. 2012: 21) and, at the same time, makes the behavior
and preferences of news consumers more quantifiable and transparent (Assmann and
Diakopoulos 2017).
As well as establishing a conversation with multiple users in the same place—
one of the greatest benefits that these types of platforms bring about for journalists,
according to Safori (2019)—social media provide the opportunity for journalists to
reach new sources beyond the institutional ones (Diakopoulos et al. 2012). Social
media thus acquire an outstanding role in the search for sources (Thurman 2018)
and information (Paulussen and Harder 2014), and are an essential element for news
gathering and reporting, especially around breaking news events (Lee 2016). In fact,
as Canter (2013: 474) points out, “major events, whether human or natural, are now
most likely to be revealed via social media first, from public on the ground in the
heart of the action, before the professional journalists arrive”. Citizens become ama-
teur reporters (Noor 2017) who, through their mobile devices and social networks,
create content and spread news (Barnard 2018; Bowman and Willis 2003; Campbell
132 S. Direito-Rebollal et al.

2015). These contents generated by the audience become a fundamental piece “not
only for breaking news during a crisis, but also for crowdsourcing information for
nonbreaking news stories” (Lee 2016: 109).
The shift in the role and relationship that journalists establish with their readers
through social networks helps them improve engagement with their users; while at
the same time building their own personal brand (Duffy and Knight 2019; Holton and
Molyneux 2017; Knight and Cook 2013). However, this opportunity for journalists
to create and share their identity online can also pose a major threat to their careers.
The thin line that separates their identity as professionals and as individuals in social
networks (Holton and Molyneux 2017) can mean that their activity on these platforms
is sometimes disengaged from conventional journalistic values and norms (Domingo
and Heinonen 2008; Hedman and Djerf-Pierre 2013). In the words of Lee (2015: 4),
“journalists are subject to the influence of social media norms such as personality
disclosure and interaction”, so that they express opinions, share private life moments,
talk about their daily work or speak with other users through their social media
profiles (Lasorsa et al. 2012). These types of practices, although they offer a more
transparent image of journalists in the personal and work environment (Molyneux
and Holton 2015), negatively affect their professional reputation to the extent that the
audience perceives these behaviors as a violation of the core journalistic principles
of objectivity, impartiality and detachment (Hermida 2013; Lee 2015).
The lack of privacy and the circulation of misleading information are also prob-
lems journalists need to consider when using social networks (Safori 2019). An
error in a post, a link to a website that contains non-verified information, or the re-
distribution of misleading news (Lee 2016) can also compromise the public image of
journalists by undermining the intrinsic values of the profession such as verification,
accuracy and validity of content and sources (Brandtzaeg et al. 2016).

3 The Integration of Social Media Guidelines

into Newsrooms

Having considered the opportunities, and even more so the dangers, that the use of
social media by journalists can entail, the media have decided to guide the conduct
of their workers on such platforms in order to protect their reputation and credibility
as informational brands (Bloom et al. 2016). In some organizations, professionals
specialized in the management of corporate social profiles are the ones who advise
the rest of the workforce on their use to guarantee an optimal relationship with the
public, as well as to verify the sources and content obtained through these platforms
(Sacco and Bossio 2017). Such guidance can be complemented with coaching and
training for journalists (Bloom et al. 2016; Sacco and Bossio 2017).
However, other media outlets understand the presence and activity that both the
organization and their workers make of social media as a matter of governance
and therefore choose to control their conduct through policies and guidelines (Sacco
Social Media Guidelines for Journalists … 133

and Bossio 2017). Although the contents of these standards and practices vary across
media, they all seek to maintain a consistent image and conduct between the corporate
profiles and those of their journalists (Safori 2019), to identify the dangers of social
media, to avoid any inappropriate content and to ensure that the information cannot be
used to challenge the integrity of their reporters, photographers and editors (Podger
2009). In general terms, their approach is more oriented towards prevention than
promotion and they support a critical understanding of social media (Lee 2016).
Social media guidelines are documents of varying rigidity that govern the presence
of the media and their journalists on those platforms (Bloom et al. 2016) and should
be subject to changes and updates (Podger 2009). Sacco and Bossio (2017: 185)
define them as “the formalization of organizational jurisdiction over the conduct of
journalists and other editorial staff in the use of social media for the news production,
dissemination and promotion”.
Previous studies on social media usage guides from various media and inter-
national news agencies (Adornato and Lysak 2017; Bloom et al. 2016; Lee 2016;
Opgenhaffen and Scheerlinck 2014; Safori 2019) revealed some common ground
that media organizations seek to maintain control over. According to the authors,
these guidelines limit the personal and professional use that journalists make of their
profiles and define boundaries to safeguard their credibility and impartiality—user
identification and relationship with the company, privacy, personal opinion, political
ties, etc. They also draw lines on the integration of social networks in the production
of information contents, especially in terms of involvement and interaction with the
public, and on the verification of sources and user-generated content. Moreover, they
provide guidelines on transparency, confidentiality regarding internal media informa-
tion, response to criticisms and reputational crises, the management and publication
of latest news and exclusives, as well as on the accuracy of contents and rectifications.
There are currently few media that have specific codes of conduct for journal-
ists on social media, and still fewer have a written policy (Adornato and Lysak
2017; Opgenhaffen and Scheerlinck 2014; Sánchez Gonzales and Méndez Muros
2015), in which case publishers communicate the guidelines verbally or extrapolate
the deontological principles of their general code (Bloom et al. 2016; Opgenhaffen
and Scheerlinck 2014). By 2012, these guides were becoming a feature in many
newsrooms (Adornato and Lysak 2017). Among the media organizations that use
them are newspapers and leading cybermedia—The New York Times, The Washing-
ton Post, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, El País or El Comercio—public and
private broadcasters—BBC, NPR, ABC, Channel 4, VRT or RTÉ—as well as news
agencies—Reuters, EFE, Associated Press or Agence France Press.
At the same time that media organizations were establishing action rules on social
networks that were based on their editorial criteria and values, the social media
platforms themselves were preparing manuals for journalistic use. In 2012, Twitter
published an entry on their blog with examples of useful practices for the collection
and dissemination of information (Luckie 2012), whilst Facebook launched a guide
a year later (Lavrusik 2013), advising journalists on the creation of their personal
pages, on breaking news coverage, reporting and contact with sources, and on the
creation of a participatory community. Today, these modest standards have been
134 S. Direito-Rebollal et al.

transformed into complex projects such as the Facebook Journalism Project, which
integrates the media themselves for the development of new technological solutions,
also providing training and resources for editors and journalists, as Twitter Media
also offers.

4 Principles of the Social Media Guides of Public European

Broadcasting Media

The guidelines for the use of social networks of public European broadcasting media
that were analyzed (BBC 2015; EITB 2014; NDR 2012; ORF 2012; RTÉ 2013;
Sveriges Radio 2013; TVR 2012; VRT n.d.; YLE 2015) present variations in terms
of the extension and the specifics of the standards, the social platforms included and
the distinction between personal and professional profiles. Nonetheless, it is possible
to organize these guides using a series of categories implemented in previous studies
(Adornato and Lysak 2017; Safori 2019). These include the confrontation of personal
and professional use of social profiles, relating to sources and content, relationship
management and audience critics, reporting and transparency.

4.1 Personal and Professional Activity

All social media guidelines that were studied refer in their regulations to the limits
that professionals of the respective corporations must abide by in their personal
accounts.
One of the main policies that all media outlets insist on is that personal profiles
remain consistent with corporate principles and values. Similarly, they demand that
journalists maintain political impartiality and do not position themselves in con-
troversial or polemical issues on the information agenda. Despite preserving their
journalists’ freedom of expression, the media warn of the potential damage that this
could cause both in their credibility and in their corporate profiles.
Regarding the expression of personal opinions, the journalists of the TVR are
obliged to include the following disclaimer: “any opinions expressed here are per-
sonal and do not represent Romanian television”. The NDR also recommends clar-
ifying that the comments published are personal, and enforces restrictions to the
creation and dissemination of content in personal profiles using the company’s com-
puters. The VRT recommends being mindful of impartiality principles, which apply
not only to the publications, but also to the groups the journalists belong to, the likes
they receive, the accounts they follow, etc.
The impact that journalists’ personal publications can have on the image of the
media group that they work for gives rise to different strategies in their identification
in social networks. Thus, while the BBC does not allow reference to their working
Social Media Guidelines for Journalists … 135

relationship on the profile description, the Sveriges Radio obliges journalists to make
their biography clear, recognizable and related to the organization.

4.2 Sources and Content

The broadcasting corporations studied encourage their professionals to make use of

social networks in their journalistic work when they search for information, identify
witnesses or people involved in a particular story, or to find images produced by users.
But the treatment of sources and content on social media needs to be addressed under
a series of journalistic principles of conduct that the media refer to in their guides.
Therefore, the rules of the EITB, Sveriges Radio, ORF, RTÉ and BBC focus on
the need to verify both the content and the information generated in social media
around a news event, as well as the accounts that are behind such publications. As
the media deontological principles are extrapolated to social networks, the guides
also mention the need to contrast sources and protect them.
The broadcasting organizations also remind journalists that they should be cau-
tious with their use of user-generated content. In addition to their verification, the
guidelines stipulate that such content cannot be published without the author’s con-
sent and that copyright must be respected. In this sense, the rules of the YLE establish
that the ethical norms applied to other professional activities within the corporation
are extrapolated to social media and that the editorial responsibility remains the same.
Regarding the relationship that the professionals maintain through social networks
with users or sources, the NDR recommends keeping distance and impartiality. While
favoring the participation and collaboration of users, the BBC recommends that the
audience is not encouraged to take risks on behalf of the corporation.

4.3 Audience Relationship Management

Together with the search for sources and information, the ability to converse in real
time with the audience is one of the greatest advantages that social networks bring
to journalists. Therefore, it is not surprising that public service media encourage
journalists to actively engage with their followers, not only through the organization’s
official accounts, but also through their own personal profiles.
In fact, the guides of the ORF, YLE and Sveriges Radio all state the need for
their journalists to be part of social networks in order to connect with their users and
respond to their questions or comments. Moreover, this dialogue with the audience
can also become an opportunity to learn more about their likes and interests—as
specified by the Austrian corporation ORF—or even a way to disseminate the con-
tent of the organization—as reflected in the guide of the NDR. Another point that is
especially emphasized within the policies of the Sveriges Radio and ORF is the idea
of journalists as moderators who are able to control the nature of social conversations.
136 S. Direito-Rebollal et al.

The ORF also underlines the need for their workers to maintain impartiality, objec-
tivity and independence in their feedback with the audience, particularly stressing
the importance of avoiding expressions of political preferences or opinions.
In addition to the ideas and corrections that users may contribute, the criticisms
they can make either to the organization or the work of their journalists are included
as a highly relevant section in most of the guides analyzed. In this regard, the rules of
Sveriges Radio, NDR, ORF, EITB and VRT emphasize that it is necessary to accept
and address criticism, avoiding controversies or discussions with the audience. In the
event of a disagreement, the NDR recommends their journalists be responsible and
transparent, while the Sveriges Radio points out the importance of acting fast—but
never from a panicked perspective—and being personal, clear and truthful. Being
polite rather than reacting aggressively, for example by blocking a user, is the general
guideline established by the BBC. The EITB focuses on the need to calculate the
impact and scope of the criticism, as well as the type of person behind it.

4.4 Reporting

Regarding the role of journalists as reporters on social networks, the EITB, NDR
and RTÉ state in their guides that the content produced by the media belongs to cor-
porations and that it should be published in corporate profiles rather than personal
ones. Similarly, they remind their staff that they cannot decide on the management
of the information they produce—RTÉ warns that they reserve the right to ask their
employees to delete certain posts from their personal profiles—recommend that pub-
lications be shared from corporate social accounts and that the hashtags used are the
ones determined by the organization, and also that the quality of the content is care-
fully considered. Regarding the style of the publications, the TVR urges professionals
to respect their visual identity guide in their personal accounts.
In relation to breaking news, both the BBC and VRT prioritize verification and
rigor over speed, and make it clear that journalists must not broadcast news on their
personal accounts without previously notifying the organization and adhering to their
decisions on how to manage the publication.

4.5 Transparency

Clarity and transparency of information are core values within public service media.
This is reflected in the social media guides of the corporations analyzed here. How-
ever, although they mention the need for their staff to be transparent in their relation-
ships with their audiences, and in how they share content and sources, they also place
special emphasis on the treatment of the organization’s confidential information.
The policies of all public broadcasters include a standard that explicitly prohibits
the disclosure of such information. This implies not revealing the organization’s
Social Media Guidelines for Journalists … 137

strategy, their internal policies—as specified by the TVR, NDR and YLE—financial
information or details about their suppliers and partners—as the NDR maintains—
and confidential sources—a guideline that is shared by both the NDR and RTÉ.
Likewise, although public broadcasters respect the freedom of expression of their
journalists, they recommend that social networks not be used as a space to criticize
their peers or professionals who work for other media. With this in mind, the ORF
adds that negative and unsubstantiated comments or opinions on the organization
or the content they offer must not be issued. RTÉ’s policy is that their journalists
must not publish details about their private lives on their personal accounts. The
TVR shares this recommendation and urges that the privacy of their colleagues be
respected.

5 Conclusions

The impact of social networks on the practices and routines of journalists has been
the focus of much attention coming from professionals and academics in recent
years. Their use as a platform for access, collection and distribution of news has
transformed social networks into an effective tool in the daily activity of reporters,
as well as a direct route for interaction and connection with users. Meanwhile, media
organizations see the presence of their journalists on social networks as an opportu-
nity to expand their reach and visibility, increasing the number of readers, driving
traffic to their website and strengthening brand loyalty (Lee 2015; Opgenhaffen and
Scheerlinck 2014; Sacco and Bossio 2017).
However, the use of social media can be seen as a ‘double-edged sword’ (Lee
2015). The interpersonal and subjective logic of platforms such as Twitter (Duffy
and Knight 2019; Welbers and Opgenhaffen 2019) can cause journalists to deviate
from conventional journalistic values and norms when they perform certain activ-
ities through their social media profiles. Given the potential risks that this entails,
European public service broadcasting corporations have joined together in order to
produce guides for the use of social networks and to steer their staff on how to use
their personal accounts.
As has already been observed in previous studies on media and international agen-
cies policies, the analysis of documents published by the BBC, ORF, RTÉ, Sveriges
Radio, TVR, YLE, EITB, NDR and VRT reveals the media’s desire to protect the
image and credibility of their informational brand, as well as to enforce compliance
with the code of ethics on social platforms.
The promotion of political and ideological independence is one of the central val-
ues of public service media. Therefore, in their social media policies, they warn that
journalists’ expressing their personal opinions, and the relationships they establish
through social networks with other users, can compromise their impartiality, as well
as their adherence to editorial standards. In order to maintain their reputation and
138 S. Direito-Rebollal et al.

informative credibility, all corporations recommend their professionals not to posi-

tion themselves in political or social matters and act in accordance with the principles
and values of the media.
Verifying the information and sources as well as the authenticity of the con-
tents generated by users, managing the permits and publication rights, aligning with
the organization before the publication of the latest news and the dissemination of
content produced by the journalist, and responding appropriately to comments and
complaints are all standards included in most of the guides analyzed.
Beyond aspects linked to journalistic practices, the media address corporate issues,
such as the protection of internal and confidential information, the respect for the
organization and their team, public or non-public association with the corporation or
restriction for publication and use of personal profiles from the actual company.
Although the documents analyzed differ in their length, structure, frequency of
update and in specific details, they all reflect an interest in the integration of their pro-
fessionals within social networks. Nonetheless, the nature of the recommendations
and how these are expressed are mainly aimed at forms of journalistic misconduct,
however corporations choose to define it. Notwithstanding the guidelines explicitly
state that their staff’s freedom of expression is respected, the publication of guides
is nothing but a tool to control all the activity related to corporations in social media.
The review of the content and formats of social media policies for journalists
in the European public broadcasters opens new avenues for future research, such
as the ways in which these policies might come into conflict with the real actions
of journalists, their implementation in the newsrooms and the extent to which they
actually meet the needs of the teams.

Acknowledgements This article has been developed within the research project Digital native
media in Spain: storytelling formats and mobile strategy (RTI2018-093346-B-C33) funded by
the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Government of Spain), Agencia Estatal de
Investigación, and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and it is
part of the activities promoted by Novos Medios research group (ED431B 2017/48), supported
by Xunta de Galicia. The author Sabela Direito-Rebollal is a beneficiary of the Faculty Training
Program funded by the Ministry of Science, Universities and Innovation (FPU15/02557).

References

Adornato A, Lysak S (2017) You can’t post that!: social media policies in U.S. television newsrooms.
Electron News 11(2):80–99
Al-Rawi A (2017) News values on social media: news organizations’ Facebook use. Journalism
18(7):871–889
Assmann K, Diakopoulos N (2017) Negotiating change: audience engagement editors as newsroom
intermediaries. ISOJ J 7(1):25–44
Barberá P, Vaccari C, Valeriani A (2017) Social media, personalisation of reporting, and media
systems’ polarization in Europe. In: Barisione M, Michailidou A (eds) Social media and European
politics: rethinking power and legitimacy in the digital era. Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp 25–52
Social Media Guidelines for Journalists … 139

Barnard SR (2018) The pros and cons of pro-am journalism: breaking news during the #Boston-
Marathon bombing and beyond. In: Barnard SR (ed) Citizens at the gates. Palgrave Macmillan,
Cham, pp 83–100
Bloom T, Cleary J, North M (2016) Traversing the “Twittersphere” social media policies in
international news operations. J Pract 10(3):343–357
Bowman S, Willis C (2003) We media: how audiences are shaping the future of news and informa-
tion. The Media Center at the American Press Institute. Retrieved from http://www.hypergene.
net/wemedia/download/we_media.pdf. Accessed 11 June 2019
Brandtzaeg PB, Lüders M, Spangenberg J, Rath-Wiggins L, Følstad A (2016) Emerging journalistic
verification practices concerning social media. J Pract 10(3):323–342
BBC (2015) Social media guidance for staff. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/
hi/pdfs/26_03_15_bbc_news_group_social_media_guidance.pdf. Accessed 11 June 2019
Campbell V (2015) Theorizing citizenship in citizen journalism. Dig J 3(5):704–719
Canter L (2013) The interactive spectrum: the use of social media in UK regional newspapers.
Convergence 19(4):472–495
Diakopoulos N, De Choudhury M, Naaman M (2012) Finding and assessing social media informa-
tion sources in the context of journalism. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human
factors in computing systems. University of Texas, Austin, 5–10 May 2012
Domingo D, Heinonen A (2008) Weblogs and journalism: a typology to explore the blurring
boundaries. Nordicom Rev 29(1):3–15
Duffy A, Knight M (2019) Don’t be stupid: the role of social media policies in journalistic boundary-
setting. J Stud 20(7):932–951
EITB (2014) EiTB en las redes sociales. Retrieved from https://images14.eitb.eus/multimedia/
corporativo/documentos/EiTB-en-las-redes-socales.pdf?_ga=2.202067352.808325400.
1559127054-1870109587.1559127054. Accessed 11 June 2019
García-Avilés JA, Kaltenbrunner A, Meier K (2014) Media convergence revisited: lessons learned
on newsroom integration in Austria, Germany and Spain. J Pract 8(5):573–584
Hedman U, Djerf-Pierre M (2013) The social journalist: embracing the social media life or creating
a new digital divide? Dig J 1(3):368–385
Hermida A (2013) #Journalism: reconfiguring journalism research about Twitter, one tweet at a
time. Dig J 1(3):295–313
Hermida A, Fletcher F, Korell D, Logan D (2012) Share, like, recommend: decoding the social
media news consumer. J Stud 13(5–6):815–824
Holton AE, Molyneux L (2017) Identity lost? The personal impact of brand journalism. Journalism
18(2):195–210
Knight M, Cook C (2013) Social Media for journalists: principles and practice. Sage, London
Kramp L, Loosen W (2017) The Transformation of journalism: from changing newsroom cultures
to a new communicative orientation? In: Hepp A, Breiter A, Hasebrink U (eds) Communicative
figurations: transforming communications in times of deep mediatization. Palgrave Macmillan,
Cham, pp 205–239
Lasorsa DL, Lewis SC, Holton AE (2012) Normalizing Twitter: journalism practice in an emerging
communication space. J Stud 13(1):19–36
Lavrusik V (2013) Best practices for journalists on Facebook. In: Journalists on facebook. Face-
book. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/notes/journalists-on-facebook/best-practices-
for-journalists-on-facebook/593586440653374/?__tn__=HH-R
Lee J (2015) The Double-edged sword: the effects of journalists’ social media activities on audience
perceptions of journalists and their news products. J Comput Med Commun 20(3):312–329
Lee J (2016) Opportunity or risk? How news organizations frame social media in their guidelines
for journalists. Commun Rev 19(2):106–127
Luckie M (2012) Best practices for journalists. In: Blog Twitter. Retrieved from https://blog.twitter.
com/en_us/a/2012/best-practices-for-journalists.html
Molyneux L, Holton A (2015) Branding (health) journalism. Dig vJ 3(2):225–242
140 S. Direito-Rebollal et al.

NDR (2012) NDR social media guidelines. Retrieved from https://www.ndr.de/der_ndr/daten_

und_fakten/handbuchorganisation138.pdf. Accessed 11 Aug 2019
Newman N, Fletcher R, Kalogeropoulos A, Nielsen RK (2019) Reuters Institute Digital News
Report 2019. Retrieved from https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2019-06/
DNR_2019_FINAL_1.pdf. Accessed 21 May 2019
Nielsen RK, Cornia A, Kalogeropoulos A (2016) Challenges and opportunities for news media
and journalism in an increasingly digital, mobile, and social media environment. Retrieved from
https://rm.coe.int/16806c0385. Accessed 15 May 2019
Noor R (2017) Citizen journalism versus mainstream journalism: a study on challenges posed by
amateurs. Athens J Mass Media Commun 3(1):55–76
Opgenhaffen M, Scheerlinck H (2014) Social media guidelines for journalists: an investigation into
the sense and nonsense among Flemish journalists. J Pract 8(6):726–741
ORF (2012) Social-media-guidelines für ORF-JournalistInnen. Retrieved from https://zukunft.orf.
at/rte/upload/texte/2012/social_media_guidelines_orf_final.pdf
Paulussen S (2016) Innovation in the Newsroom. In: Witschge T, Anderson CW, Domingo D,
Hermida A (eds) The SAGE handbook of digital journalism. Sage, London, pp 192–206
Paulussen S, Harder R (2014) Social media references in newspapers: Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube as sources in newspaper journalism. J Pract 8(5):542–551
Paulussen S, Ugille P (2008) User Generated content in the newsroom: professional and
organisational constraints on participatory journalism. Westminster Pap Commun Cult 5(2):24–41
Podger PJ (2009) The limits of control: with journalists and their employers increasingly active on
social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, news organizations are struggling to respond to a
host of new ethics challenges. Am J Rev 31(4):32–38
RTÉ (2013) RTÉ social media guidelines. Retrieved from https://static.rasset.ie/documents/about/
social-media-guidelines-2013.pdf. Accessed 11 June 2019
Sacco V, Bossio D (2017) Don’t Tweet This! How journalists and media organizations negotiate
tensions emerging from the implementation of social media policy in newsrooms. Dig J 5(2):177–
193
Safori AO (2019) Journalist use of social media: guidelines for media organizations. J Soc Sci Res
5(4):1061–1068
Sánchez Gonzales H, Méndez Muros S (2015) Las guías de uso de medios sociales: regularización
periodística y calidad informativa. Estudios sobre el mensaje periodístico 21:143–154
Sveriges Radio (2013) Social Media. A handbook for journalists. Retrieved from https://
www.ebu.ch/files/live/sites/ebu/files/Publications/Swedish_Radio-Social_Media-Handbook-
for-Journalists.pdf. Accessed 11 June 2019
TVR (2012) Reglementari privind blogurile si toate celelalte forme de webcontent personal pen-
tru angajatii SRTv. Retrieved from http://www.tvr.ro/reglementari-privind-blogurile-si-toate-
celelalte-forme-de-webcontent-personal-pentru-angajatii-srtv_6.html#view. Accessed 11 June
2019
Thurman N (2018) Social media, surveillance, and news work: on the apps promising journalists a
“crystal ball”. Dig J 6(1):76–97
VRT (n.d.) Tien geboden voor sociale media. Retrieved from https://www.vrt.be/nl/over-de-vrt/
beleid/beroepsethiek/10-geboden-voor-sociale-media/. Accessed 11 June 2019
Welbers K, Opgenhaffen M (2019) Presenting news on social media. Dig J 7(1):45–62
YLE (2015) Sosiaalisen median toimintalinjaukset. Retrieved from https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/
sosiaalisen-median-toimintalinjaukset. Accessed 11 June 2019
Zeller F, Hermida A (2015) When tradition meets immediacy and interaction. The integration of
social media in journalists’ everyday practices. Sur le journalisme 4(1). Retrieved from https://
surlejournalisme.com/rev/index.php/slj/article/view/202
Social Media Guidelines for Journalists … 141

Sabela Direito-Rebollal Ph.D. Candidate at Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC). She

holds a Degree in Audiovisual Communication (USC), a Master’s Degree in Communication and
Creative Industries (USC) and a Degree in Movie and TV Script from the Madrid Film Insti-
tute. She was visiting scholar at the University of Hull (United Kingdom) and the Vrije Univer-
siteit Brussel (Belgium). Her research focuses on innovation, audience trends and programming
strategies of European public service media.

María-Cruz Negreira-Rey Ph.D. Student in Communication and Contemporary Information

at Universidade de Santiago de Compostela and Member of Novos Medios research group (USC).
She develops her research in the areas of online journalism and media of proximity, focusing on
the hyperlocal online media in Spain and Portugal.

Ana-Isabel Rodríguez-Vázquez Ph.D. in Communication at Universidade de Santiago de Com-

postela. She has a BA in Information Science from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM).
After more than a decade working in the media, she started to work at the USC in 2003. She
belongs to the Audiovisual Studies research group (GEA) at the USC, and her main fields of
research have to do with information, programming and audiences.
Reinventing Television News: Innovative
Formats in a Social Media Environment

Jose A. García-Avilés

Abstract Television news consumption is declining, while videos on YouTube and

social media are on the rise. Newscasts seem unable to attract a young audience
that actively engages online. The purpose of our study is to establish how television
news could be renovated by selecting the experts’ proposals and by exploring case
studies of innovative audio-visual news formats. We posed two research questions:
(a) How television newscasts could be renewed in the stages of production, edition,
presentation and distribution? (b) Which news formats are innovating in storytelling
and connecting with audiences? Our findings suggest that young audiences must
be taken seriously by broadcasters for their long-term future. The experts suggest
ways to experiment with new languages, diversify the news offer, foster journalists’
communicative skills and increase interaction with users.

Keywords Newscasts · News formats · Innovation · Journalism · Television

1 Newscasts Are Becoming Increasingly Irrelevant

Television is losing its dominant position as the main news medium. Traditional
broadcast news consumption is declining, while online video in YouTube, websites
and social media is on the rise. In the United States, television consumption has
declined by 3% since 2012, while the audience of newscasts is getting increasingly
older: the average age of CNN viewers is 61 years, of MSNBC is 63, of CBS and
ABC, 64, and of Fox News is 68 years, according to Nielsen (2018).
In Spain, the consumption of linear television reaches 236 min a day. It continues
to be the main source of information and leisure for most of the population, although
the growth of non-linear television is unstoppable. Broadcasts news still reaches
relevant audiences, mostly in news, sports and live shows. Considering the top five
generalist national channels, 16 million viewers watch regularly a newscast in Spain
and there are several newscasts among the most watched daily programs (Barlovento
Comunicación 2019).

J. A. García-Avilés (B)
Miguel Hernández University, Elche, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 143
J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_11
144 J. A. García-Avilés

However, the decline in television consumption among young people is more

pronounced for news programs. Although many people over 55 consume television
regularly, the news are no longer of interest to most of the under 30 years old, who
have practically abandoned newscasts (Newman et al. 2018). Some studies show that
youngsters are not interested in broadcast news and that it is difficult to reconcile
these age segments with newscasts, because the format requires minimal attention
that these young multitaskers are not willing to give (Drok et al. 2018).
Since its inception, television has incorporated technological advances in news
gathering, production and presenting. But the essence is always the same: a presen-
ter who conducts a narrative of fragmentary pieces that make up a supra-story of
current events that intent to be decisive for public conversation. In the horizontal
communication ecosystem of the Network Society, the newscast’s narrative has sev-
eral problems (Canter 2018). It is a vertical communication, which originates from a
professional authority, the anchor, who speaks directly to the audience. A newscast
cannot be presented by a social media ‘friend’. It provides an edited version of the
news, both structured and hierarchical, just the opposite of what interactive users are
supposed to want. It represents immediacy through live broadcasting, but it cannot
compete with the instantaneity of the Internet (Kalogeropoulos and Nielsen 2018).
It is a one-way narration that does not allow interaction with the audience and it has
lost the monopoly of today’s pictures, which originate in social media. For all these
reasons, newscasts may be unattractive to the youngest.
As Terán (2017) argues, daily newscasts currently are a summary of press con-
ferences and soundbites, a compilation of pieces cut by the same pattern and homo-
geneous contents so that the news provided by the different channels resemble each
other a lot. Thus, newscasts are an obsolete format in the current environment of
instant, on-demand and cross-platform information (Noguera Vivo 2018).
If the television networks do not react to the decrease in the consumption of
broadcast news, newscasts will soon be irrelevant. The formula that for decades has
supported the newscast based on a summary of the highlights of today in the midday
and evening editions has become obsolete, because in the age of social media and
a continuous 24-h news flow, people already know the news. Therefore, newscasts
need to reinvent themselves if they do not want to become irrelevant.

2 Innovating in Television News Formats

Innovation always involves risks. It brings about change or discontinuity, both in

terms of the transformation of an idea into a reality and in terms of its impact on the
organizations and society. To innovate implies developing a new concept, product
or service in a specific market, in a disruptive way, that is, that this novelty alters
the traditional way in which things have been done (García-Avilés et al. 2018a).
Media innovation does not only involve the development of a technological process
or service, but the effect of improving a news product, increasing the company’s
reputation or providing a competitive advantage (García-Avilés et al. 2018b).
Reinventing Television News: Innovative Formats in a Social … 145

Broadcast news innovation requires a multidisciplinary approach to connect with

the needs of the public, because audiences change even more than technologies
and are the focus of innovation processes (Virta and Lowe 2016). The relation-
ship between the media and the users is no longer unidirectional, but bidirectional
and interactive. In addition, the user is a prosumer and participates in the creation
of content. As users’ needs and preferences evolve, media companies must adapt
and develop new storytelling formats, distribution channels, business models and
processes of users’ interaction with content (Khajeheian and Friedrichsen 2017).
In this way, innovation in journalism should not be based exclusively on tech-
nology to produce the news, but also in the narratives and storytelling formats. As
Miriam Hernanz, head of the RTVE Lab, argues, “it is not that journalism is inno-
vative, but that narrative techniques are innovative. Journalism consists in telling
stories with sources, facts and data. The way you must adapt your storytelling is
what innovation means” (in García-Avilés et al. 2016: 187).
According to the BBC The Future of News Report (2015), audiovisual media face
demanding challenges, such as the dissemination of content on multiple platforms,
the commitment to interactive narratives and the need to manage Big Data. It is thus
necessary to experiment with new languages, establish greater complicity between
the media and the audience, incorporate journalists and presenters with whom young
people feel identified and increase interaction with users (Kalogeropoulos et al.
2016). Some television producers are promoting initiatives to experiment with the
news, but they are not able to change the newscasts, because these shows have become
well established structures, where what always works is rewarded and anything new
is rejected.

3 Research Objectives and Methodology

The purpose of our study is to establish how television news could be renovated, by
collecting the opinions of the experts and their proposals, and by exploring audio-
visual formats that are innovating in producing news content for younger audiences.
We posed two research questions:
RQ1: How television newscast could be renewed in the different stages of production,
edition, presentation and distribution?
RQ2: What are the key elements of news formats which are innovating in storytelling
and connecting with younger audiences?
An online questionnaire with professionals and experts was conducted in order
to explore the current state of television news and to find out their opinion about
how to innovate in designing, producing and distributing audiovisual news content.
The sample was selected using a snowball method, among a list of 30 potential
subjects, who were invited to take part in the survey. We received sixteen answers
(a 54% response rate). All respondents currently work or have worked in television
news; six work in public channels; three in commercial channels; five are university
professors and two are consultants. Seven are female and nine are male, ranging from
33 to 65 years old.
146 J. A. García-Avilés

The questionnaire consisted of three open ended questions: (1) Do you think TV
news is in crisis? Why? (2) How can the traditional news format be reinvented? (3)
Do you have any specific proposals to innovate in producing, editing, presenting or
distributing television news? The answers were coded and analyzed, selecting the
most relevant parts of the responses and identifying key themes and proposals.
We also analyzed a sample of innovative audio-visual news formats, developed
by public and private broadcasters as well as digital native media. During a period
of six months, we conducted research on databases and trade publications, and we
identified different news formats. We then viewed samples of all them and selected
six cases which were most relevant and innovative for the aim of this investigation.
Those cases were then analyzed in order to identify the main elements in the format,
exploring both their production process and their impact on the audience.

4 Experts’ Perceptions About the Future of Newscasts

4.1 The Crisis of Television News

There is no unanimity about whether newscasts are facing a crisis. Most respondents
agree that the traditional model of a self-contained programme which provides the
news of the day at a specific time has become obsolete. Others argue that it is not
so much a crisis but a transformation. In the words of a reporter, “it’s not a crisis of
TV news, but of those professionals who produce TV news in the same way it has
always been done”.
Several experts agree that television news is facing multiple crises in audience,
content, competition and in its public service function. Given the multiplication of
news available in the market, the traditional viewing experience is disappearing, and
there is a less proactive public that seeks the news through television. “Producers
still do not understand that the model of one direction communication is dead; they
have not changed their way of doing the news for decades”, says one academic.
As one journalist puts it, “newscasts continue in the twentieth century while
viewers are in the twenty first century”, consuming the news through social media
in various platforms. “News formats keep reproducing a formula that worked for
many decades but now, at the confluence between television, Internet and social
media, is substantially modified”, argues one interviewee. “TV news should have
more influence on ‘the how’ and ‘the why’ of current events, since it cannot compete
with the immediacy of social media”, says one anchor.
According to some respondents, newscasts have long prioritized the function of
entertaining without contextualizing the important issues. “The newscast is produced
within a perverse dynamic: the golden minute; scarce international information;
stories with little context…”, explains a former TV journalist.
The credibility crisis is related to the diminishing of trust on television as a news
medium, by its lack of independence from the political agents. In addition, some
Reinventing Television News: Innovative Formats in a Social … 147

respondents argue that both public and commercial channels have been making con-
cessions to populism and sensationalism, which have undermined their prestige as
sources of serious information. Therefore, journalists need to be rigorous, checking
the news and avoiding sensationalist content.
There is a consensus that quality, fact-checking, verification and contextualization
are some of the values that news programs must incorporate. The concept of hard
news is fleeting, while opinion is mixed with news and entertainment. Social media
have become a popular source of news, but they should be used with journalistic
criteria.
Nevertheless, several respondents argue that newscasts are not in crisis because
most citizens still demand reliable and quality information. What has changed is the
conception of traditional television, as a result of connectivity and the fragmentation
of consumption in multiple devices and platforms. “Television is still the medium
through which more people are informed and, above all, those who do not read the
newspaper, who are increasingly more”, says one reporter.
Several experts argue that television news will survive because the media face a
permanent transformation, mainly due to a slow adaptation to the new technological
paradigm of the Internet. The difficulty lies in maintaining current production, which
still works among the older audience, and simultaneously creating something new
for digital interactive platforms. “The problem is that most channels are reluctant to
innovate. Most of the newscasts around the world resemble each other as drops of
water”, says one academic.

4.2 How to Reinvent the Traditional Newscast

Many respondents agree that producers should strengthen the basic journalistic val-
ues: news investigation and a vocation to tell the world through the eyes of its
reporters. Newscasts should increase interpretation and analysis, offering viewers
the key elements to understand what happens, allowing them to have their own
opinion. Producers should also implement more innovation in storytelling and news
supported by graphics, interactive tools and quality pictures.
From the technical perspective, newscasts are incorporating elements of Artificial
Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Immersive Jour-
nalism and 360º video, in which the viewer is directly connected to the news in real
time. One interviewee says that in focus groups about using VR, people have been
very reticent about VR in certain type of news: they do not want to ‘get inside’ of
events such as wars, natural disasters or terrorist attacks. She recommends adopting
AR formats, especially in sports news and weather forecasts. However, some pro-
fessionals emphasize that technological advances are not the only way to renew the
newscast.
Another common plea is more interaction with the public. “We must open the
newscast to audience participation; it is the only way for many younger viewers to
connect with a product which seems too traditional for them”, states on expert. In
148 J. A. García-Avilés

this sense, the idea of participation must permeate the whole productive process:
television journalists cannot remain alien to the conversation. It is useless to invite
the public to take part if their contribution is not visible in any way. It is necessary
to increase this interaction. For example, some channels are testing how journalists
and viewers collaborate through news tips, access to sources, research support, etc.
There are also recurrent complaints that journalists and news editors do not listen
to the audience. Instead, newscasters tend to focus on political conflicts, crime and
bad news, to the detriment of those things what people care about. Some respondents
argue that newscasts must be more open, giving ‘the control of television’ to the
viewers, who could then choose the subjects that interest them. “It will be the viewers
who make their own run, not us who impose the script of what they should watch”,
says one journalist.
Other experts suggest designing newscasts as a product in the value chain of a
‘news factory’, including news alerts, breaking news video, live narration in social
media, as well as analytical reports and in-depth investigations. Each story should
find the most appropriate format and platform to reach the public in an effective way.
One academic also recommends creating listening mechanisms (surveys, scrutiny of
the conversation in social networks, interaction).

4.3 Proposals for Innovating in Television News

The experts made many proposals, integrating elements of television news produc-
tion, editing, presentation and distribution. We select the most relevant ones.
News production. Gatekeeping could be enhanced, giving coverage to the news that
interests the audience and opening it to topics that have been covered from alternative
sources or social media. Second screen tools could allow expanding the news on air
and generating participatory dynamics which could be turned into content streams
that can be easily visualized, such as surveys, viewers’ comments, chats, etc.
Some experts recommend trying longer formats, more contextualized and in-depth
that allow the viewer to choose how to move through the story. The current formats
are too homogeneous and sometimes relegate important news to a mere voiceover
narration. It is essential to manage the time of each news piece: not all should last the
same. “We must edit and make news stories as autonomous pieces so that any image
will have a text on it for the viewer to understand the story”, argues one respondent.
Other proposals regarding the production of newscasts include:
• Access to automatic transcripts of scripts and videos;
• Producing content that could be consumed without presenters, reporting in a more
proactive way and eliminating barriers with viewers;
• Checking sources and data automatically in real time, for example, during an
interview. Also answering questions from the audience in real time.
Reinventing Television News: Innovative Formats in a Social … 149

News editing. Several respondents emphasize that the most urgent need is to recover
credibility, offering relevant news that will once again fulfill the function for which
the newscasts were created: helping the public to understand the world. “You must
also apply criteria of rigor and quality in international or cultural news, which have
been displaced by infotainment or impact stories”, a TV reporter says.
Newscasts must diagnose social change, including topics of interest and reshaping
the agenda, giving more weight to the human factor, making more visible those
people who have something to say instead of those who are in ‘the official agendas’.
Producers need to understand that the world has changed, and the relevant issues are
also different. One academic anticipated “shorter newscasts, combined with large
programs where information, opinion and news are mixed”.
Television should give voice to the whole of society: to politicians, only when
their message is relevant and based on their representativeness; to the experts, indi-
cating ascriptions and possible conflicts of interest; to unions, employers and social
organizations that represent a relevant position; and to the concerns, demands, joys,
and pains of the citizens. “This cannot be done by any algorithm, only with profes-
sional criteria, always fallible, but capable of listening, rectifying and giving voice
to those who do not have it”, adds one academic.
The journalist’s job is to make the important things attractive. And the best way
to do so is to promote audiovisual narration with sound storytelling that avoids
turning the newscast into a succession of talking heads and unconnected videos. The
content could be personalised in other platforms, but the newscasts should highlight
the essential issues of public interest, with professional criteria. News and opinion
converted into a show may be legitimate in other programs, but not in a newscast.
But this does not mean that the news should be boring.
News presentation. Presenters should focus more on checking the news and provid-
ing context, explaining why it is important what they tell the audience. In order to
innovate, the editorial team must strengthen its ability to present content of inter-
est, focused on key issues and differentiated from other channels. They must offer
something different to the digital platforms, exploiting the quality and potential of
the image.
It is essential that the news presenter establishes a bond of trust with the viewers,
telling stories with rigor and professionalism. One expert recommends improving the
communication with viewers through a presenter in which to trust, with an attractive
staging that “does not destroy the news story”, giving priority to striking designs but
that help to understand well what it is communicated. The presenter is described as
“a prescriber in whose criteria the viewers trust”. In a context of maximum speed
and misinformation, this ‘agreement of trust’ with the journalist who presents the
newscast is still valid.
The role of the analyst who can contextualize the most relevant news of the day
should be implemented, at least in the nightly news. It often takes time to digest all
that information that is aired, so it seems convenient to include more analysis and
explanation.
150 J. A. García-Avilés

News distribution. The 40- or 50-min long newscast makes sense for viewers who
want a clear and precise summary of what has happened up to that moment. How-
ever, newscasts must be more interactive, offering a menu that will allow viewers
to interact, vote, click on the graphic information, chronicles, etc. to provide with
expanded information when the viewer demands it. This requires a broad team that
works in a coordinated way with the rest of the news brand’s windows (web, social
networks, etc.) and develops transmedia contents.
Instagram, Twitter or Facebook have become fundamental tools in order to spread the
content of newscasts. Newscasts should have open channels in the website, YouTube
and social media, where reporters can explain the news provided in the broadcast.
One model could be BBC’s Open Source, where viewers interact with the news and
generate community. As one journalist puts it, “sometimes we make a live show for
television and minutes later we make a Facebook Live. You can create labels for
each piece specific to the channel and the news to share data, opinions, pictures and
videos”.
Producers should explore the possibilities of virtual reality and augmented reality
for analytical and didactic narratives but avoiding pure spectacle. “I find innovation
not so much in the spectacularization of the augmented reality or the graphics that
overflow the screens, but in the clarity of the message, in its narrative values and in
the confidence that arouses in the viewer”, argues one producer.

5 International Cases of Innovative News Formats

In recent years, several audiovisual formats have emerged that seek to innovate in the
approach of making and distributing news content. We have selected six international
media formats which are innovating in different ways and are reaching some success
in terms of audience, brand prestige or other aspects.

5.1 Stay Tuned (NBC News, United States)

It was launched on Snapchat by the commercial network NBC News in July 2017,
as a format for mobile consumption. Subsequently, it is also broadcast on Instagram
and YouTube. Stay Tuned uses pieces composed of close shots and few camera
movements and titles, so that they can be understood without listening to the audio.
The newscast lasts two minutes and is updated twice a day on weekdays and once
a day on weekends. Presented by three journalists under 30 years old, the show
combines what “the audience wants and needs to know”, according to its executive
producer (Digiday 2019). Stay Tuned offers breaking news and topics ranging from a
youtuber’s controversial statements to the humanitarian crises in Yemen, along with
interviews with politicians, celebrities and activists.
Reinventing Television News: Innovative Formats in a Social … 151

The goal is to bring this new audience from Snapchat to its other platforms (Digi-
day 2019). NBC News has connected Stay Tuned to the rest of the network by having
the hosts—Gadi Schwartz, Savannah Sellers and Lawrence Jackson—be involved
in other programming, while also have NBC News’ TV anchors participate in the
Snapchat show. According to NBC, the newscast has an average of 35 million unique
viewers per month and 75% are under 25 years old (Digiday 2019).

5.2 Hochkant (ARD, Germany)

The program, which began on October 1, 2016, is coordinated and financed by

the Berlin regional broadcaster of public channel ARD. The production is run by a
small editorial team in Berlin and three journalists abroad, who work together to
develop pieces and topics. Hochkant uses a WhatsApp group to coordinate plans
and discuss their most relevant issues and their coverage. Journalists do not have a
fixed schedule, since they all cover different topics such as politics, entertainment
and lifestyle. Between 6 and 9 in the morning they prepare a summary of the five
most important news stories of the last 24 h; the rest of the day they cover breaking
news.
The format is part of Funk, the social media network aimed at 14–29 year old
launched by German public service broadcasters ARD and ZDF in 2016. Hochkant
is anchored by three young presenters who call themselves ‘snappers’ and they
generally switch between informational stills and short explanatory or commenting
clips, depending on the urgency of the topic. The format is fit to provide a bit of context
to people with short attention spans (Brachmann 2017). The presenters encourage
their followers to interact, especially when they report on complicated or emotionally
charged topics. They usually include pieces of User Generated Content (videos,
pictures, comments…) and short quizzes in the shows.

5.3 ZIB100 (ORF, Austria)

Austrian public broadcaster ORF launched a video news summary via WhatsApp
and Facebook to subscribed users. ZIB100 offers two minutes of news pills at 17.25,
when most citizens leave work. The programme, presented by the same anchors of the
regular evening news, is produced in vertical video format and is subtitled. ZIB100
can thus be watched on TV using a split screen and on a smartphone at ORF.at,
WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter. The format summarizes the main news about
politics, economy, society and international affairs, in a professional and conventional
style.
The news stories are based on short clips, which convey a message in a con-
cise form through pictures, sound and subtitling. A video, for example, ideally is
posted along with a textual description, enabling users to grasp the message without
152 J. A. García-Avilés

watching the video. Since its launch in April 2016, ZIB100 has reached 110,000
subscribers and its WhatsApp distribution list has an opening rate between 60–70%
(Reiter et al. 2017).

5.4 Outside Source (BBC, United Kingdom)

The format began as a radio show on BBC World Service in October 2013, created
by journalist Ros Atkins, who since July 2017 presents the television edition. This
format is broadcast simultaneously on BBC World News and BBC News. The idea
was to bring the immediacy of the BBC newsroom, offering breaking news as they
unfold, with the experience of the BBC’s global network of journalists. The presenter
uses a touch screen to display graphics, images and content from social media, which
help explain the context and background of the news in a visually appealing way.
According to Atkins “the advantage of the Outside Source screen is you can show
developments better, so we can show things that come in text form in a more visual
manner for the viewer, as opposed to traditional formats where you read the copy
out, but you can’t show it” (quoted in Reid 2015). They try to bring across all the
very best bits of original journalism of the BBC newsgathering and they also seek
out videos, pictures and social media comments from the audience. The programme
has a team of journalists who verify and select user generated content.

5.5 NowThisNews (United States)

Founded both by former Huffington Post president Kenneth Lerer and former Huffin-
gton Post CEO Eric Hippeau, NowThisNews produces video content for social media
since September 2012, with an editorial staff of 30 journalists that generate about 40
daily pieces, from breaking news to more elaborate analysis. NowThisNews delivers
bite-sized videos, often aggregated from other sources, to a mostly millennial audi-
ence across various social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. Some are
compilations of clips, while others are narrated by young presenters in a colloquial
tone.
The pieces last between 15 and 120 s. While admitting that 15 s allowed a limited
news release, managers expected viewers to have a knowledge base, so that their
videos could add layers of meaning and context to a story and provide a fresh narrative
style, departing from traditional television news (O’Donovan 2013). Viewers can
consume a whole piece of content without ever having to go full screen or hear what
is being said.
Reinventing Television News: Innovative Formats in a Social … 153

5.6 VICE News Tonight (VICE, United States)

Since October 2016, the show is broadcast Tuesday to Friday evenings on HBO in the
United States and on YouTube, and it is produced by digital-only medium VICE, with
a style very different from a standard newscast because it has no presenter in a studio.
Instead, the pieces are introduced by a voiceover narration. Each programme begins
with a quick-hit rundown of global events and a then a handful of feature snapshots
of the world, strung together with slick graphics and music. A typical show uses
a mix of voiceovers, graphics and video packages to dive into national and global
news, technology, the environment, economics and pop culture. Its purpose is placing
stories in context and understanding them.
Although intended for a US audience, VICE News Tonight includes many inter-
national news stories. The producers of the show claim that it reaches a younger
audience than any cable news program in the country. According to his executive
producer, his video inspirations are Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live, two multi-
format playgrounds that get across their message in different ways, from monologues
and sketches to song parodies and video clips (Zoglin 2017).

6 Conclusion: The Need to Experiment and Innovate

Most experts consulted in our study agree that television newscasts tend to the spec-
tacularization of news content, with the use of high impact images and of extradiegetic
music. This type of audiovisual language seeks that viewers empathize with the char-
acters and the feelings in a story, reinforced by a fast, dynamic video shooting and
editing style.
As some experts argue, innovation in newscasts essentially lies in the audiovisual
narrative, integrating image and sound, telling the story with fluency, and holding
viewers’ trust with rigorous journalism. With the aid of graphics, augmented reality
and social media, newscast content can be expanded. The relationship established
by the presenters both with the elements of news staging and in their face to face
relationship with the viewers can also be innovative.
However, innovation in television news should not only be technology driven.
As many experts emphasize, the most innovative aspects are related to how news
content is improved, the clarity of the message, its narrative values, its storytelling
techniques, its power to engage viewers and the confidence that the journalists arouse
in the public.
Our research shows that several selected formats are valuable examples of innova-
tion in audiovisual storytelling: Stay Tuned (NBC News), Hochkant (ARD), ZIB100
(ORF), Outside Source (BBC News), NowThisNews and VICE News Tonight. These
formats do not provide all the solutions, but they offer opportunities for producers
to risk, experiment and escape from their comfort zone, especially trying to reach
viewers under 30 years old. However, if a format is made exclusively with the young
154 J. A. García-Avilés

audience in mind, there is a chance that the over-50 s, its current target audience,
will abandon it. In the horizontal communication ecosystem of the Network Society,
based on personalized content and interactive distribution, it seems impossible for a
single format to reach a mass audience.
Even the most successful format will not be able to replicate the successes of the
newscasts in the past. Given the variety of platforms available to obtain information, it
is inevitable that many users feel that their needs are better served elsewhere. Perhaps,
ultimately, the act of sitting down to watch television news becomes increasingly rare.
Our findings suggest that young audiences must be taken seriously by news broad-
casters for their long-term future. Young people demand content that is meaningful
to them. Also, there is a need to reduce political and commercial influences to ensure
independence in news coverage.
It seems naive to make predictions about the evolution of newscasts, given the
amount of unexpected changes that lie ahead. Although it is likely that traditional
newscasts will remain a relevant and valuable format for several years, there is
much room for a contextualized, entertaining and visual daily product that helps
make sense of an overwhelming volume of data and information. Television and
the Internet, together with social media, seem optimal platforms for this format.
The challenge is how to make it relevant, useful and satisfying the needs of users,
without compromising the values of trust, transparency and credibility in a world of
increasingly personalized and polarized media.

References

Barlovento Comunicación (2019) Análisis televisivo 2018. Retrieved from https://www.

barloventocomunicacion.es/audiencias-anuales/analisis-televisivo-2018/ Accessed 25 Feb 2019
Brachmann E (2017) Hochkant — news coverage in portrait mode. Retrieved from https://
medium.com/inside-the-news-media/hochkant-news-coverage-in-portrait-mode-d01778c667f7
Accessed 12 March 2019
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (2015) Future of news. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.
co.uk/news/resources/idt-bbb9e158-4a1b-43c7-8b3b-9651938d4d6a Accessed 15 Feb 2019
Canter L (2018) It’s not all cat videos: moving beyond legacy media and tackling the challenges of
mapping news values on digital native websites. Digit JIsm 6(8):1101–1112
Digiday (2019) NBC News Snapchat show ‘Stay Tuned’ averages 25–35 m viewers. Retrieved from
https://digiday.com/media/nbc-news-comscore-snapchat/ Accessed 5 Feb 2019
Drok N, Hermans L, Kats K (2018) Decoding youth DNA: The relationship between social engage-
ment and news interest, news media use and news preferences of Dutch millennials. Journalism
19(5):699–717
García-Avilés JA, Carvajal M, Comín M (2016) Cómo innovar en periodismo. Entrevistas a 27
profesionales. Diego Marín, Murcia
García-Avilés JA, Carvajal-Prieto M, Arias F, De Lara-González A (2018a) How journalists innovate
in the newsroom. Proposing a model of the diffusion of innovations in media outlets. J Media
Innov 5(1):1–20
García-Avilés JA, Carvajal-Prieto M, De Lara-González A, Arias-Robles F (2018b) Developing an
index of media innovation in a national market: the case of Spain. JIsm Stud 19(1):25–42
Reinventing Television News: Innovative Formats in a Social … 155

Kalogeropoulos A, Cherubini F, Newman N (2016) The future of online news video. Reuters insti-
tute for the study of journalism. Retrieved from: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/
default/files/research/files/The%2520Future%2520of%2520Online%2520News%2520Video.
pdf Accessed 15 Feb 2019
Kalogeropoulos A, Nielsen RK (2018) Investing in online video news: a cross-national analysis of
news organizations’ enterprising approach to digital media. JIsm Stud 19(15):2207–2224
Khajeheian D, Friedrichsen M (2017) Innovation inventory as a source of creativity for interactive
television. In: Friedrichsen M, Kamalipour Y (eds) Digital transformation in journalism and news
media. Springer, Cham, pp 341–349
Newman N, Fletcher R, Kalogeropoulos A, Levy DA, Nielsen RK (2018) Reuters institute dig-
ital news report 2018. Reuters institute for the study of journalism. Retrieved from: https://
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/digital-news-report-2018.pdf Accessed 15
Feb 2019
Nielsen (2018) Q1 total audience report. Retrieved from https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/
reports/2018/q1-2018-total-audience-report.html Accessed 25 Feb 2019
Noguera Vivo JM (2018) You get what you give: Sharing as a new radical challenge for journalism.
Commun Soc 31(4):123–141
O’Donovan K (2013) Instead of shoehorning it in, NowThis News is building video content that
fits in where the audience lives. NiemanLab. Retrieved from: https://www.niemanlab.org/2013/
09/instead-of-shoehorning-it-in-nowthis-news-is-building-video-content-that-fits-in-where-the-
audience-lives/ Accessed 15 Feb 2019
Reid A (2015) How BBC outside source is forging a new, digital style of live video news.
Journalism.co.uk. Retrieved from https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-bbc-outside-source-
is-forging-a-new-digital-style-of-live-video-news/s2/a565342/ Accessed 18 Mar 2019
Reiter G, Gonser N, Grammel M, Gründl J (2017) Young audiences and their valuation of public
service media. In: Lowe GF, Van den Bulck H, Donders K (eds) Public service media in the
networked society. Nordicom, Gotemburg, pp 211–226
Terán B (2017) El fin del Telediario: así será la revolución de los (caducos) informativos de las
cadenas. Lainformacion.com. Retrieved from https://www.lainformacion.com/opinion/borja-
teran/el-fin-del-telediario-asi-sera-la-revolucion-de-los-caducos-informativos-de-las-cadenas/
6338302/ Accessed 5 Jan 2019
Virta S, Lowe GF (2016) Crossing boundaries for innovation: content development for PSM at
YLE. In: Lowe GF, Yamamoto N (eds) RIPE@ 2015. Crossing borders and boundaries in public
service media. Nordicom, Gotemburg, pp 229–246
Zoglin R (2017) Inside vice’s effort to reinvent the evening news, the bridge. Retrieved from https://
thebridgebk.com/vice-news-tonight-reinvents-evening-news/ Accessed 15 Mar 2019

Jose A. García-Avilés Full Professor of Journalism at Miguel Hernández University (Spain),

where he lectures at the Master Programme in Journalism Innovation. He is Bachelor of Arts
(National University of Ireland) and Ph.D. in Communication (University of Navarra). He was vis-
iting scholar at Columbia University and has carried out comparative research on journalism inno-
vation and media transformation. He is director of the Communication Research Group GICOV
and founder of InnovaMedia.Net, a network of researchers on journalism innovation.
Mediamorphosis of Participation
on Television: The News Programmes

Ana González-Neira and Natalia Quintas-Froufe

Abstract Convergence processes have imposed transformation dynamics to the so-

called traditional media. Through the digitalization of television, the ruling media,
there has been a huge evolution that has altered its usual forms of production and
consumption. In this paper, we reflect upon the new forms of participation of the
audience in television fostered by these processes of convergence. Subsequently, the
existing windows of participation are analysed in scarcely studied format, such as
news programmes. The results of this research will allow to confirm whether these
informational television spaces fit in these new forms of television.

Keywords Television · Audience · Information · Participation

1 Contextualization

The transformation of the ruling media, the television, in the past five years has stag-
gered some of the principles of its operation that were still active since its origins. The
ATAWAD key principle (anytime, anywhere, any device) breaks with the existing
concept of television since the 40s. As a result of these changes the liquid televi-
sion emerges (Quintas-Froufe and González-Neira 2016) based on Bauman’s ideas
(2006). In this new reality it is very difficult to organise and delimit the flows between
actors present in the communicational process of television. All these changes have
promoted, at the same time, an empowerment of audiences, a re-assessment and
re-definition of its role in communication.
The scientific literature about transformations of television is quite profuse
(Strangelove 2015; de Valck and Teurlings 2013; Turner and Tay 2009; Lotz 2007;
Spigel and Olsson 2004). In this chapter we aim to analyse these evolutions from
the perspective of the changes in the possibilities of participation of the audience, in

A. González-Neira (B) · N. Quintas-Froufe

Department of Sociology and Communication Sciences, Universidade Da Coruña, A Coruña,
Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
N. Quintas-Froufe
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 157
J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_12
158 A. González-Neira and N. Quintas-Froufe

short, to know to what extent the public has been granted a greater power. After an
explanation about this evolution, there will be an analysis of the specific case of the
possibilities of interaction offered by news programmes broadcasted by the Spanish
general-interest networks. As Livingstone (2019) states, we believe it is necessary
to contextualise the audience phenomena in the society they take place instead of
only offering unconnected data. Therefore, there is offered a research based on the
triangulation of three key concepts: television, participation and news programmes.
After a brief description about the technical evolution of television and participation,
the study delves into the possibilities present in the informational format of news
programmes.
Like radio, when the television was born it tried to copy the genres that were suc-
cessfully established in the radiophonic medium. At first, there was more preference
for entertainment (contests, series) since the technological limitations hindered the
fast broadcast of images that illustrated the news. Thus, it was demonstrated during
the Pearl Harbor bombing with the nine-hour coverage of the experimental broadcast-
ing station of CBS: WCBW. However, by the late 40s, the informative appointments
with the television became fixed through two examples: the first Journal Televisee
of the French public channel in 1949 and Newsreel with John Cameron Swayze from
NBC.
These two examples mark the development of the two informational models, the
European, which is more institutional and the North American, whereas the host has
a greater leading role. From its beginnings, this rather rigid format has undergone
some modifications (sets, duration, etc.) but often mainly driven by technological
reasons (García de Castro 2014).

2 Transformation of the Medium

2.1 Metamorphosis of the Television

The digitalization processes that have impacted the different traditional media in
the past couple of decades have transformed their nature. The media ecosystem has
mutated and there is no longer any species resembling those that existed twenty years
ago. The digitalization processes and media convergence have altered the nature of
the press, radio and television, at the same time they have promoted the emergence
of other new species like social networks or native digital media. In this paper there
will be a progress in the case of television, reviewing this transformation process
experienced in these past years and assessing how it has influenced in its relationships
with the audience.
The technological changes have delimited the different stages of the history of
television by allowing to acquire other functions and new experiences of use for the
spectator. Said changes have been accompanied by innovative entrepreneurial and
sociological processes. Let’s think about the progressive incorporation of colour,
Mediamorphosis of Participation on Television … 159

the presence of mobile devices and satellites up until reaching the boom of cable
TV back in the 80s. But undoubtedly, the digitalization of television services and the
incorporation of the Internet represented a radical change in the concept of television
and its connection with the spectator. In order to facilitate the explanatory coherence,
we follow the stages set by Johnson (2019) who indicates that television has shifted
across the Broadcast era (1930s–70s), Cable/Satellite era (1970s–90s), Digital era
(1990s–2000s) and the Internet era (2010s+). In this last stage there would be the
emergence and huge penetration of mobile devices, increasingly potent, as well as
the expansion of social networks that interact with media. All this process would
coincide in a subsequent stage to the neo-television coined by Eco and that Scolari
(2008) denominates hyper-television due to its hypertextual nature.
Considering the object of study in this paper, we must also be interested in the
concept of interactive television and its evolution, in such a way that the possibilities
offered to the audience in the current television can be studied. Except for some
occasional experiences, the development of interactive television started by the end
of the seventies, along with the cable television. Qube, Viewtron or Full Service
Network (FSN) were some of the initiatives born in the last decades of the 20th
century century. For Marinelli (2015), the failure of all these experiences was due
to the precarious interfaces used and the lack of preparation from the public, still
hardly acquainted to the interactive dialogue of the PC or the web browser. After the
digitalization and the improvement in the connection infrastructures, the interactive
television would intensify. PVR Systems (Personal Video Recorder) in the set top
box would facilitate some of these experiences of interactivity in a growing contest
for Smart TVs.
In this area, the new broadcasting agents such as Netflix, HBO or Amazon Prime
have undoubtedly entailed a burst of interactive television since its on-demand oper-
ation involves interactivity. To select, record, resume the viewing in the same spot it
was left days earlier, to rewind, etc. are some of the possibilities used today by any
spectator while viewing contents coming from these new actors.

2.2 The New Screens

After a first moment of settlement, the convergence of television on mobile devices

has multiplied the fruition possibilities of the public. This interruption has undoubt-
edly encouraged the breach of the viewing-indoor axis. In the same way the transistor
made the radio to go outdoors in the 50s, smartphones and tablets allow the con-
sumption of television in motion. The possibilities of consumption multiply and at
the same time there is a transformation in the type of audience. Like Athique points
out about with the new technological incorporations “our conceptualization of the
media audience becomes at one radically individuated and densely interconnected”
(Athique 2016: 61).
160 A. González-Neira and N. Quintas-Froufe

On the other hand, these mobile devices have caused an increasingly individualised
consumption (with the subsequent hyper-fragmentation of audiences) before the
many windows for spreading television content. The viewing through mobile devices
produces a breach in space and also in the time of viewing. Now, the audience
has the capacity to become its own programmer. The relationships of power between
the broadcaster and the audience have balanced and it is the spectator who decides
his or her own television diet, when, where and what is consumed. “Mobile viewing
on handheld devices allows for ‘place-shifting’ as a complement to time shifting.
All these, promise to make the viewer into the programmer” (Newman and Levine
2012: 131).

2.3 Changes in the User Experience

We cannot forget the improvements of the television signal in the distribution sys-
tems. The quality of the image has improved noticeably. The screens have become
progressively flatter (HD, 4K, etc.) and larger, following the trail of cinema. In addi-
tion, the arrival of the Internet introduced Smart TVs and turned television devices
into giant computer screens (Johnson 2019: 14). The implantation of the new tele-
vision devices was quite fast in countries like USA. In 2009, a third of homes in the
United States owned an HDTV set. Slowly, there was heading towards a sort of view
that imitated the experience in the movie theatre with surround sound system while
the aspect ratio of television sets shifted from 4:3 to 16:9.
However, we are positioned in a moment where there is a maturity of the pub-
lic regarding the use of interfaces and the management of the Internet that improve
the user experience. As Marinelli indicates, “It is the same television medium that,
passing from broadcastig to flow generated user (Uricchio 2010) aims almost natu-
rally to incorporate interactivity as the driving principle of the viewing” (2015: 280).
It is the user who decides what, when and how a television content is consumed
and interacted with. All this process is reinforced by the multi-screening practices
favoured by the second screen devices and the social media. Therefore, creating a
more complex and complete viewing experience.

2.4 Changes in the Sociological Conception of Television

We cannot limit to these technological transformations that have motivated the onset
of changes regarding television of the past years. As indicated by Amanda Lotz
(2016) to talk about the medium, we do not only need to consider the technological
contributions but also its textual features, industrial practices, audience behaviours
and cultural meanings. It is important to analyse the changes in the meaning of
current television. In these last years, there has produced a cultural transformation of
television legitimation. It has revalued from the cultural parameters and it turned from
Mediamorphosis of Participation on Television … 161

being called the ‘idiot box’ by many to the platform of cultural products comparable
to masterpieces of literature or cinema (Newman and Levin 2012).
Likewise, we have witnessed a remarkable improvement in the usability and qual-
ity of the image since 2014. At homes, television occupies a prominent place in living
rooms once more, considering the arrival of Smart TV. It even appears as a decorative
element, hanging from the walls as if it were another picture or a photograph. From
the second half of the first decade of the 21st century, television devices get a room
dominating size. Like Newman and Levine say, “Along with other digital devices
used to select content to view on them, flat panel TVs have been essential in creating
a sense of television’s renewal and improvements as a technology and as medium”
(2012: 102).

3 Metamorphosis of Participation

Participation has been one of the leading role concepts in communication studies
in the past years. Literature about its definition (Bergillos 2015) and its evolution
(McElroy 2019) is quite abundant and has been approached from different perspec-
tives. In this paper, we pay attention to the dependency there is between participation
on media and technological possibilities. We consider participation as a type of inter-
activity, with the characteristics that García Avilés points out, “as the feedback which
the broadcasters provide through a combination of traditional systems and new tech-
nologies” (2012: 430). Namely, the study of the possibilities that the technology
has offered for television networks to provide interaction with the audience and the
harnessing of these possibilities.
However, it is necessary to allude another concept that is usually connected and
that has been the focus of the work of many researchers: interactivity. McElroy
(2019), Jenkins (2008), León and García Avilés (2008) and Rost (2004, 2006) have
focused their researches on interactivity. The latter made an interesting difference
between selective and communicative interactivity. While the former refers to the
capacity of the user to choose the contents to be consumed, the communicative
interactivity entails further level of intensity since there is granting of a greater
protagonism when offering the possibility to produce, comment or modify contents.
It is deemed convenient to carry out a small review about the possibilities that
television has offered throughout its history. Despite the fact they are not identical
realities, we must focus on the experience of interactive television. Since the origins
of television, these realities have been very limited and with scarce success until
the arrival of the new century. We started with the cartoons Winky Dink and you
broadcasted in the USA during the 50s, where children participated in the narrative
development of the story by sticking some slides to the screen through static electric-
ity. In the 70s, with the onset of the cable/satellite era indicated by Johnson (2019)
there were developed in USA and Japan some more complete experiments but with-
out full success (León 2012) except for the remote control. It is precisely this device,
together with videocassette recorders (VCR) the ones that granted greater power to
162 A. González-Neira and N. Quintas-Froufe

audiences, since there was the possibility to decide what is consumed (in a more com-
fortable way using the remote control) and when (breaking the line of simultaneity
between broadcasted and consumed content). We must not forget that it is in the 70s
when the television turns into the interface for not purely television-related activities,
as per the concept known until then. There were incorporated add-on devices that
improved the user experience:
set-top boxes aggregated programmes in new ways; VHS players enabled television pro-
grammes to be recorded, sold and/or rent as products; games consoles turned the television
set into a screen for playing as well as viewing; and remote controls enabled viewers to
change channel from the comfort of their sofas (Johnson 2019: 7).

Considering the concept of participation, the possibilities prior to the arrival of

the Internet were very limited and with scarce success. In the beginning, the only
forms of participation for the audience were face-to-face, namely, being part of the
public during recordings of TV programmes in theatres or sports pavilions. The
audience had very limited resources available for interacting with the broadcaster.
The relationships of power between the sender and the sender were still quite uneven,
therefore participation was almost testimonial. The letters to the director, sending
postcards/coupons, phone calls and later SMS texting would be the only mediated
windows of participation in television programmes, generally of entertainment.
With the digitalization the number of interactive experiences in television inten-
sified, at the same time the nature of these windows of participation changed. The
novelty that the Internet provided is that while previous possibilities of participation
such as letters/postcards or phone calls were always held between receiver-sender;
today the communication can expand towards a greater collectivity instead, towards
a community, fostering the concept of social television. Said concept refers to the
type of interactive television that results from the technological convergence where
spectators participate (by writing comments, reading, etc.), in the contents through
social networks or other channels and thus, use second screen devices (González-
Neira and Quintas-Froufe 2015). There is shifting from the bidirectional dialogue to
a conversation where multiple anonymous actors participate.
The landing of the Internet represented a booster in the progresses of interactive
television. It needed to adapt to the arrival of this new medium and even mimic
some of its defining features, in a way. The interactivity inherent to the Internet,
is one of them. No interactivity, no Internet. In a convergence process, television
enriches when it is spread of interactivity and participation strategies coming from
the Internet; it appropriates and incorporates them to its operation. In such a way, the
ruling medium acquired greater possibilities of communication and contact with the
audience. Furthermore, from the narrative perspective, the Internet also favoured the
expansion of the media text and the spreading of transmedia extensions.
In this change in the possibilities of participation, the irruption of mobile devices
mentioned earlier has also influenced notably. We coincide with Newman and Levine
when pointing out that through the study of usability and design of interfaces “The
television viewer’s rebirth as the television user is one outcome of the convergence of
Mediamorphosis of Participation on Television … 163

TV with computers” (2012: 150). Again, the technological changes like the develop-
ment of Wi-Fi, 4G, cloud computing, fibre optic cables, and also the Internet Protocol
Television (IPTV) and over the top (OTT) are the baseline of this increase of par-
ticipation possibilities. Likewise, cultural and social changes have also facilitated
the installation of these participation dynamics. The current spectator is immersed
in the participatory culture (Jenkins and Ito 2015). Currently, the user has assumed
interactivity as something intrinsic to his or her digital life, therefore participation
appears as an essential element of the new mediatic reality. The user demands that
aforementioned interactivity, with increasing levels of specialization, is present in
the media he or she consumes. The spectator of the current television has a profile
that is active, multimedia, multiplatform, in continuous contact with the Internet and
with information technologies and used to online viewing (García García et al 2012).
Therefore, considering these consumption practices, they must satisfy an increasingly
demanding user experience.
The synergies provided by websites and social media facilitated the introduction of
more complete transmedia strategies that leveraged the possibilities of participation
from the audience. Perhaps one of the most recent examples of this sort of experiences
of participations was the web series Si fueras tú by TVE where through voting on
Twitter and Facebook, spectators decided how every chapter would end, thus directly
participating in the narrative development of the programme.
As Andò (2018) and Napoli (2011) indicate, the different participation practices,
like writing comments about a text or to share it, produce an increase of audiences
since there is an increase of the possibilities of access to that comment through
different platforms (social networks, apps, websites, etc.). In addition, like McElroy
explains, “interactivity causes higher levels of audience engagement, it is a tool that
media producers can use to tout and sell their audience to advertisers” (2019: 452). In
a business model based on advertising, like that of general-interest networks, this life
expectancy of a television space beyond its original broadcasting schedule and the
increase of customer loyalty are crucial to reach good ratings. However, regardless
of the implantation of these new forms of participation, the harness by the audience
is still very low. Like Bergillos points out, “it is an industry with vertical structures
in which participation in the medium is practically non-existent” (2017: 89).
These technological innovations have reactivated the theory of active audiences
(Livingstone 2004) opening new and interesting fields of study. The possibilities that
these transformations offer to audience research are an interesting opportunity “to
contribute to theoretical and methodological development across the wider field of
media and communication research” (Jensen 2019: 151).

4 Participation Windows in News Programmes

Considering the mediatic context explained and the evolution of the television men-
tioned, we deem necessary to highlight participatory elements coming from the
broadcasting and digital platforms. As observed along this chapter, there are several
164 A. González-Neira and N. Quintas-Froufe

studies that have focused on the analysis of participation and television. Besides
the already mentioned, we cannot forget Murschetz and Schlütz (2018) or McElroy
(2019). However, there hardly is scientific literature that jointly comprises the three
pillars on which this research is based: participation, television, news programmes
(Cazajeira 2015; Sa 2015; Lago and Campos 2016; Herrero, 2016). The studies of
Steensen (2014) and Bird (2011) analyse the participation in the field of journalism
even though they do not circumscribe to television. In the Spanish case, there out-
stand the studies of García Avilés et al. (2019), Bergillos (2017) and García Avilés
(2011, 2012). We agree with Bird (2011) about the idea that researches regarding
journalism on television tend to be analysed from the perspective of the producer
rather than the audience’s. On the other hand, it is worth reminding that studies
about the possibilities offered to the audience on television have mainly focused on
entertaining formats (contests and fiction) notably influenced by the trend of cultural
studies.
The object of this research is the study of participation possibilities offered by
news programmes in general-interest networks in Spain. This decision is justified
considering the quite scarce literature about news programmes, television and par-
ticipation. The news programmes is one of the oldest, solid and most disseminated
television formats in the traditional television networks. Since its birth by the late 40s,
it has barely undergone variations through these decades. In Spain, it still appears as
one of the most viewed spaces daily (Rubio et al. 2018).
Up until now, the creation of a fandom movement around this format broadcasted
in Spain has not been confirmed. In all of them, there is option for journalists that do
not personalise the news programmes, compared to what is done in other countries
or in other informative programmes of different format like the USA. When lacking
this personalization and opting for yielding the protagonism to information, customer
loyalty becomes more difficult.
To conduct this research there was selected a sample composed of the news pro-
grammes broadcasted during the prime time by Spanish general-interest networks
(La 1, La 2, Antena 3, Telecinco, La Sexta) as well as the only thematic channel about
news programmes: 24horas belonging to the RTVE group.
After a first stage of literature review, an analysis card was elaborated. In order to
do so, the studies of Bergillos (2015) and García Avilés (2011) were considered and
adapted to the format, object of analysis. The analysis table comprises the partici-
pation possibilities (García Avilés 2011) about providing feedback from the public
(to react, comment, complete surveys), distribution of contents from users (to share)
and production (sending pictures, information and suggestions). The participation
windows offered by the different networks that compose the analysis card include
the audience as recipient of a television message and not as protagonist of the infor-
mation offered in news programmes, namely, there was chosen a type of mediated
participation excluding the face-to-face modality. Likewise, there are considered
the participation windows accessible to the population in its entirety, and not only
to those individuals who live in the centres of production. Based on the mediated
Mediamorphosis of Participation on Television … 165

participation, in the analysis table elaborated, the digital presence of each one of these
news programmes was considered (website, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram
and Spotify).1
The study of these possibilities of participation was done after viewing the differ-
ent news programmes object of study. The invitations to aforementioned participation
are limited mostly to be included in an overprinted manner at some point during its
operation (generally in the end), the Twitter account (Telediario de La 1, La 2 noti-
cias, Antena 3, La Sexta Noticias), the website (Antena 3 Noticias, Informativos
Telecinco, La Sexta Noticias), on Facebook (Antena 3 Noticias, La Sexta Noticias),
on Instagram (Antena 3 Noticias). Only in La 2 Noticias appears the hashtag of the
day (for instance #La2N15a) in a corner of the screen to serve as backbone for con-
versations on Twitter. Never, any of the hosts addresses the public inviting them to
comment, participate, send messages (unlike entertainment programmes). With these
overprints, the networks aim that the spectator keeps following the information on
their digital extensions rather than promoting interaction or participation. Namely,
their purpose is extending the news programmes brand beyond television without
paying much attention to interaction possibilities (Table 1).
After the analysis, it is confirmed that all of them have a specific website space
available that is used as extension of what is broadcasted and an update of spread
news. Regarding social media, it is perceived that Antena 3 is the network with
greatest presence (Twitter, YouTube Facebook, Instagram and Spotify), compared to
the contempt shown by La 1 which is only present on Twitter. This presence is relevant
because a great part of the possibilities of participation precisely come from the
digital derivations of news programmes and the instruments provided by social media.
Namely, the reaction towards a content will be produced whereas that channel, the
recipient of information coming from the public, is present. Hence, the possibilities of
participation of the ‘reaction’ mode are minimum in the Telediarios de La 1 (since it
is only present on Twitter) compared to the possibilities of Antena 3 Noticias. On the
other hand, this analysis concludes that none of the studied programmes elaborates
surveys for spectators, despite social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook or
Instagram allow to do so.

Table 1 Presence of news programmes on the different platforms. Own elaboration

Channels Web Twitter YouTube Facebook Instagram Spotify
Telediario TVE ✓ ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
La 2 noticias ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓ ✗
24 horas ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓ ✗
Antena 3 noticias ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Informativos Telecinco ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓ ✗
La sexta noticias ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓

1 The monitoring was conducted in March and April 2019.

166 A. González-Neira and N. Quintas-Froufe

It has been confirmed that the action of sharing, compared to the participation
as form of distribution, is the most usual in all networks; therefore there is a clear
option for the spreading of contents to third parties, the extension of information and
the creation of communities around these spaces.
The research performed shows that the action of ‘comment’ is only possible
through social networks. Namely, none of the websites of the news programmes
allow the Internet user to express his or her opinions about a content (unlike the
case of written online press). This possibility is quite related to ‘sending images,
information or suggestions’, an option that only the three spaces of the RTVE group
include. In other words, the private broadcasters do not have any space on their
websites available to comment or send information. The possibilities of access of the
citizen journalism are remarkably limited in this sense.
Twitter has turned into one of the most common channels of participation for
the audience. For many years, the practice of issuing comments in a television pro-
gramme while watching has been established as something usual among spectators
who comment, send information and distribute related content to third parties. Like
Bergillos points out, the social networks have turned into “essential places for man-
aging social conversations linked to television scheduling” (2017: 100). Even though
it has been confirmed that the entertainment programmes (talent, reality shows) are
the ones reaching a greater index of social audience, the informative spaces slowly
sneak into this sort of classifications. Despite their structure does not promote the
fandom phenomenon that strongly influences the social audience, some of the news
programmes analysed appear as the most tweeted programmes of the month. Since
2016, Antena 3 Noticias is the space of this format with greater success. That year
became the fourth most tweeted programme (behind the different versions of Gran
Hermano and Eurovision) while in 2018 it was positioned seventh behind Gran
Hermano, Operación Triunfo, Eurovisión, Supervivientes and Sálvame. In the 11th
position, there is La Sexta Noticias (Kantar Media 2019). Since then, it has maintained
the leadership among the news programmes format in social audience, followed by
far by La Sexta Noticias. It is undoubtful that in said success the number of fol-
lowers of every account has an impact because there is a parallelism between the
number of followers and the success in social audience. On April 30, 2019 the pro-
file @antena3noticias had more than one million seven hundred thousand followers,
@Lasextanoticias surpassed the one million one hundred thousand, while @infoma-
tivost5 barely exceeded six hundred thousand. The most noteworthy case was that
of @telediario_tve that did not reach two hundred thousand, a very low number of
this public channel.

5 Conclusions

The technological progresses have boosted the development of the participation win-
dows of the audience in the current television. In a context of convergence, the tele-
vision has appropriated elements coming from the Internet to increase the points of
Mediamorphosis of Participation on Television … 167

contact with the public. In the case of news programmes, these possibilities con-
tributed by the digital context have introduced greater opportunities of interaction,
practically non-existent until then in this format. In the model of Spanish news pro-
grammes, the mediated participation routes have been displaced to the digital field,
unlike what happens in other contents.
The research performed demonstrates that, despite being a quite rigid format,
news programmes do not make the most of all the existing possibilities to offer their
audience bidirectional communication channels. From television sets, hosts do not
invite the audience to participate in the different windows available and limit to show
the overprinted social network accounts or the programme’s website, with a merely
informational purpose, of extension of the content, instead of promoting the dialogue
with the audience.
There outstands the presence of news programmes of the channel Antena 3 since
it is present in all platforms analysed, unlike the news programmes of La 1, that only
have Twitter available as well as a website of its own.
The possibilities of participation, of achieving feedback from the public, are sup-
ported on structures external to television channels like social networks (Twitter,
Facebook, Instagram, etc.) and not on the websites of this kind of news programmes.
None of the private broadcasters have any channels to comment, send images or
information available on their websites.
These results conclude that, in the Spanish case, the harnessing of one of the forms
of participation that allow to capture and foster customer loyalty of new spectators
is being wasted, a form that also allows to create a community beyond the television
screen and improve the user experience. However, in this paper the rigid format of
the news programmes has been considered, which hinders the implantation of other
possibilities of participation present in other formats such as fiction or contests.
It is worth mentioning that this paper is a first approach towards the possibilities
of participation, without considering other studies with more complete taxonomies.
Therefore, this research leaves other research lines opened, such as the analysis of the
use of each one of these options in every space analysed; namely, to conduct a study
from the audience perspective, about the actual use of these diverse possibilities and
a comparison with the behaviour in other European countries. Likewise, there could
be progress in the study of content of news programmes to confirm whether it suffers
some sort of alteration to pull towards participation.

Acknowledgements We thank the student Laura Cotelo for her collaboration in this research.

References

Athique A (2016) Transnational audiencies. Media reception on a global scale. Polity Press,
Cambridge
Andò R (2018) Esperienze televisive. Schermi, rituali e pratiche delle audience connesse. In: Andó
R, Marinelli A (eds) Television(s). Come cambia l’esperienza televisiva tra tecnologie convergenti
e pratiche social. Guerini, Milan, p 161–198
168 A. González-Neira and N. Quintas-Froufe

Bauman Z (2006) Modernidad líquida. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Buenos Aires

Bergillos I (2015) Participación de la audiencia y televisión en la era digital. Propuesta de análisis y
evolución de las invitaciones a la participación en la tdt y en otras plataformas. PhD dissertation,
Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
Bergillos I (2017) Invitaciones a la participación de la audiencia a través de la televisión en España:
análisis del prime time de los canales generalistas en 2010 y 2014. Quaderns del CAC 43:91–104
Bird SE (2011) Seeking the audience for news: Response, news talk, and everyday practices. In:
Nightingale V (ed) The handbook of media audiences. Wiley, Chichester, pp 489–508
Cazajeira PE (2015) A Audiência ubíqua do telejornalismo nas redes sociais. Serra P, Sá S, Souza
Filho W (orgs) A televisão ubíqua. Livros LabCom, Covilhã, pp 169–190
de Valck M, Teurlings J (2013) After the break: television theory today. Amsterdam University
Press, Amsterdam
García Avilés JA (2011) Dimensiones y tipología de las actividades de participación de la audiencia
en la televisión pública. Ámbitos. Revista Internacional de Comunicación 20:175–195
García Avilés JA (2012) Roles of audience participation in multiplatform television: From fans
and consumers, to collaborators and activists. Participations. Journal of Audience and Reception
Studies 9(2):429–447
García Avilés J, González Mesa I, García Ortega A et al (2019) La crisis del informativo televisivo.
Cómo innovar en los formatos audiovisuales. Compobell, Murcia
García de Castro M (2014) Información audiovisual en el entorno digital. Tecnos, Madrid
García García AL et al (2012) Nuevas fórmulas de producción audiovisual atendiendo a criterios
de interactividad. In: León B (ed) La televisión ante el desafío de internet. Comunicación Social
Ediciones y Publicaciones, Salamanca, pp 122–129
González-Neira A, Quintas-Froufe N (2015) Revisión del concepto de televisión social y sus audi-
encias. In: Quintas-Froufe N, González-Neira A (eds) La participación de la audiencia en la
televisión: de la audiencia activa a la social. Asociación para la Investigación de Medios de
Comunicación, Madrid, pp 13–26
Herrero M (2016) Análisis de la audiencia social en la programación informativa de prime time.
El caso de Atresmedia. In: Saavedra M, Rodríguez L (eds) Audiencia social. Estrategias de
comunicación para medios y marcas. Síntesis, Madrid, pp 73–88
Jenkins H (2008) Convergence culture: la cultura de la convergencia de los medios de comunicación.
Paidós, Barcelona
Jenkins H, Ito M (2015) Participatory culture in a networked era: A conversation on youth, learning,
commerce, and politics. Polity Press, Cambridge
Jensen KB (2019) The Double Hermeneutics of Audience Research. Telev New Media 20(2):142–
154
Johnson C (2019) Online TV. Routledge, New York
Kantar Media (2019) Anuario Social TV 2018. Retrieved from https://www.kantarmedia.com/es/
blog-y-recursos/data-lab/anuario-social-tv-2018. Accessed 15 May 2019
Lago D, Campos F (2016) Las redes sociales como foco de interactividad del ciberperiodismo
de pantalla: el uso de Twitter en los informativos de televisión. In: VII Congreso internacional
de ciberperiodismo y web 2.0 Nuevos perfiles y audiencias para una democracia participative.
Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao, pp 222–239
León B (2012) La televisión frente a internet. Unas historia por escribir. In: Leon, B (coord) La
television ante el desafío de internet. Comunicación Social, Salamanca, pp 19–29
León B, García Avilés JA (2008) La visión de los productores sobre la televisión interactiva: el final
de la utopía. Comunicación y Sociedad 21:7–24
Livingstone S (2004) The challenge of changing audiences: Or, what is the audience researcher to
do in the age of the Internet? Eur J Commun 19(1):75–86
Livingstone S (2019) Audiences in an age of datafication: critical questions for media research.
Telev New Media 20(2):170–183
Lotz AD (2016). The paradigmatic evolution of US television and the emergence of internet-
distributed television. Revista Icono14 14(2):122–142
Mediamorphosis of Participation on Television … 169

Lotz A (2007) The television will be revolutionized. New York University Press, New York
Marinelli A (2015) L’interattività della televisione. In: Arcagni S (ed) Da innovazione mai real-
izzata a pratica quotidiana nel networked media space. In I Media digitali e l’interazione
uomo-macchina, Aracne, Roma, pp 275–304
McElroy BP (2019) Experimenting with interaction: TV news efforts to invite audiences into the
broadcast and their effects on gatekeeping. Convergence 25(3):449–465
Murschetz PC, Schlütz D (2018) Big data and television broadcasting. A critical reflection on big
data’s surge to become a new techno-economic paradigm and its impacts on the concept of the
“addressable audience”. Fonseca, Journal of Communication 17(2):23–38
Napoli PM (2011) Audience evolution: new technologies and the transformation of media audiences.
Columbia University Press, New York
Newman MZ, Levine E (2012) Legitimating television: Media convergence and cultural status.
Routledge, New York
Quintas-Froufe N, González-Neira A (2016) Consumo televisivo y su medición en España: camino
hacia las audiencias híbridas. El profesional de la información 25(3):376–383
Rost A (2004) Pero, ¿de qué hablamos cuando hablamos de interactividad? Center for Civic
Journalism 2:1–16
Rost A (2006) La interactividad en el periódico digital. PhD dissertation, Universidad Autónoma
de Barcelona
Rubio LG et al (2018) La televisión informativa en el entorno digital: análisis de las ediciones
diarias de las cadenas generalistas líderes de audiencia en España. Estudios sobre el mensaje
periodístico 24(1):193–212
Sa S (2015) O espectador em alta definiçao. In: Serra P et al (eds) A televisão ubíqua. Livros
LabCom, Covilhã, pp 145–168
Scolari CA (2008) Hacia la hipertelevisión: los primeros síntomas de una nueva configuración del
dispositivo televisivo. Diálogos de la comunicación 77
Spigel L, Olsson J (2004) Television after TV: essays on a medium in transition. Duke University
Press, London
Steensen S (2014) Conversing the audience: a methodological exploration of how conversation
analysis can contribute to the analysis of interactive journalism. New Media Soc 16(8):1197–1213
Strangelove M (2015) Post-TV: Piracy, cord-cutting, and the future of television. University of
Toronto Press, Toronto
Turner G, Tay J (2009) Television studies after TV: understanding television in the post-broadcast
era. Routledge, London
Uricchio W (2010) TV as time machine: television’s changing heterochronic regimes and the
production of history. Relocating television. Routledge, London, pp 49–62

Ana González-Neira Associate Professor in Universidade da Coruña. She is Ph.D. and graduate
in Journalism and Political Sciences. Her research lines focus on the history of journalism, the
study of the new audiences and mediatic consumptions. As a result of this study, she has published
several research papers and two books. She has been visiting professor in Universidad Autonóma
de México, Università della Sapienza of Rome and Universitá Cattolica of Milan.

Natalia Quintas-Froufe Full Professor in Universidade da Coruña. Graduate in Advertising and

Public Relations and Ph.D. by Universidad de Vigo. Currently, her main research lines focus on
the new advertising formats and the study of new television audiences. She has published several
papers on national and international journals about these subjects. She has performed research
stays in Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Universidade Católica Portuguesa and Católica
Pontificia Universidad de Chile.
Value and Intelligence of Business
Models in Journalism

Manuel Goyanes, Marta Rodríguez-Castro and Francisco Campos-Freire

Abstract Added value and intelligence, both in strategies as well as in operating

and technical applications, are essential to reinforce trust and sustainability of busi-
ness models of old and new media. This chapter addresses these two areas in the
main conceptual and structural elements of business models in press, audiovisual
and digital platforms, taking into account the diversity of expressions: payment sys-
tems of physical, digital and mobile contents, premium, open access, bundle, native
and programmatic advertising, sponsorship, bartering, membership, crowdfunding,
foundations, events, YouTubers, influencers, data, augmented reality and artificial
intelligence, gamification, Internet of things and blockchain. The study of business
models also addresses different forms of creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and
structure of organizations, funding systems, associations and relations with receivers.

Keywords Business model · Added value · News companies · Digital platforms

1 Introduction

The emergence of the Internet has transformed the process of news production for
journalists (Mitchelstein and Boczkowski 2009; Deuze and Witschge 2018), con-
sumption habits of audiences (Antunovic et al. 2018), and the flow, presence and
reach of digital information. Journalists, audiences and news companies try to adapt
their skills, preferences and organization structures to the new digital challenges that
have impacted on their core activities (Aitamurto and Lewis 2013).

M. Goyanes (B)
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
M. Rodríguez-Castro · F. Campos-Freire
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
F. Campos-Freire
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 171

J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_13
172 M. Goyanes et al.

Online news, which are increasingly ubiquitous, atmospheric and market-

oriented, have relatively lost their value, which affects directly to the payment inten-
tion of consumers (Goyanes et al. 2018), affecting the business models and income
of most of online organizations (Myllylahti 2017; Cawley 2019). Within this context,
there is a growing concern about audience´s perception on the value and reason-why
of digital news. This study is intended to shed light on the perception of the value
of digital news within a market-oriented context and their effects in the approach of
new business models.
The article explores how audiences respond to the growing commodification
and standardization of online news. By revising the situation of press, the audio-
visual arena and digital platforms and their monetization models, we try to identify
audience’s attitudes towards digital news and the role of the Internet as a media outlet.
The book chapter is structured as follows: first, we make a review of the under-
pinning theory of economics of digital information, linking it with the growing need
to charge for contents on the Internet, the payment intention of consumers and the
recent research on paywalls. This helps us to understand the commodification and
standardization process of digital information. Once the review is done, we shed light
on the diversity of business models for digital platforms and the audiovisual arena,
emphasizing the growing need to link their advances with the different forms of cre-
ativity, innovation and entrepreneurship of communication organizations around the
world. The study contributes to the growing research on the reach and morphology
of business models in the area of communication and its impact on consumption.

2 Standardization and Commodification of Digital Content

and Its Impact on the Intention of Pay Per Contents

In the last decades, newspaper readers and advertising contents have been decreasing
(Cawley 2019), while digital platforms have experienced a large increase. However,
despite the digital take-off, online advertising and subscription income do not offset
losses in printed press (Pickard and Williams 2014).
According to Edmonds (2017), US newspapers gained $1 in new digital advertis-
ing income for every $25 lost in printed advertising revenue. This positions digital
and printed news companies in a difficult situation, which forces them, in many cases,
to implement pay-per-content strategies based on business models that invite readers
to pay (Bakker 2012). In fact, some suggest that paywalls are possible successful
business models to monetize digital content, following the success of companies
such as The New York Times, Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal (Benton
2018).
However, these media outlets seem to be more the exception than the rule. Besides,
applying a successful business model to another media company is, at least, a risky
operation. Most of news companies follow a trial-error based learning, adapting their
organization structures and value proposals to the business and income model that
best suit them (Arrese 2016).
Value and Intelligence of Business Models in Journalism 173

Many companies had to cancel or postpone their paywalls and come back to free
models, due to their inability to convince readers of the need to pay per contents. What
lies behind this inability is, therefore, the creation of a valuable digital news’ offer
to put behind the wall. However, research on journalism suggests a standardization
process of news (Picard 2009; Carlson 2015; Goyanes and Rodríguez-Castro 2018),
especially on the Internet, which defies efforts of news companies to increase the
money valuation of readers and their payment intention.
The goal of the study is to offer a better understanding of business models for
digital platforms within a context of market-oriented and standard offer. The concept
of market-oriented information or commodification refers to the process where news
pass from being “products that satisfy individual and social needs to be products
whose value is established by what they can bring to the market” (Mosco 2009: 132).
On this basis, the news offer becomes generally a subsidized product–especially when
it comes to online journals, as readers pay very little or nothing. At the same time,
third parties, most of them advertisers, are the main income source, which means
that the definition of quality is based more on “the most profitable popularity than
something based on the less-shared professional standards” (McManus 1992: 790).
Therefore, it can be presumed than a valuable and high-quality news produc-
tion, consumed by few readers, is ineffective for news companies. On the contrary,
low-quality but highly consumed news are not. Commodification of online news
has, therefore, a huge impact on the practice of journalism, which can be reflected,
especially, on commercial pressures (Goyanes and Rodríguez-Castro 2018) and the
report on social inequalities (McManus 1992).
This impact on commodification of news also permeates normative discussions
about the main objectives of news in particular and journalism in general (Picard
2009). If a commodity is considered a good sold at a price in the profit-making
market (Murdock 2011), then digital news could fit in well within this definition.
Many editors, indeed, consider that their business is to sell commodities, that is to
say, online news (Hantula 2015).
However, digital news also has a public function, reflected on the spirit of jour-
nalists to publish accurate and valuable information on public affairs and politics
(Tuchman 1978). Therefore, despite the consensus on the growing commodifica-
tion of the publishing business (Chen et al. 2015), journalism has to serve citizens,
providing them with impartial, neutral and trustworthy information (Deuze 2005).
Within this context, news companies are at the crossroads: on one side, they should
be profitable to be on the business, relying on advertising as the main income source
(McManus 1992), but they have at the same time the legitimate power to act as the
fourth power, “driven by the search of trust” (Fisher 2014).
To attract readers’ attention, news media use more and more sensational and
exacerbated headers and contents, which intentionally creates fake and low-quality
news (Chen et al. 2015). The commodification of online news therefore provides
new technical and tactical developments to encourage interest and attention of readers
when reading news, which are based on fraudulent strategies such as clickbait (Cable
and Mottershead 2018).
174 M. Goyanes et al.

In this regard, it could be said that clickbait is the most relevant result of the process
of commodification of news, rooted in an organizational culture aimed at attracting
readers’ attention and encourage visitors to click in a link, regardless its quality
and accuracy. Given that direct payments of readers have virtually disappeared and
advertising income became crucial (Barthel 2015), news media publish more and
more digital contents to generate dollars in advertising (Chen et al. 2015) at the
expense of informing citizens.
A potential solution to limit news commodification, as we mention, is the
implementation of pay-per-content strategies based on subscription models and
micro-payments (Geidner and D’Arcy 2015). However, as demonstrated in previ-
ous research (Chyi 2005), digital news has been characterized by a demand curve
at the price of zero. However, if the price increases even just a penny, the demand
falls below zero. As there are a lot of free substitutes, the cross-price elasticity is
high, so the free exchange envisaged by media outlets could result in a fall of the
quantity, as the substitution effect would be activated (Chyi 2005). Only when price
increases allow a sufficient subscription fee for the business development, pay-per-
content strategies will be effective, which will limit the commercialization of news
as a result of this process.
Also, the growing literature on standardization of news addresses mainly the
effects that not-unique products and therefore potentially replaceable–digital news–
could have on the demand when the price is greater than zero (Goyanes 2014; Chyi
2005; Picard 2009). Specifically, according to Picard (2009), both online and printed
news are homogenous products and, therefore, not-unique. This means that, within a
context of growing competence as the news business, digital news is fully and easily
replaceable (Chyi 2005).
However, considering the successful value proposals of digital newspapers such
as The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, there are some cases in which
the digital offer is unique and, therefore, difficult to replace. Rather than the stan-
dardization of the media industry is, therefore, the standardization of a large part of
digital news services. However, many media companies offer different value pro-
posals difficult to imitate, which make their offer special, unique and different from
competitors (Myllylahti 2017; Sjøvaag 2016).
As indirectly mentioned, the standardization of digital news is unavoidably linked
to the perceptions of readers on the value of the news–economic but also informative.
In this regard, journalists are ultimately responsible for turning facts into attractive,
formal and informative news, based on the standards established in their field (Deuze
2005; Fisher 2014). Newsrooms play a key role in the design of a valuable news
offer, capable of being captured later by media companies in the form of payment
transactions of readers–paywalls.
Unfortunately, as pointed out by Picard (2009), the profession of journalism has
become a commodity, and the professionalism of journalism and the teaching of
journalism have determined the values and rules of the news, have commodified the
product and have turn most of journalists into relatively interchangeable workers of
a factory of information. The process, increasingly encouraged by the recent crisis
in journalism and the instability of employment and professional conditions (Siles
Value and Intelligence of Business Models in Journalism 175

and Boczkowski 2012; Ekdale et al. 2015; Goyanes and Rodríguez-Gómez 2018),
has determined the field for an increasingly similar news offer.
The consequences of standardization and commodification of digital news are
essentially the loss of pecuniary value but also informative value (Myllylahti 2017).
Recent market studies show that most readers are reluctant to pay for digital contents
(Newman et al. 2016) and most of them also refuse future transaction. Specific factors
such as age, income, previous payment, interest for news and consumption patterns
are crucial to explain the phenomenon (an in-depth review may be found in Goyanes
2014; Fletcher and Nielsen 2017). Besides, the values of news such as exclusivity
and authorship are crucial elements in the configuration of their pecuniary value
(Goyanes et al. 2018).
Likewise, research on paywalls has shown the main strategies by media companies
to monetize digital contents. For instance, Sjøvaag (2016) analyzed three digital
Norwegian newspapers, showing that specialized content, such as local information,
is usually paid, while syndicated content and immediacy news tend to be opened.
Also, Myllylahti (2017) analyzed the main newspapers in Australia and identified
the news and opinion articles as the main content in newspapers’ paywalls.
Despite the existence of significant factors and values of news that, ultimately,
result in the payment of readers, there is a general consensus that most of the literature
on the intention of payment and paywalls actually investigates “the intention of not
paying” (Goyanes et al. 2018: 10). Within this context, most of citizens are free
consumers of digital news, as they take for granted their free access to information
services and, therefore, reinforce the tendency to consider news as a public good and,
as a result, develop a free culture on the Internet.

3 The Dominance of Digital Platforms: How to Monetize

the Algorithm

The current informative context as a whole–press, radio, television and digital media–
is experiencing a series of transformations resulting from the emergence of digital
platforms. These platforms, among which are the GAFAN (Google, Amazon, Face-
book, Apple and Netflix) or what van Dijck et al. (2018) call the Big Five (the same
platforms, replacing Netflix for Microsoft), are reshaping the market of communi-
cation through dynamics of disruptive innovation (Christensen et al. 2015), which
modify both business models of traditional media companies and the conception and
development of contents and their consumption patterns.
The term digital platforms refers to their performance as a space of convergence
between multiple agents (Miguel and Casado 2016), as will be developed below,
and it is also the preferred denomination by platforms themselves. The choice is not
neutral, but obeys the intention of these disruptive companies to establish the criteria
from which to be judged and understood (Gillespie 2010), as well as regulated.
Platforms had previously chosen to call themselves ‘technology companies’ instead
176 M. Goyanes et al.

of ‘media companies’ to avoid their publishing responsibilities (Napoli 2015). Also,

due to their ability to connect other media and users, they are also called digital
intermediaries.
Generally, the business model of digital platforms is based on an infrastructure
where different agents converge; that is to say, they constitute multi-sided markets
with different players such as users, content producers and advertisers, among oth-
ers. Platforms expand bilateral and dominant markets which were so far of media
companies, composed by audiences and advertisers, to include also agents such as
advertising intermediaries and social institutions (Nieborg and Poell 2018).
The growth of these multi-sided markets depends on the development of effects,
that is to say, according to Nick Srnicek, “the more users are using a platform,
the more valuable that platform becomes for everyone” (2018: 46). This way, the
bigger the number of registered users using Facebook, the more appealing will Mark
Zuckerberg’s social network be for advertisers willing to insert ads in the news
feed, but also for media companies that want to expand their audiences through
the dissemination of contents via social media. Digital platforms should take into
account these effects of the network when designing their price structure through
cross-subsidization strategies, in such a way that the parts generate business through
the entrance of income (advertisers, for instance) to compensate those who access
services free of charge, such as social media users.
These dynamics generate different business models within the platforms from the
perspective of the final users, among which three basic variants stand out (Gabszewicz
et al. 2015): offer of free contents and services, therefore, looking for alternative
income; a model based on payment for access to contents (subscription, pay per
individual product, etc.), which can be also complemented with other income sources;
and a third model that combines the first two, the freemium, in which the access to
a part of contents is free, but users have to pay to access the premium content.
Spotify represents this last model, as it offers free access to the whole cata-
logue, although with ads, and there is a premium version through subscription,
without pauses, with a better audio quality, the possibility to listen offline and the
removal of the shuffle-only mode. Meanwhile, Netflix has a business model based
on a three-monthly plan subscription. All of them offer free access to the complete
catalogue, with cheap rates and without commitment to remain, key elements for the
popularization of the on-demand service (Izquierdo-Castillo 2015).
Despite the different articulations of the business models, all of them place the
development and application of algorithms at the epicentre of their operations and
success. When the user accesses platforms and surfs them, generates a series of
information that platforms store and interpret through their algorithms, designed
to give meaning to big data and allow their economic exploitation. Thus, users’
data become a key element for the business model of platforms–that can use that
information to customize ads–and for articulating the service and contents offered
to users–through recommendation systems, prioritizing which contents will be more
relevant for each user according to their interests.
Value and Intelligence of Business Models in Journalism 177

The use of algorithms brings innumerable advantages to platforms, but their use
also throws certain shadows. Bell and Owen, for instance, define the algorithm of
the Facebook News Feed as “the single most controversial, influential and secretive
algorithm in the world” (2017). As if it were the Coca-Cola formula, platforms keep
the design and concrete functioning of their algorithms secret, in part because an
increase in transparency around these formulas could negatively affect their business
models and damage the dynamics of innovation (Napoli 2015).
However, the secrecy that permeates platforms’ functioning, is a source of concern
for publishers, who want to disseminate their contents through these digital inter-
mediaries, due to the impossibility of designing strategies that guarantee the desired
impact on these platforms. Digital intermediaries have become the new gatekeepers
(Napoli 2015; Russell 2019), which results in the emergence of multiple challenges
over how to relate with them, how to adapt contents to be usable, and how to reach
a larger number of final users, and how to do it in such a way that their publishing
principles are not altered.
Social networks, for instance, present a dilemma to editors. Although the last
report from Reuters (Newman 2019) identifies a slight decrease in the consumption
of news through social networks–due in part to changes in the Facebook algorithm,
which prioritizes content of personal contacts at the expense of the exposure to
publishing contents, 36% of respondents use Facebook to get informed.
The high number of users that can be accessed by digital platforms, especially
if we take into account that many of them reach news contents incidentally while
spending time in them for other reasons (Fletcher and Nielsen 2018), multiply the
impact of contents, so that disseminating them through these intermediaries is too
tempting. However, a successful presence of media companies in these platforms lies
in adapting to their disruptive dynamics, based on engaging users to maximize the
time they spend on the platform and, therefore, also the amount of data they generate.
This results in clickbait strategies, in the production of potentially-viral contents and
even the mass propagation of fake news (Braun and Eklund 2019).
The relationship between publishers and platforms, therefore, is problematic. In
the context of platforms, and due to the commodification of the news–referred to in
Sect. 2 of this chapter–each piece of news has value by itself and can individually
circulate through different digital intermediaries. It breaks with the traditional vision
of newsrooms and the prioritization of information according to editorial criteria
(Nieborg and Poell 2018). This unbundling, therefore, is one of the most direct
effects of digital intermediaries in the production and consumption of news contents,
and forces news companies to reflect on the online circulation of published pieces
(van Dijck et al. 2018).
Within the framework of unbundling and the relationship between publishers and
platforms, the former can opt for two strategies in the dissemination of their contents
(van Dijck et al. 2018). On the one hand, they can design networked strategies, based
on the dissemination of links and headlines on different platforms with the aim of
redirecting audiences to the media website, which allows the media to record the
impact of each piece and monetize these visits.
178 M. Goyanes et al.

On the other hand, there are native strategies, in which news content is offered
directly on platforms, without the need to go somewhere else. This strategy implies
that the media company, which is responsible for the editorial content, yields power
over the management of the data registered by users and the monetization of the
content.
These platforms, which initially tried to move away from this editorial perspective,
have become more and more interested in disseminating news contents, especially if
it is done in a native way. This way, different services oriented to reach dissemination
agreements with other media companies emerged. In 2015, Facebook launched its
function Instant Articles, which allows quick access to contents produced by third
parties, with a visual and immersive format. These articles are accessible without
quitting the platform and offer producers different alternatives for monetization.
Other examples of tools linked to native strategies would be Discover from Snapchat,
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages, Apple News and the Live options on Facebook
and Instagram.
The offer of this kind of functionalities opens up new possibilities to reach audi-
ences, places publishers in a difficult situation, as they have fear of missing out
something (Nielsen and Ganter 2018). Companies can opt for the adoption of native
strategies for fear of getting list or being late to a good possibility of increasing
their impact, though these strategies entail a lack of audience data, the migration
of advertising revenues and even the dissolution of the publisher’s brand (Bell and
Owen 2017).
Although digital platforms occupy, judging by their economic results and their
relationship with content producers, an omnipresent position, it is worth pointing out
some of their limitations that contribute to nuance their hegemony. On the one hand,
it can be glimpsed a certain saturation in the market of digital intermediaries. This
phenomenon can be seen, for instance, in on-demand services.
One of the keys of Netflix’s success was to allow access to its catalogue for a
very economic rate, which resulted in an expansion throughout the world. How-
ever, it is unfeasible for a consumer to pay the subscription of all similar emerg-
ing services (Amazon Prime, HBO Go, Hulu, Apple TV, Movistar+, etc.), so there
is a fragmentation of the market that leads to an increase in competition between
platforms.
On the other hand, both this kind of on-demand services and the different social
networks are facing challenges as regards regulation. Despite their attempts to evade
publishing responsibilities, social networks such as Facebook, which are immersed in
scandals such as the interferences and proliferation of fake news in the US presidential
elections in 2016 (Bell and Owen 2017), will have to rethink their governance,
aspiring to a balance between commercial interests and public interest (Napoli 2015).
As regards audiovisual digital platforms in the European Union, since the entry
into force of the new Audiovisual Media Services Directive (European Parliament
2018), they are now forced to include in their catalogues at least 30% of European
productions. The dominance of digital platforms, therefore, is starting to be regulated
under the premises of public interest and cultural protection.
Value and Intelligence of Business Models in Journalism 179

4 Journalism of Public Interest and Sustainability

The concept of business model includes a set of elements that, apart from the value
proposal of the product or service, covers the needs and demands of customers or
users, the conditions of the market in which it is developed, distribution channels,
relationship system, resources and key associations, income sources and prices as
well as structures and kind of costs (Osterwalder et al. 2005). The above-mentioned
disruptive innovations in digital production and distribution have relativized or deval-
ued the prioritization of the value proposal of the content in exchange for gratuity,
data and sum of long-tail inputs (Anderson 2009).
The digital business model, which transformed the distribution channel and the
commercialization based on the access to million customers, disrupted and damaged
the model of traditional media against metamedia of the web 2.0 (Manovich 2005;
Campos-Freire 2015). After that disruptive crisis, the reaction of traditional media
can hardly be to do the same, but rather to reaffirm and reinforce the social value
proposal of their contents. That is, beyond exchange and use values of the news
activity, which are standardized in the commercialization of commodity models,
there is the recovery of the social value of journalism and of quality entertainment
contents. It is an indispensable value in journalism and in the media as a resource
of public interest for the balance of the democratic and informative ecosystem of
modern societies.
This social value, difficult to measure but essential for credibility and trust, as
pointed out by Paul Steiger, creator of ProPublica, it is not just what the public wants,
but the synthesis of the public interest and its utility for the public (Puentes-Rivera
et al. 2018). It is a complex concept, but essential, for the relevance and recovery
of news companies in the 21st century, as foreseen by Picard (2012). Some authors
have also added nuances and adjectives to this journalism of public interest and
social value (De Zúñiga and Hinsley 2013; Ferrucci 2015; Drok and Hermans 2016;
Hermans and Glydensted 2019): good journalism, investigative journalism, construc-
tive journalism, solutions journalism, commitment journalism, slow and contrastive
journalism, etc.
The complexity in assessing the social value of the news makes their monetization
and, therefore, the sustainability of the business model in the above-mentioned dis-
ruptive ecosystem. In the heart of that complexity lies the recovery of trust, interest
and the overcoming of that tiredness of news registered by surveys and reports on
the era of abundance of information (Palmer and Toff 2018).
In the search for a remedy to the crisis of traditional media, which took with it
thousands of printed publications in western countries, companies and many forced
entrepreneurs coming from news staff and then fired, started to propose alternatives
to find solutions for a sustainable journalism. Also, public debates were opened in
parliamentary and government institutions to seek solutions to the crisis of journal-
ism, inasmuch as it is a source of mediation and legitimacy of modern democracies,
especially as regards a new expanded concern about the virality of fake news in
digital networks and the Internet.
180 M. Goyanes et al.

From 2017, France, Germany, Italy and the UK have pioneered regulation on
fake news in Europe. After two years of debate at the European Parliament, the
European Union approved in November 2018 the Directive 1808 on the provision
Audiovisual Services, which regulates platforms against traditional broadcasters.
In 2019, another Directive on intellectual property was agreed to protect creators’
and journalists’ copyright as regards digital networks and Internet infomediaries.
The new Creative Europe program for 2021–2027 includes into their projections to
support the press and the traditional media sector as relevant activities of cultural
and creative industries.
In different states, France plays a pioneering role in support policies to the press,
based on an integral industrial concept, which covers its entire value chain, from
publishing, printing, distribution and delivery of publications to readers. In 2008,
Nicholas Sarkozy opened the institutional debate on the ‘general states of the press’,
in charge of people from society and the industry, to present a report of measures
to the government and the Senate and thus regulate public aids to the sector, which
amounted to 284 million in 2009. Subsidies to the press have been maintained with
different lines, reports and assessment of the most critical aspects. The last one was
made by Schwartz and Terraillot (2018) for the Ministry of Economy and Finance on
the distribution system of the French press, which proposes ten reform and support
measures.
Also, the UK government, previous commitment of the Prime Minister Theresa
May before the main publishers of the country, commissioned a study on the future
of journalism and the sector to Professor Francess Cairncross (2019), who concluded
the report with nine support proposals to the sustainability of the sector.
Other countries maintain and promote institutional policies for the sustainability of
the press and the future of journalism. These include the Netherlands, Denmark, Nor-
way, the Flemish region of Belgium, Canada and Australia. In the last two countries,
reports, proposals for measures and debates were made in their respective parliamen-
tary chambers, highlighting the need to support local information, their newspapers
and journalism as a service of general interest (Vine 2017). Some European countries
have begun to apply digital taxes to the platforms to contribute with these funds to
the sustainability of precarious means of information of general interest.
In the United States, the support to the press and newspapers, which suffered a
massive hemorrhage of headings and job destruction, is channeled through founda-
tions and local institutions. A quarter of the respondents surveyed in the trend study
by Newman (2019) from the Reuters Institute consider that public or institutional
support is necessary to maintain quality journalism; 29% of them believe that they
could come from foundations and non-profit organizations, 18% expect them to be
from the contribution of digital platforms and 11% say that from governments.
Value and Intelligence of Business Models in Journalism 181

5 Conclusions

Social value and innovation, in the form of knowledge and creative intelligence,
are the heart of the journalism business model. Public service media organizations,
following the strategy of its main state and regional or regional models of European
states, try to revive and combine their original principles of the triad–to inform,
to educate and to entertain–by John Reith when the BBC emerged, with the six
core values established by the EBU in 2014–universality, quality, independence,
diversity, accountability and innovation–(EBU 2014) and the adaptation to other
new emerging values of the new society. Journalism and quality information are an
essential requirement for public service media.
The sustainability of journalism and quality information, in addition to the protec-
tion of the traditional dual system of generating resources from the sale of contents
and advertising, also requires institutional support as well as adaptation to the model
of metaservices in which they fit, provided that contribute and not deteriorate their
value, the various forms of income–product, digital and mobile content, premium,
open access, programmatic and native advertising, sponsorship, bartering, mem-
bership, crowdfunding, foundations, public aid, events, augmented reality, artificial
intelligence, gamification, Internet of things, blockchain, etc.

Acknowledgements The chapter belongs to the activities of the research project RTI2018-096065-
B-I00, from the Spanish State Program R + D oriented to the challenges of society from the Ministry
of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and the
European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) on New values, governance, funding and public
media services for the Internet society: European and Spanish contrasts.

References

Aitamurto T, Lewis SC (2013) Open innovation in digital journalism: examining the impact of open
APIs at four news organizations. New Media Soc 15(2):314–331
Anderson Ch (2009) La economía de la larga cola. Empresa Activa, Barcelona
Antunovic D, Parsons P, Cooke TR (2018) ‘Checking’and googling: stages of news consumption
among young adults. Journalism 19(5):632–648
Arrese Á (2016) From gratis to paywalls: a brief history of a retro-innovation in the press’s business.
Journalism Stud 17(8):1051–1067
Bakker P (2012) Aggregation, content farms and Huffinization: The rise of low-pay and no-pay
journalism. Journalism Pract 6(5–6):627–637
Barthel M (2015) Newspapers: fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/
newspapers-factsheet
Bell E, Owen T (2017) The platform press: how Silicon Valley reengineered journalism. C Jour-
nalism Rev. Retrieved from https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/platform-press-how-silicon-
valley-reengineered-journalism.php
Benton J (2018) The New York times is on pace to earn more than $600 million in digital this year,
halfway to its ambitious goal. Retrieved from http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/11/the-new-york-
times-is-on-pace-to-earn-more-than-600-million-in-digital-this-year-halfway-to-its-ambitious-
goal/
182 M. Goyanes et al.

Braun JA, Eklund JL (2019) Fake news, real money: ad tech platforms, profit-driven hoaxes, and
the business of journalism. Digit Journalism 7(1):1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2018.
1556314
Cable J, Mottershead G (2018) Can I click it? yes you can: sport journalism, twitter, and clickbait.
Ethical Space Int J Commun Ethics 15(1/2):69–80
Cairncross F (2019) A sustainable future for journalism. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/
government/publications/the-cairncross-review-a-sustainable-future-for-journalism
Campos-Freire F (2015) Adaptación de los medios tradicionales a la innovación de los metamedios.
El Profesional de la Información 24(4):441–450
Carlson M (2015) The robotic reporter: automated journalism and the redefinition of labor,
compositional forms, and journalistic authority. Digit Journalism 3(3):416–431
Cawley A (2019) Digital transitions: the evolving corporate frameworks of legacy newspaper
publishers. Journalism Stud 20(7):1028–1049
Chen Y, Conroy NJ, Rubin VL (2015) Misleading online content: recognizing clickbait as false
news. In: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM on workshop on multimodal deception detection, ACM,
15–19
Christensen CM, Raynor ME, McDonald R (2015) What is disruptive innovation. Harv Bus Rev
93(12):44–53
Chyi HI (2005) Willingness to pay for online news: an empirical study on the viability of the
subscription model. J Media Econ 18(2):131–142
De Zúñiga H, Hinsley A (2013) The press versus the public. What is “good journalism”? Journalism
Stud 14(6):926–942
Deuze M (2005) What is journalism? professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered.
Journalism 6(4):442–464
Deuze M, Witschge T (2018) Beyond journalism: theorizing the transformation of journalism.
Journalism 19(2):165–181
Drok N, Hermans L (2016) Is there a future for slow journalism? the perspective of younger users.
Journalism Pract 10(4):539–554
EBU (2014) Public service values, editorial principles and guidelines
Edmonds R (2017) Newspapers get $1 in new digital ad revenue for every $25 in print ad revenue lost.
Retrieved from https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2012/newspapers-print-ad-losses-are-
larger-than-digital-ad-gains-by-a-ratio-of-25-to-1/
Ekdale B, Tully M, Harmsen S et al (2015) Newswork within a culture of job insecurity: Producing
news amidst organizational and industry uncertainty. Journalism Pract 9(3):383–398
European Parliament (2018) Directive (EU) 2018/1808 of the European parliament and of the
council of 14 November 2018 amending directive 2010/13/EU on the coordination of certain
provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning
the provision of audiovisual media services (Audiovisual Media Services Directive) in view of
changing market realities
Ferrucci P (2015) Public journalism no more: the digitally native news non-profit and public service
journalism. Journalism 6(7):904–919
Fisher M (2014) Who cares if it’s true?. Retrieved from http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/who_cares_
if_its_true.php?page=all
Fletcher R, Nielsen RK (2017) Paying for online news: a comparative analysis of six countries.
Digit Journalism 5(9):1173–1191
Fletcher R, Nielsen RK (2018) Are people incidentally exposed to news on social media? a
comparative analysis. New Media Soc 20(7):2450–2468
Gabszewicz JJ, Resende J, Sonnac N (2015) Media as multi-sided platforms. In: Picard RG, Wild-
man SS (eds) Handbook on the economics of the media. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham
and Northampton, pp 3–35
Geidner N, D’Arcy D (2015) The effects of micropayments on online news story selection and
engagement. New Media Soc 17(4):611–628
Gillespie T (2010) The politics of “platforms”. New Media Soc 12(3):347–364
Value and Intelligence of Business Models in Journalism 183

Goyanes M (2014) An empirical study of factors that influence the willingness to pay for online
news. Journalism Pract 8(6):742–757
Goyanes M, Artero JP, Zapata L (2018) The effects of news authorship, exclusiveness and media
type in readers’ paying intent for online news: an experimental study. Journalism (forthcoming)
Goyanes M, Rodríguez-Castro M (2018) Commercial pressures in Spanish newsrooms: between
love, struggle and resistance. Journalism Stud 20(8):1088–1109
Goyanes M, Rodríguez-Gómez EF (2018) Presentism in the newsroom: how uncertainty redefines
journalists’ career expectations. Journalism (forthcoming)
Hantula K (2015) Four + one truths about paywalls. Retrieved from http://livinginformation.fi/en/
articles/four-plus-one-truths-about-paywalls
Hermans L, Gyldensted C (2019) Elements of constructive journalism: characteristics, practical
application and audience valuation. Journalism 20(4):535–551
Izquierdo-Castillo J (2015) El nuevo negocio mediático liderado por Netflix: estudio del modelo y
proyección en el mercado español. El Profesional de la Información 24(6):819–826
Manovich L (2005) El lenguaje de los nuevos medios de comunicación: la imagen en la era digital.
Paidós, Barcelona
McManus J (1992) What kind of commodity is news? Commun Res 19(6):787–805
McNair B (2000) Journalism and democracy. An evaluation of the political public sphere. Routledge,
London
Mitchelstein E, Boczkowski PJ (2009) Between tradition and change: a review of recent research
on online news production. Journalism 10(5):562–586
Miguel JC, Casado MÁ (2016) GAFAnomy (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple): the big four
and the b-ecosystem. Dynamics of big internet industry groups and future trends. Springer, Cham,
pp 127–148
Mosco V (2009) The political economy of communication. Sage, London
Murdock G (2011) Political economies as moral economies: commodities, gifts, and public
goods. The handbook of political economy of communications. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, pp
11–40
Myllylahti M (2017) What content is worth locking behind a paywall? digital news commodification
in leading Australasian financial newspapers. Digit Journalism 5(4):460–471
Napoli PM (2015) Social media and the public interest: governance of news platforms in the realm
of individual and algorithmic gatekeepers. Telecommun Policy 39(9):751–760
Newman N, Fletcher R, Levy DAL et al (2016) Reuters institute digital news report 2016. University
of Oxford, Oxford
Newman N (2019) Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2019, Reuters Institute
for the study of journalism. University of Oxford, Oxford
Nieborg DB, Poell T (2018) The platformization of cultural production: theorizing the contingent
cultural commodity. New Media Soc 20(11):4275–4292
Nielsen R, Ganter SA (2018) Dealing with digital intermediaries: a case study of the relations
between publishers and platforms. New Media Soc 20(4):1600–1617
Osterwalder A, Pigneur Y, Tucci C (2005) Clarifying business models: origins, present, and future
of the concept. Commun Assoc Inf Syst 16
Palmer R, Toff B (2018) From news fatigue to news avoidance. NiemanLab Predictions for Jour-
nalism 2019. Retrieved from https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/12/from-news-fatigue-to-news-
avoidance/?relatedstory
Picard RG (2009) Why journalists deserve low pay. Christ Sci Monit 19(9):1–6
Picard RG (2012) La creación de valor y el futuro de las empresas informativas. Por qué y cómo el
periodismo debe cambiar para seguir siendo relevante en el siglo XXI. Media XXI, Porto
Pickard V, Williams AT (2014) Salvation or folly? the promises and perils of digital paywalls. Digit
Journalism 2(2):195–213
Puentes-Rivera I, Campos-Freire F, López-García X (2018) Periodismo con futuro. Media XXI,
Lisbon
184 M. Goyanes et al.

Russell FM (2019) The new gatekeepers: an Institutional-level view of Silicon Valley and the
disruption of journalism. Journalism Stud 20(5):631–648
Schwartz M, Terraillot F (2018) Dix propositions pour moderniser la distribution de la presse.
Rapport au ministre de l’Économie et des Finances et à la ministre de la Culture. Retrieved from
https://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/var/storage/rapports-publics/184000497.pdf
Siles I, Boczkowski PJ (2012) Making sense of the newspaper crisis: a critical assessment of existing
research and an agenda for future work. New Media Soc 14(8):1375–1394
Sjøvaag H (2016) Introducing the paywall: a case study of content changes in three online
newspapers. Journalism Pract 10(3):304–322
Srnicek N (2018) Capitalismo de plataformas. Caja Negra Editora, Buenos Aires
Tuchman G (1978) Making News—a study in the construction of reality. The Free Press, New York
van Dijck J, Poell T, de Waal M (2018) The platform society: public values in a connective world.
Oxford University Press, New York
Vine P (2017) When is a journalist not a journalist?: negotiating a new form of advocacy journalism
within the environmental movement. Pac Journalism Rev 23(1):43–54

Manuel Goyanes Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Car-
los III University (UC3 M) in Madrid. Dr Goyanes’ main research focus is in media management
and sociology of communication sciences. He was visiting fellow in the Department of Media
and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His work has
appeared in journals such as International Journal of Communication, Journalism Practice or
International Journal on Media Management.

Marta Rodríguez-Castro Ph.D. Candidate and predoctoral researcher at Universidade de Santi-

ago de Compostela. In her doctoral thesis she is studying Public Value Tests in Europe in order to
establish a set of quality indicators and to assess and discuss its possible introduction in Spain. She
was visiting fellow at the Center for Media, Data and Society in the Central European University
(Budapest, 2018).

Francisco Campos-Freire Full professor of Journalism in the Faculty of Communication Sci-

ences of Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. His main research lines are the management
of media companies, the study of the impact of social networks and innovation on traditional
media, and the funding, governance, accountability and transformation of European Public Ser-
vice Media. In the professional field, he has worked as editor and director in several Spanish
newspapers and television and radio companies.
New Forms of Journalistic Legitimization
in the Digital World

Laura Solito and Carlo Sorrentino

Abstract The ‘digital revolution’ is transforming the journalistic field.

From sequential processes—selection, verification, hierarchization, presentation,
fruition—journalism is moving on to a ‘despacialized simultaneity’ in which produc-
tion, distribution and consumption are intertwined. These evolutions are modifying
the legitimation of the credibility and authority of journalism, which historically
resided in its capacity to guarantee a public service whose hierarchical nature was
ensured by exclusivity. The operational procedures through which journalism built its
reputation must be rethought to include citizens more. Participation and transparency
become central principles, despite the lack of clarity as to which new practices will
substantiate them.

Keywords Journalistic legitimization · Citizenship · Participation · Transparency

1 Introduction

Digital communication expands the social circles frequented by single individuals,

it enables and facilitates the diversification of social roles, for decades a feature
of modern times, and defines the individualization process. These evolutions reflect
significantly on the representation of reality produced by journalism, but even further
on the citizens’ relationship with journalism as an institution.
In this chapter, we will analyse these developments in order to highlight how the
principles legitimizing journalism are changing too, as it is less and less called upon
to ‘transport’ contents from the sources producing them to the public of users (Peters
and Broesma 2013), and is instead involved in a complex process of negotiation

While devised jointly by the two authors, the first and third sections were written by Laura Solito
and the introduction and second section by Carlo Sorrentino.

L. Solito · C. Sorrentino (B)

Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Florence, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]
L. Solito
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 185

J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_14
186 L. Solito and C. Sorrentino

with sources and publics increasingly able to take part in the communication game.
Indeed, also thanks to the lowering of the entry barriers caused by the so-called
disintermediation process, both the sources and the public manage their presence in
the public space through distinct, more or less effective communication codes which
are nevertheless able to expand what is considered newsworthy, that is, the topics and
social subjects dealt with by journalism (Benson and Neveu 2004; Sorrentino 2006).
The phrase used by McNair (2006, 2018) to describe the progressive fragmentation
and destructuring of the journalistic field (Mancini 2013) is “cultural chaos”, a chaos
resulting from the fact that each one of us continuously receives information from:
(1) traditional mainstream newspapers;
(2) sources increasingly professionally equipped to manage their own communica-
tion needs themselves, through the range of channels now available: from web
sites to social networks;
(3) other components of the immense plethora of users, now able to remediate
(Bolter and Grusin 1999) messages to their circuits of friends and followers
using their own social walls.
The journalistic field is crammed with voices, of varying degrees of persuasion
and attraction, which can inhabit the mediatized public sphere (Thompson 1995),
potentially democratizing it, thanks to the possibility of enriching the public dis-
course. At the same time, however, one of the main characteristics of journalism is
fading away: the broad consensus as to the principles for selecting which topics are
to be spoken of, a consensus enabled by the clear evidence of what is relevant and
of interest to the public. Indeed, with a more clearly defined and outlined hierarchy
of values, it becomes easier to identify the concept of public interest establishing the
importance of the events to be covered by journalism (McQuail 2013), and therefore
it is simpler to activate consensus on the basis of a more distinct universe of values
(Deuze 2015). The primary definers, as Hall et al. (1978) saw it, the political and
economic elites able to impose topics and priorities on the agenda, are few and well
legitimized by the central social role that they are clearly acknowledged.
In recent decades, the mass individualization process has progressively eroded
these clear-cut hierarchies. What has to be made public has become less evident and
the relevance with which this publicity takes places more faded. Digital commu-
nication further accentuates this process through the multiplication of the number
of both broadcasters and recipients. ‘The universe of the tacit presuppositions’ upon
which journalistic stories rest is being constantly bled dry (Benson and Neveu 2004).
The abundance of journalistic depictions is fragmented, the public segmented and
broken up. The continual rotation of topics highlights the selective nature of journal-
ism. Its function of reconstructing reality makes it appear more biased, highlighting
the limits of the presupposition historically at the basis of journalistic legitimation:
objectivity of the facts. A central role is assumed by the negotiating process, based on
a dense web of relations with sources increasingly deft at managing the media logics
and with a public progressively less willing to completely rely on the definitions of
situations provided by the press, now stripped of their certainty by the multiple truths
given by the range of information on offer (Lorusso 2018). Not only this, owing to
New Forms of Journalistic Legitimization in the Digital … 187

the disintermediation favoured by digital means, the users are now transformed into
‘prosumers’: consumers and producers at the same time.
Returning to a metaphor often used to describe the institution of journalism, while
before newspapers were the streets where journalists exposed topics and subjects
according to a stable and easily identifiable hierarchy, now, in the digital space, all
actors take to the streets, without waiting for someone to do so in their stead. Hence,
journalism is called upon to rethink its mission: more than selecting what to lay bare
in the street, it has to create order in the crowd of actors, events and phenomena
which are already in the street, crowding out this space, each one claiming visibility
and centrality. However, it has to do so by negotiating and dialoguing with these
interlocutors according to different logics from the past, in line with the new sphere
of communication drawn by digitalization.
We will analyze the transformation in the relations between citizens and journal-
ism while first of all dwelling on the evolutions in the concept of citizenship; then
we will look into the consequences of these evolutions on journalism. Lastly, we
will round off our reflection by setting out the principles of legitimation which we
deem the necessary foundations for a new information pact between journalism, as
the institution charged with recounting reality, and the citizens who make use of it.

2 The Demanding Citizen

Citizens have growing demands for information because knowledge is becoming an

inescapable resource for them to move consciously within complex societies. This
wealth of information is at the basis of the definition of a plural identity whose char-
acteristics are reflected on the public and political dimension, redefining the concept
of citizenship, which is becoming multidimensional. Reflections on the formal and
institutional aspects of citizenship go hand in hand with culturalist and relational
aspects.
In his classic study on citizenship, Marshall (1950) distinguishes three founda-
tions characterizing citizenship in democratic societies: (1) civil rights, described
as necessary for individual freedom—freedom of speech, religion, thought, right to
ownership and to obtain justice–; (2) political rights, consisting of the possibility
of having active or passive access to exercising political power; (3) social rights,
ensuring economic security and well-being, also through the acquisition of a level
of formal education or use of certain social services. The three foundations form
dimensions that can expand and retract depending not just on the quantity of rights
acquired, but also their quality. This variety shows how the concept of citizenship is
complex and slippery; hence, it is a good idea to stick to an ‘extensive’ conception
that adds cultural and ‘technological’ elements to the formal requirements described
by Marshall (Rodotà 2013).
What substantiates cultural citizenship, first of all, is an affective dimension,
defined by collective groups of belonging in which every citizen participates. Citi-
zenship takes on plural forms and contains relational elements built in the various
188 L. Solito and C. Sorrentino

spaces of individuals’ lives which—as already said—progressively expand from the

family, to the neighbourhood, to the workplace, to the different forms of socialization
and consumption of free time, and finally to the media spaces, more recently boosted
by the multiplication guaranteed by digital communication.
Citizenship is increasingly clearly becoming something that is created day by day,
rather something that is determined by formally and definitively acquired rights.
Dahlgren (2009) quite rightly speaks of achieved citizenship rather than received
citizenship. Immersed in society, every individual acquires stimuli, practices and
resources which constitute his or her status as a citizen.
Dahlgren speaks of civic agency as the distinct way of building citizenship, played
out within a civil society meant as a distinct space from the private sphere, but also
from the political and economic institutions. It is a new relational context which
readapts Habermas’ concept of public sphere in light of the transformations produced
by the gathering of many new subjects and social phenomena in a new public space,
where individuals construct their relationality.
Journalism, and the media more in general, play an important role in this pro-
cess of redefining the public space. On one hand, the use of journalistic products is
included among the practices characterizing the democratic and civil development
of a social context (Putnam 2000; Cartocci 2007), and it is positively correlated with
participation in public life, as well as with the construction of broad and intense
social relations. On the other hand, the same expansion of the forms of action made
possible by a greater capacity to compare cultures, lifestyles and social practices
makes experiences more superficial, limiting cultural consensus and making social
cohesion and the feeling of belonging more fragile.
Political and cultural forms of belonging come apart and reform on the basis of
much more complex relational networks. Individuals draw their values, which give
rise to less solid forms of belonging these days, as well as the attitudes and behaviours
which direct their lifestyles, from more and more groups. Citizenship is practised
through many activities, which might be apparently distinct or distant from those
usually counted in so-called conventional participation.
The increasingly complex requirements of citizenship produce an apparently con-
tradictory effect: the increase in interest in democratic life, albeit to different extents
from one citizen to the next, corresponds to a growing dissatisfaction and disillusion-
ment with the effectiveness of the political responses made, which leads to mistrust
and the ‘critical citizen syndrome’ (Norris, 1999) both concerning the political sys-
tem and the media. What is more, this mistrust is augmented by the cynicism with
which the media represent reality (Cappella and Jamieson 1997).
The reflections of Rosanvallon (2006) lie at the juncture between the possible
outcomes of this cynicism. For the French scholar, the attention with which watchful
and sceptical citizens survey and judge institutional power can be a stimulus so that
the ‘democracy of expression’, in which many can take the floor and make claims,
transforms into a ‘democracy of involvement’ meant as the active identification of
new practices of intervention which enable expressivity to become a ‘voice’ (Couldry
2010), which Rosanvallon calls positive distrust; or it can degenerate into diffidence,
New Forms of Journalistic Legitimization in the Digital … 189

in which the objective becomes to limit power with the consequent paralysis of the
political field.
Journalism is a central institution to practise this watchfulness. Schudson
effectively grasps this element when he theorizes monitorial citizens,
perhaps better informed than citizens of the past … but there is no assurance that they know
at all what to do with what they know … watchful, even while he or she is doing something
else … citizenship now is a year-round and day-long activity as it was only rarely in the past
(Schudson 1996: 451).

This more superficial but continual attention to the surrounding reality enables
the expression of a more conscious and refined citizenship, in which the distribution
of people’s lives in different social spheres is due to the growth of individual freedom
and the consequent attention to safeguarding individual rights.
Schudson is well aware of how these evolutions can lead to a progressive reduc-
tion in the role of the parties and the contemporary rise of the media, with their
tendency to personalize politics and emphasize conflict. Nevertheless, he deems that
these transformations promote a mass democracy in which single people progres-
sively become familiar with individual rights, the rights fought for by the new social
subjectivities embodied by the movements that came about in the 1960s, rights which
do not weaken community belongings but redefine their forms.
For Schudson this new form of citizenship—based principally on individualiza-
tion—requires consciousness on the part of every person as to other people’s rights.
Hence, a sensitivity needs to be developed towards the interdependence between
their actions and those of the people with whom they enter relations. We are not far
from the ‘critical citizen’, who, as Pippa Norris has it, adapts his or her belonging
to the particular community into different forms and various levels, showing a sense
of belonging both to the nation and to the democratic ideals that it represents. For
Norris too, dissatisfaction highlights interest and expresses an assessment resulting
from attributed relevance, rather than apathy and disinterest.
Watchfulness, control, monitoring and assessment are all dimensions that lessen
the deference towards the authorities and institutions; but above all they make citizens
more demanding and more exposed to disappointment.
All in all, the progressively multidimensional nature of citizenship must not be
measured in terms of the quantity of participation, to then complain of its scarcity,
but of a new consistency; we should seek to observe and understand the many and
different ways in which it can be expressed in a society characterized by multiple,
albeit less solid, belongings which embody the mass individualization.

3 The News: From Product to Process

While the dimensions of citizenship and the ways in which it defines itself are chang-
ing, it also appears inevitable to rethink the role of journalism and, above all, the
190 L. Solito and C. Sorrentino

relationship between citizens and information. Tellingly, Peters and Broesma (2013)
underline how rethinking the function of journalism means rethinking citizenship.
The greater dynamism of a citizenry less and less founded on definitive belong-
ings, and no longer only played out in the traditional places of physical and cultural
proximity (family, neighbourhood, school), produces an extension of the forms in
which the public discussion is structured (Riegert 2007). Creating discourse, the
talkative society (Dahlgren 2009) which produces that which Bakardjieva (2010)
defines as subactivism—civic participation made of negotiations, disputes and agree-
ments around which there are the right rules to order social life, and establish the
ethical and moral perspectives to pursue–, acquires importance. It is only later on
that these discussions take on a political dimension and become political behaviour
and activity.
In creating discourse, journalism is one of the main institutions through which
to put one’s identity at stake, build one’s own lifestyles, outline specific cultural
perspectives. Information becomes the setting within which citizens live, an ongoing,
background activity. It loses a large part of its traditional characteristic of being
a deliberate act—going to buy the newspaper, tuning into the evening news—to
transform into an ecosystem where the constant practice of updating information is
now a given fact.
But precisely the progressive ‘naturalization’ of the information process, almost
taken for granted and spontaneously encompassed in our everyday practices, dulls the
awareness of the necessity to rethink the way in which the sources, journalistic system
and public interact, both at the professional level and in the social representations
of public opinion, as this process is still centered around the line running from the
source to the public through journalistic mediation. Instead, now every component of
the public sphere is part of a flow which continually alternates information coming
directly from the sources (suffice it to think of the frequency with which political
actors use the social networks to communicate with their voters) with that mediated
by the journalistic system, and other information still that arrives directly from friends
and followers who post additional stories, comments, reports and articles taken from
other media on their social walls. So, more and more often, a significant portion of
journalistic mediation takes place outside the journalistic organizations and outside
the consolidated forms. Thus, this forms a very varied and differentiated range of
practices, as shown by the personal accounts through which sources, journalists and
citizens interact (Anderson et al. 2012; Deuze and Witschge 2018).
Singer (2018) sums up the evolutions caused to journalism by digital com-
munication in 5 ‘I’s: immersive, interconnected, individualized, iterative and
instantaneous.
It is more and more difficult to reconstruct the way we found out about a piece of
news: from the radio, TV, through Facebook, in the newspaper? We are immersed in
information, we are immersed in the media; we really are merging with them (Deuze
2012). It is now obsolete to think of messages moving from issuers to receivers thanks
to journalists who direct the traffic. An interconnection is produced that makes each
of us a more or less bright dot in potential contact with every other link in the network,
even though in reality we actually only interact with a limited and repetitive number
New Forms of Journalistic Legitimization in the Digital … 191

of them. In these interactions, the distinction between producer and consumer also
becomes more blurred; not only because each of us—above all through the social
networks—produces information, but also because of the frequency with which we
retransmit media mainstream information that we have just consumed to others. The
wealth of information in circulation results in much more personalized multimedia
diets. Even though the forms of consumption overlap, each of us assembles the
set of information received in a totally individualized way. Furthermore, the news
is constantly updated, and linked to other things. Hence, it is an iterative form of
communication. While classic information is clearly outlined in space and time, with
fresh news continually replacing previous stories, digital information is accumulative,
it puts together information that is always easy to retrieve. But, above all, digital
journalism is instantaneous, immediate.
By going beyond a linear vision of the information process, the communication
transmission model based on the central position of the issuer, who vertically ‘fills’
the receiver with contents, is undermined. Carey (1989)—as long as 30 years ago—
preferred the paradigm of the ritual, or sharing, according to which communication
is a symbolic process where reality is produced, consolidated, corrected and trans-
formed. This conception brings out the role of the public sphere as the collective
place where civil society and State come into contact, the place of negotiation and
where identities are compared (Pizzorno 2007). Following this paradigm, the news
is seen less and less as a product and more and more as a process (Robinson 2009),
defined by intense and changing relations with the sources and the public. The digital
environment brings out this tendency precisely because the sources, the public and
the journalists are inextricably interlinked, thanks to the many directions and the
immersive nature of the flows. Everyone takes part in a perennially ongoing commu-
nication game (Hjarvard 2013). The great quantity of news generated, and above all
the forms and ways in which it is divulged make for a less clear distinction between
the function of providing citizens with information so that they can act and take
part in political life, and the function of formulating the knowledge of a public of
consumers in order to entertain them, aiming more at their emotional involvement
(Hanitzsch and Vos 2018).
Moreover, all one has to do is speak to any journalist about his or her day-to-day
activities to hear how, now, a journalist’s work is not finished when pressing send to
publish an article, as was the case in the past. Now, instead, it is just beginning, owing
to the possibility/need to follow the piece through the myriad channels that it will
follow, in the variety of appropriate languages that each of these channels requires.

4 How to Legitimate a New Information Pact

Such a far-reaching redefinition of practices is reflected on the relations between

the various social actors in the negotiation. As many studies on participatory news
have been claiming for some time (Deuze et al. 2007; Heinrich 2011), the crux lies
in the progressive modification of the elements making up the relationship between
192 L. Solito and C. Sorrentino

the institution of journalism and the citizens. But if the nature of the pact changes,
the presuppositions upon which this pact is defined have to change too. In other
words, there is a change in the basis legitimating journalism as an authoritative insti-
tution identifying the events, topics and subjects towards which the public opinion’s
attention is to be directed.
Traditionally, journalistic legitimation has been twofold. First of all, the journalist
guaranteed the truth of what was being claimed through verification activities (Tong
2018), one of the central elements of journalistic work. Think of the great deal of
above all Anglo-Saxon literature identifying which operating procedures can elevate
the journalist’s work, such as the use of objectivity and impartiality. Tellingly defined
as strategic rituals (Tuchman 1973; Schudson 1978), since they are followed by infor-
mation professionals precisely to guarantee their lack of ties to their interlocutors:
the sources but above all the public. As Kovach and Rosenstiel (2001) efficiently
summed up: the method, not the journalist, is objective. These rituals were formal-
ized with the precise aim of safeguarding the journalists’ freedom of action, but also
the ways in which this freedom was guaranteed. It was an objectivization of everyday
professional practices necessary to guarantee the credibility of journalism.
In addition, journalism has always been acknowledged as having another distinct
aspect: that is, to rank or define the level of significance of an event, a topic or a
particular social actor. By establishing priorities, journalism also defines the degree
of public interest in every piece of news. Of course, as mediological research has
recognized for decades now, the journalistic system negotiates with many other social
actors when carrying out this action. Nevertheless, recognizable and recognized
standards have been established over time. Indeed, the concept of mediatization
derives precisely from the growing relevance attributed to the operating modes used
by the journalistic institution.
Verifying and ranking were two significant sides of journalistic legitimation.
Thanks to the identification of procedures which have become consolidated over
time, they came—undisputedly—to embody credibility standards for the verification
activities, as well as establishing—through the quantity of space and time attributed
to a piece of news—what the public opinion should know. But we also need to
consider the way in which these activities were carried out. According to Carl-
son (2017), at length the legitimation of the credibility and authority of journalism
resided in the capacity to guarantee a public service whose hierarchical nature was
ensured by exclusivity. It was necessary to build a third place between the sources and
users which could define and certify which events were of public interest (McQuail
2013). The journalistic procedures responded to a widespread need to recognize
institutionalized practices for confirming the truth and significance of a news story.
Hence, the validity of these operating procedures derived from their necessity.
But it was this same process that favoured the transformation of journalism into
something more than the belt conveying news from a source to the public. Indeed,
deciding what to discharge onto this conveyor belt or what to transport on it more
frequently and quickly, gave journalism a central function in defining the priorities
and highlighting which topics to put to the discussion of public opinion.
New Forms of Journalistic Legitimization in the Digital … 193

This function worked so long as the other points in the negotiation had few possi-
bilities of directly coming into contact with each other and so journalism was able to
preserve that hierarchical priority mentioned earlier. But the digital revolution made
the boundaries between the roles of the various actors in the journalistic negotia-
tion more movable. Suffice it to think how the growing distribution of news through
search engines and social networks is completely redefining journalism’s central task
of ‘shaping information’, that is, assembling the entire body of information worthy
of making the news. Now, instead, single pieces of news emerge one by one, minute
by minute, all connected together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Thus, journal-
ism is progressively losing its monopoly on the production and divulgation of news,
which formed the basis of its authority, and acceptance of the legitimacy of its modus
operandi (Tong 2018).
But, in this way, the distinction between information and communication—based
on two significant presuppositions: the centrality of the facts and their truthfulness—
is becoming blurred.
In journalism (in the same way as in common language), we refer to facts as
given entities. The Latin etymology of the word, however, points to something that
has been made, from the verb facere, to make, underlining the processual nature
of building the action present in every fact (Knorr Cetina 1981). It is indeed the
journalist’s job to verify the givenness of the ‘fact’, which translates into checking
the doubtlessness of that ‘fact’. Journalistic verification not only attributes the label
that something ‘really happened’, but also that it is relevant and of public interest
based on a solid agreement as to the meaning to attribute to the ‘fact’, that is, the degree
of stabilization achieved at the social level from the interpretations built up around
it (Lorusso 2018). Infant mortality is an ‘intolerable fact’ in our societies where it
has been progressively reduced until its near disappearance. Instead, it still appears
a ‘natural fact’ in situations where it is an everyday occurrence. Consequently, the
death of a child has a higher degree of newsworthiness depending on the context
where it happens, depending on its exceptionality. The death of a child is definitely
a ‘fact’, but in itself it does not become news. It becomes news when consensus is
achieved over its significance.
In the journalist’s professional examination, the information is certified both as to
the indubitability of the ‘fact’ and its relevance and degree of public interest. Instead,
communication is seen as the self-interested promotion by any social actor of a ‘fact’,
often linked to the desire to persuade.
These prerogatives are lost if journalism’s productive monopoly and, as a con-
sequence, in part also the function of defining what is newsworthy are lost. Facts
are assembled, distributed and used in a spatially and temporally defined set—the
6 o’clock news or the morning newspaper—less and less. They become a constant
flow brought to our attention—especially through the Internet—by individuals linked
together in ways that are no longer defined—or at least no longer solely defined—by
journalistic mediation (Deuze and Witschge 2018).
As a consequence, it becomes more difficult to stabilize their meaning because,
by involving a greater number of actors, the shape and substance of the process to
negotiate these meanings changes.
194 L. Solito and C. Sorrentino

The fragmentation of the distribution processes and the segmentation of the

publics negatively affect the consensus, making more unstable and exposed to con-
tinuous upsets (Marini 2017) the role attributed by McLuhan to the media, namely,
being at the origin of common sense (Gili and Maddalena 2017), meant as a dynamic
process aimed at underpinning the social requirement to make comprehensible and
familiar that which is not (Santambrogio 2006). Those information bubbles (Pariser
2011) in which we all enclose ourselves expand, those bubbles where we obtain
reassurances on reality through narrations that are culturally closest to us (Sunstein
2001) get bigger.
What McNair (2006) defines as cultural chaos consists precisely of the messages’
lacking a single direction, thrown into an overcrowded field of communication where
lower entry barriers multiply the newsworthiness of events, subjects and topics,
promoting a richer but also more confused public discourse (Bennett and Pfetsch
2018). At the same time, the timing of the production, distribution and use of this
news merge more and more into de-spatialized instantaneousness (Thompson 1995).
The term chaos appears particularly effective because it contrasts with the concept
of control, which is central to the institutionalization of journalism as a place for
identifying what is significant and to be shared. Indeed, the terms most used to
define journalism and journalists—respectively ‘fourth estate’ and ‘gatekeeper’—
are based on selection and simplification processes precisely for the purpose of
control. Whether acting in agreement with the political and economic powers-that-
be, perhaps in a manner underlining its subordination, or contrasting with them,
according to the logics of watchdog journalism, journalism nevertheless decides
what to safeguard and what to let go. It is control work which substantiates that
hierarchical tendency recalled by Carlson (2017); however, to again take up McNair,
it is destructured from the current chaos, which potentially allows everyone to enter
the communication arena, not only as a consumer but also as a producer.
The single news items are no longer inserted in their context of signification thanks
to journalistic contextualization, but also through the reading and interpretation on
the part of the sources and the public. The user is not faced with a defined text—
what is written in the newspaper or seen on TV—requiring his or her interpretation,
perhaps by discussing it with fellow users; instead the text in question is in continual
evolution thanks to the immediacy of comments, specifications and contestations,
produced both by the sources of the news and other users. The news becomes an
open resource, as shown by the continual references in journalistic pieces to a whole
variety of different texts.
All users enter the journey along which a news item develops. This participatory
tendency is pliably highlighted by the characteristics of social network communica-
tion: in the same setting we receive news from traditional mainstream journalism, but
we also produce information, mainly aimed at the private circuit of our ‘friends’; nev-
ertheless, it lets us more immediately perceive the dialogical nature of the information
process.
Journalism has historically built its legitimation on the capacity to define and
standardize the process to select, verify and rank the facts to transform into news.
Nevertheless, if the hegemony of a paradigm based on the lasting supremacy of
New Forms of Journalistic Legitimization in the Digital … 195

journalistic procedures is fading (Nerone 2013), it becomes necessary to identify

other bases upon which to conceive of journalistic authority and legitimize its pre-
eminence in recounting reality. These bases must be able to support the loss of the
exclusivity on which journalistic work was founded and the hierarchical restrictions
mentioned earlier, owing to which the news to be made known was transmitted
in a top-down manner. Now the expansion of newsworthiness, which makes the
reconstructive nature of journalistic mediation clearer, but also reveals its bias and
deliberate selectiveness, the destructuring and fragmentation of a hybrid journalistic
system, as well as the horizontal forms of digital distribution give a centrality to other
values underlying the communication pact such as participation and transparency
(Carlson 2017).
However, participation and transparency have not yet been consolidated as unan-
imously defined and accepted procedures, also—and perhaps above all—because
they need the users to be definitively and consciously included in the information
process. Such a cultural evolution is difficult to accept both for the journalists, who
primarily see this process as a progressive devaluation of their professionalism, and
for the public of users, who are not always able to make the most of all the dialogical
opportunities provided by the digital technologies, or are not always interested in
doing so.
It is not a simple evolution because it requires the legitimation of authority not to
be intrinsic to the role, but instead to be played out each time in the role. That concept
of negotiated authority recalled by Giddens (1990), according to which legitimate
authority cannot be recognized merely due to covering a particular social role, but
instead must be conquered in the relationship each time, also extends to journalism.
Authority becomes a dialogical resource that is only defined and consolidated
thanks to the ability to call up several perspectives on every issue, recognizing each
one’s equal dignity. Thus, this highlights the characteristic of journalism as a public
discursive space where it calls up and negotiates with its set of interlocutors. Signifi-
cance is attributed through more complex cognitive journeys, because it results from
the wide variety of proposals, models and values which appear on the social scene.
As is clear for all to see, it is a true revolution that requires a great capacity for
inclusion and openness. However, for time being, this is a long way from being
realized because we are still blocked in a transit phase in which defensive propen-
sities prevail. The journalists, for their part, see their professional identity made
uncertain both owing to the ever greater distrust in their work, and the difficulties of
the traditional business models and the consequent weakening of their consolidated
operating procedures. A similarly cautious attitude can also be seen on part of the
citizens, vaguely aware of their actorship in a journalistic field undergoing great dif-
ferentiation, but still inclined to seek reassurances, mainly guaranteed by enclosing
themselves in their own points of view, relying on definitions of situations that they
most agree with and that mitigate the strong sense of prevailing uncertainty. Forms of
reconstructing reality in line with personal visions of the world, those spoken about
by Cass Sunstein and Eli Pariser in their theories of echo chambers and information
bubbles, continue to predominate.
196 L. Solito and C. Sorrentino

References

Anderson CW, Bell E, Shirky C (2012) Post-industrial journalism: adapting to the present. Tow
Center for Digital Journalism, New York
Bakardjieva KM (2010) The internet and subactivism: cultivating young citizenship in everyday life.
In: Olsson T, Dahlgren P (eds) Young people, ICT’s and democracy: theories, policies, identities
and websites, Nordicom, Göteborg, pp 129–146
Bennett WL, Pfetsch B (2018) Rethinking political communication in a time of disrupted public
spheres. J Commun 68(2):243–253
Benson R, Neveu E (2004) Bourdieu and the journalistic field. Polity Press, New York
Bolter J, Grusin R (1999) Remediation. Understanding new media. MIT Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
Cappella J, Jamieson K (1997) Spiral of cynicism: the press and the public good. Oxford University
Press, New York
Carey J (1989) Communication as culture. Routledge, London
Carlson M (2017) Journalistic authority legitimating news in the digital era. Columbia University
Press, New York
Cartocci R (2007) Mappe del tesoro. Il Mulino, Bologna
Couldry N (2010) Why voice matters. Sage, London
Dahlgren P (2009) Media and political engagement. Citizens, communication and democracy.
Cambridge University Press, New York
Deuze M (2012) Media life. Polity Press, Malden
Deuze M (2015) What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidere.
Journalism 16(4):442–464
Deuze M, Bruns A, Neuberger C (2007) Preparing for an age of participatory new. Journal Pract
3(1):322–338
Deuze M, Witschge T (2018) Beyond journalism: theorizing the transformation of journalism.
Journalism 19(2):165–181
Giddens A (1990) The consequences of modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge
Gili G, Maddalena M (2017) Chi ha paura della post-verità. Marietti, Genova
Hall S et al (1978) Policing the crisis: mugging, the state and law and order. Macmillan, London
Hanitzsch T, Vos TP (2018) Journalism beyond democracy: a new look into journalistic roles in
political and everyday life. Journalism 19(2):146–164
Hjarvard S (2013) The mediatization of culture and society. Routledge, New York
Heinrich A (2011) Network journalism: journalistic practice in interactive spheres. Routledge,
London
Kovach B, Rosenstiel T (2001) The elements of journalism: what news people should know and
the public should expect. Three Rivers Press, New York
Knorr Cetina K (1981) The manufacture of knowledge. An essay on the constructivist and contextual
nature of science. Pergamon, New York
Lorusso AM (2018) Postverità. Laterza, Bari-Roma
Mancini P (2013) Media fragmentation, party system and democracy. Int J Press/Polit 18(1):43–60
Marini R (2017) Potere dei media, interdipendenza tra poteri e pluralismo dell’informazione.
Problemi dell’informazione 42(1):3–30
Marshall TH (1950) Citizenship and social class: and other essays. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge
McQuail D (2013) Journalism and society. Sage, London
McNair B (2006) Cultural chaos, journalism, news and power in a globalized world. Routledge,
London
McNair B (2018) From control to chaos, and back again. Journal Stud 19(1):499–511
Nerone J (2013) The historical roots of the normative model of journalism. Journalism 14(4):446–
458
New Forms of Journalistic Legitimization in the Digital … 197

Norris P (1999) Critical citizens: global support for democratic government. Oxford University
Press, Oxford
Pariser E (2011) The filter bubble: what the internet is hiding from you. Penguin Press, New York
Peters C, Broesma M (2013) Rethinking journalism. Trust and participation in a transformed news
landscape. Routledge, London
Pizzorno A (2007) Il velo della diversità. Feltrinelli, Milano
Putnam RD (2000) Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community. Simon and
Schuster, New York
Riegert K (2007) Politicotainment: television’s take on the real. Peter Lang Publishers, New York
Robinson S (2009) Journalism as process: the organizational implications of participatory online
news. Journalism and Communication Monographs 13(2):137–210
Rodotà S (2013) Iperdemocrazia. Come cambia la sovranità democratica con il web, Laterza,
Bari-Roma
Rosanvallon P (2006) La contro-democratie à l’age de la defiance. Seuil, Paris
Santambrogio A (2006) Il senso comune. Laterza, Bari-Roma
Schudson M (1978) Discovering the news. A social history of American newspaper. Basic Books,
New York
Schudson M (1996) The good citizen. A history of American civic life. The Free Press, New York
Singer JB (2018) Transmission creep. Media effects theories and journalism studies in a digital era.
Journal Stud 19(2):209–226
Sorrentino C (2006) Il campo giornalistico. Carocci, Roma
Sunstein C (2001) Echo chambers: Bush V. Gore, impeachment, and beyond. Princeton University
Press, Princeton
Thompson M (1995) The media and modernity. a social theory of the media. Stanford University
Press, Stanford
Tong J (2018) Journalistic legitimacy revisited digital. Journalism 6(2):256–273
Tuchman G (1973) Making news by doing work: routinizing the unexpected. Am J Sociol 79(1):110–
131

Laura Solito Ph.D in Sociology at University of Pisa, she is Associate Professor in Sociologia
della Comunicazione since 2007 at the University of Florence, Department of Social and Political
Sciences. Since 2015 she has been Vice-President of Communication and Public Engagement in
the University of Florence. Her main fields of research are on the role of communication in the
public administration and especially in the production and management of services and on new
forms of citizenship favored by digital communication.

Carlo Sorrentino Ph.D in Sociology at University of Florence, he is Full Professor in Sociologia

dei processi culturali since 2011 at the University of Florence, Department of Social and Political
Sciences. His main field of research is Journalism studies and in the last years he is investigat-
ing on the role of journalism in the trasformation of the public sphere. He is editor of the journal
Problemi dell’informazione edited by Il Mulino.
From Meta-Journalism
and Post-Journalism to Total Journalism

Xosé López-García, Alba Silva-Rodríguez, Sabela Direito-Rebollal

and Jorge Vázquez-Herrero

Some evidence provided by the transition to the network society

and the arrival of the disruption announced by the Internet of
Things and the smart automation.

Abstract Journalism is facing challenges introduced by the network society with

strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, it is the legacy of more than a century
and a half that offers multiple evidence of its social utility for receiving trustworthy
news, generating knowledge, and achieving a better operation of plural and demo-
cratic societies. On the other hand, a loss of credibility, difficulties to show their
contribution within a context dominated by confusion and unfounded rumours, and
the multiplication of problems to guarantee sustainability of media investing in qual-
ity journalistic projects. But journalism is still alive and it remains at the heart of
social debates within the present turbulent context. In order to guarantee its conti-
nuity in the digital era, characterized by disruptive changes and a communication
metamorphosis in various stages, journalism is looking for its reinvention without
sacrificing the essentials: telling, explaining and interpreting what is happening in
society, using techniques and tools to guarantee veracity.

Keywords Total journalism · Digital media · Technology · Journalism

X. López-García · A. Silva-Rodríguez (B) · S. Direito-Rebollal · J. Vázquez-Herrero

Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
X. López-García
e-mail: [email protected]
S. Direito-Rebollal
e-mail: [email protected]
J. Vázquez-Herrero
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 199

J. Vázquez-Herrero et al. (eds.), Journalistic Metamorphosis,
Studies in Big Data 70, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36315-4_15
200 X. López-García et al.

1 Introduction

The history of journalism is full of lights. The Watergate was one of the most shocking
investigations due to the relevance of the case and the consequences—the resignation
of the president of the main world power—. Journalism has also its shadows, such
as the fake news disseminated in the last decades of the twentieth century and the
beginning of the twenty-first century by two reference media. The Washington Post
published the report Jimmy’s World by Janet Cooke, that won a Pulitzer and was
withdrawn because the kid did not exist, and The New York Times published 36 fake
articles written by one of its young figures, Jayson Blair. These were not the only
cases: a photographer from Los Angeles Times retouched one of his photos from
the Iraq War to add dramatism to the scene; the columnist Foster Williams, from
The Wall Street Journal, was convicted for having sold privileged information. But
maybe those were the most striking of journalism between the centuries, one of its
golden times, which served to feed a permanent debate on the verification of news
and to reflect on the limits between reality and fiction when telling stories and the
compliance with the codes of conduct of journalism.
Long before, the Muckrakers—waste trackers—, called contemptuously in 1906
by the North-American president Theodore Roosevelt, wrote glorious pages of inves-
tigative journalism. At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the
twentieth century, a group of professionals prepared to tell stories about injustice
and corruption started a needed path: the complaint (Campos González 2015). Their
example was followed by other professionals that discovered and explained relevant
facts, which were illustrated with the Watergate and the path opened by WikiLeaks,
with documents’ leaks containing reserved and relevant information for the public
interest, exploited by journalists to explain transcendent stories.
The list of great investigative reporters has also proper names in Europe, among
them Gunter Wallraff, ‘the undesirable journalist’, who lived one year as an immi-
grant in his own country, Germany, to write about abuses and the racist treat with
Turkish. Also, the French Edwy Plenel produced research reports during the presi-
dency of François Miterrand, talking about the role of the president and French secret
services in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of the ecologist orga-
nization Greenpeace, at the port of Auckland in New Zealand. Also, he discovered
the hidden details of the bonds between Gadafi and Sarkozy during the presidency
of the latter and also during the term of François Hollande. He discovered foreign
undeclared accounts that resulted in the resignation of the minister Jerôme Cahyzac.
Prominent positions are also occupied by the Italian Fabrizio Gatti—specialized in
immigration topics—, the Spanish Xavier Vinader, Manuel Cerdán and Mar Cabra.
In the last few years, networks of investigative journalists have emerged, such as the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a US-based non-profit
global network which has the purpose to provide investigative journalists around the
world with resources. A group of European journalists belong to the network.
Journalism has shown, throughout its history, its relevant role to feed plural and
informed societies. It continues to be the most established and widespread way of
From Meta-Journalism and Post-Journalism to Total Journalism 201

society to generate and combine knowledge in all areas of life (Godler et al. 2018).
However, its contributions do not prevent the multiplication of criticism due to its
weaknesses and mistakes, and its presence in debated on stable and sustainable
models of democratic and plural societies beyond the known standards in countries
that have reached a greater development and a better rating of its own citizens and
foreigners.

2 The First Great Turnover

Since the middle of the twentieth century, on the basis of experiences and within
changing social contexts, journalism started a transformation process with different
movements that introduced new narrative ways and renewed techniques and dimen-
sions to produce information. The stronger movement started in the North-American
journalism, which had positioned itself as dominant in many countries. But there
were signs of change in the same direction from many countries—even before the
emergence of a new journalism with the brand USA—, including the Argentinian
Rodolfo Walsh with its Operación masacre, and the Spanish Manuel Chaves Nogales
with Juan Belmonte: matador de toros and A sangre y fuego. The common thread
was the application of resources from literature to the non-fiction story, with reno-
vated ways within the old coexistence between journalism and literature throughout
history (Cuartero Naranjo 2017).
In the second half of the twentieth century, it was generated a social, political
and economic context which boosted the explosion of journalism. There was an
important development of mass media in the majority of countries around us, and
technologically-mediated communication acquired a main role in the functioning
of societies (Mompart et al. 1999). This scenario and the situation in the USA,
characterized by great cultural and social changes, led to the birth of the so-called
‘new journalism’, of which Tom Wolfe made the first anthology (Wolfe and Johnson
1973). The relation between journalism and literature was exploited by a group of
North-American professionals—Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Gay
Talese, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, among others—to tell present facts using
literary resources, that is, in the domain of the factual word (Chillón 2014).
In the second half of the second millennium, another journalistic trend emerged
in the United States: precision journalism. Due to the contributions from computing
and databases, together with the methodological techniques provided by science, it
advocated a new method for producing pieces of news. The search for techniques
that allow journalists to offer stories containing more evidence and guaranteeing
trustworthiness was a challenge for Professor Philip Meyer, who wrote the first
essay on the new journalistic trend that created and nourished with his proposals
(Meyer 1973). Precision journalism aims at producing pieces of news based on
empirical data collected and verified using scientific methods of socio-statistics and
computing research (Dader 1995). Computing entered in journalistic practices to
202 X. López-García et al.

support processes of narrative renewal and to provide more scientific soundness in

the construction of stories than what happens in society.
Further, dimensions were also added, introducing the service journalism, civic
journalism and solution journalism, among other trends. The result in the twenti-
eth century was the inclusion of tools and the renovation of techniques that have
oxygenated the professional practice and have provided vitamins to face challenges
of market competence among the main media (press, radio and television), while
responding to the demands of sectors of the citizenry.

3 The Digital Revolution

The turn of the century between the second and the third millennium has been marked
by relevant debates in the profession, while the Internet advanced in its develop-
ment with the Web and the digital transition of the media was entering the network
society. We refer to a relatively quickly process. In March 2014, 25 years after Tim
Berners-Lee drafted the document that defined the World Wide Web and the hypertext
protocol (HTTP), most of printed media were already online, transferring contents
and exploring possibilities without having clear goals. Thanks to the Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT) and innovation programs, both the media
and the news uses and consumption initiated a quick and permanent reconfiguration
process that radically changed the ecosystem in communication.
Legacy and digital native media opened up an own path where hypertextuality,
multimediality and interactivity emerged as distinctive and characteristic features of
the new online media or cybermedia. This created the conditions for the emergence
of cyber journalism as an area of specialization in journalism that uses cyberspace to
investigate, produce and, above all, spread news contents (Salaverría 2005). Despite
the so-called crisis of the ‘dotcom’ in the beginning of the third millennium, in the
second decade of the twenty first century, online media redefined their strategies
while the Web 2.0 was emerging. It refers to the second generation of the Internet,
with the social Web and an extensive list of resources and practices to help users
socialize contents and explore options for active audiences.
The adaption and transformation process from traditional media to the new digital
formats and interfaces, “far from constructing a simple technical adjustment, has
contributed to a gradual transformation of the media and their audiences” (Peña-
Fernández et al. 2016). Within that complex and diverse transformation process,
changes and renovations of narrative techniques occurred, using old and new tools.
The result has been, despite the economic crisis in 2008 and the adaption problems
and transformations of the media, a breeding ground for innovation in journalism,
in the search for new ways to tell stories, to build user confidence in the news and
eventually to define an own space within a context full of noise and fake news.
From Meta-Journalism and Post-Journalism to Total Journalism 203

4 The Second Great Turnover

The digital impact on journalism encouraged answers to challenges brought by cur-

rent technologies and their social appropriation by citizens. The changing scenario,
both in society and in the communication arena, motivated the emergence of a sec-
ond great renovation. It was digital and it was fed by dimensions provided by daily
creativity and the models sponsored by large technology companies and device man-
ufacturers. In the midst of dramatic changes, and without much time to reflect, new
formats and expressive modalities to tell non-fiction stories arose.
Data-based techniques, virtual reality and expanded stories using different means
and channels entered into force and initiated paths of model exploration and consoli-
dation. Data journalism is being implemented in the media with own space (Ferreras
Rodríguez 2014). This trend is complemented with news pieces made by specific
teams created to encourage this professional practice. The growing relevance of Big
Data in the network society has opened up a new path that journalism profession-
als, with interdisciplinary teams, face with good results in the media all over the
world. Although the main experiences are in North-American media, today it is a
consolidated trend among the world top media.
The boom of the virtual reality, with relevant campaigns for the introduction
on the market of devices at affordable prices, has also reached journalism, where
immersive experiences are currently a trend in the main media outlets. Immersive
journalism, whose narratives are based on 360 recording techniques, virtual reality
and 3D enable the receiver to feel closer to the news scenario, as he experiences a
spatial and sensorial immersion that allows him to feel ‘being there’—also known
as presence—(Pérez Seijo and López-García 2017). Although these techniques pose
ethical challenges to professionals, their contributions have found a place in some
of the major media outlets and there are relevant labs that encouraged them, both in
media and technological companies.
Under the wing of convergence and the evolution of the network society, the trans-
media model, with its techniques and expanded narratives, encouraged a new dimen-
sion for journalism. The production of fractionated news pieces for their dissemi-
nation through multiple platforms using extended stories has become a widespread
method to face challenges in the media ecosystem of the third millennium. These
narratives have proven themselves to be a successful formula to bring the creative
effort of different contents together, to generate involvement of the fandom and to
increase channels to make the project profitable (Costa 2013). While its main success
lies in fiction narratives, transmedia storytelling has initiated a journey in non-fiction
stories and the media are progressively testing experiences.
Online media find in interactive non-fiction an appropriate place for the develop-
ment of stories and, little by little, adopt new interactive and hybrid ways to face the
challenge of the Internet and to meet the needs of more active and permanently con-
nected audiences (Vázquez-Herrero et al. 2017). All the available data show this is a
proper path to follow, although there are a lot of dimensions to explore and there is
a need of renewed formulas to improve efficiency in communication and connection
with users.
204 X. López-García et al.

Legacy from the past and new experiences advised the creation of labs to exper-
iment models and formats in order to provide more added value to users and to
successfully compete in the network society, where spaces are highly contested. The
labs were consolidated as a way for innovation in the media, with different models to
face an adverse scenario (Salaverría 2015). This challenge has created an excellent
breeding ground to convert labs into an emerging trend for cybermedia and the area
of communication.
These labs, most of them established as of 2010, work in innovation. Meanwhile,
two projects under construction in the scenario of the network society encourage new
dimensions for communication and journalism: the Internet of Things and the smart
automation. When the 5G mobile technology knocks at the door, transformations
in the communication ecosystem will progress with greater strength and offering
symptoms of the conquest of unexplored territories.

5 Total Journalism

Renovations experienced by journalism in the second and the third millennium have
brought assets for providing more added value and more benefits for citizens. In order
to take advantage of all those contributions and those to come from labs created by
many media to encourage innovation, the Internet of Things and the smart automation,
it is necessary to design total journalism projects, a name chosen to put the spotlight
on the reinvention of the journalism and the result of transformation processes in the
years since the early 2000s. In other words, we should understand total journalism
as that renewed practice which expresses using multimediality, hypertextuality and
interactivity, traditional journalism—raw—adapted to the present society, which uses
data, immersive and transmedia techniques, among others, and which guarantees the
truthfulness of information and the performance on differential values for users.
From this conceptual approach, when analysing the future of journalism and the
future journalism, we need to answer basic questions. Firstly, what are the elements
that remain from traditional journalism, modern journalism—cultivated for more
than a century and a half—and inherited journalism? Secondly, what has changed
in journalistic precepts, in processes of social institutionalization, in citizens’ partic-
ipation—in processes of news-contents co-elaboration—, in social precepts and in
the own conception of journalists?
As a starting point and in schematic form, with the data available from the analysis
of current journalistic trends and from the result of the two great and recent renova-
tions, referred in the first part of this chapter, we can affirm that the basic elements
of journalism have not changed. Contemporary journalism is a social communica-
tion technique that bases its activity in the production of trustworthy and useful
information for society, using different techniques and platforms. Its main goal is to
provide reliable information—so verification is one of the essential points (Kovach
and Rosenstiel 2007)—which citizens need to intervene in society, in social, political
and economic processes.
From Meta-Journalism and Post-Journalism to Total Journalism 205

It belongs to society and it is within it; thus, it changes with society too. And,
in the new media environment, where most of social players and a lot of citizens
produce contents, it has to offer pieces with added value.
However, there are also moves. What has changed? There are multiple evidence
of the metamorphosis of journalism in the last decades. Journalism has experienced
constant transformations throughout the history and these have been accelerated since
the popularization of the Internet, the Web, the social Web and the development of
current technologies. Tools have changed, but also the way we use and consume
news within a context of overabundance of information. Connectivity and mobility
have created a new scenario, with a renewed communicative ecosystem, updated
techniques and many challenges. The transition of traditional media has not ended,
and digital native media have tried to break rules to get a foothold in the contemporary
ecosystem.
Changes in the network society led to changes in the social perception on the role of
journalists and the media, after successive processes of loss of credibility. Unfounded
rumours and all we group around the concept of post-truth, are the finishing touch to
this discredit, which is also an opportunity. Hence, tools, techniques, social perception
and the own vision of journalists on their role have changed.

6 In Conclusion

Specialization has provided a lot of answers to challenges in last years, both as

regards topics, technology and narrative. For this reason, as a result of advances and
evidence provided by journalism’s innovation labs—technological, communication
companies and so on—, the establishment of integrated packages for the journalism
practice is imposed.
In order to apply integrated packages in the training of journalists, in works
on media literacy—educommunication—and in research itself, they should contain
attention to changes in mobile and connected society, attention to new processes
of uses and consumptions—channels and themes—, attention to the renovation of
techniques, etc.
However, which practices should be prioritized nowadays? We should mention:
data journalism, immersive journalism, multimedia and multi-format narratives,
transmedia narratives, verification techniques (fact-checking) and semi-automated
systems. As well as we should include: resources to respond to new challenges
through the creation of international research networks, the creation of specialized
networks and collaboration mechanisms, encouragement of journalism’s innovation
labs and educommunication programs.
Within this context, in the 2020s, we should go beyond occasional names to
analyze changes, such as meta-journalism—writing about what we do beyond/after
journalism—and post-journalism—which assumed the role of journalism from the
twentieth century, after journalism from the industrial era—. The conceptual turn
goes towards total journalism as a way to bring together the inherited—perceptive,
206 X. López-García et al.

reflections and research on that perceptive and professional practice—, things that
emerged in that first transition stage to the digital scenario, after that industrial jour-
nalism, and the knowledge provided by the scientific community during decades.
Thus, journalism could be able to offer a set of techniques, within the frame of vari-
ous trends, movements and ways to understand journalism, more solid and efficient
to produce trustworthy pieces of news.
The proper use of accumulated scientific knowledge in the field and the application
of renewed techniques, in the successive historical stages and specially in the last
stage, are an excellent antidote for journalism to offer quality information and to
contribute to fight for misinformation that is taking possession of renewed spaces of
the communicative ubiquity in the network society. That is, we should apply total
journalism within a sustainable context, and then we will contribute to a better-
informed society.

Acknowledgements This article has been developed within the research project Digital native
media in Spain: storytelling formats and mobile strategy (RTI2018-093346-B-C33) funded by
Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Government of Spain) and co-funded by the ERDF
structural fund, as well as it is part of the activities promoted by Novos Medios research group
(ED431B 2017/48), supported by Xunta de Galicia. The author Sabela Direito-Rebollal is a benefi-
ciary of the Faculty Training Program funded by the Ministry of Science, Universities and Innovation
(FPU15/02557), as well as Jorge Vázquez-Herrero (FPU15/00334).

References

Campos González V (2015) ¡Extra, extra!: Muckrakers, orígenes del periodismo de denuncia. Ariel,
Barcelona
Costa C (2013) Narrativas Transmedia Nativas: Ventajas, elementos de la planificación de un
proyecto audiovisual transmedia y estudio de caso. Historia y Comunicación Social 18:561–574
Cuartero Naranjo A (2017) El concepto de Nuevo Periodismo y su encaje en las prácticas
periodísticas narrativas en España. Doxa Comunicación 25:43–62
Chillón A (2014) La palabra fáctica. Literatura, periodismo y comunicación. Colección Aldea
Global, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Universitat Jaume I, Universitat Pompeu Fabra,
Universitat de València, Barcelona
Dader JL (1995) Periodismo de precisión: la observación matemática de la actualidad. In: El-Mir
AJ, Balbuena F (eds) Manual de periodismo. Universidad de Las Palmas, Prensa Ibérica, Las
Palmas
Ferreras Rodríguez EM (2014) El periodismo de datos en España. Estudios sobre el Mensaje
Periodístico 22(1):255–272
Godler Y, Reich Z, Miller B (2018) Social epistemology as a new paradigm for journalism and
media studies. New Media and Society [Online first, 20 December]
Mompart Gómez, Marín JLl, Otto E (1999) La irrupción de la información televisiva y la influencia
del periodismo singular. In: Mompart Gómez, Marín Otto E JLl (eds) Historia del periodismo
universal. Editorial Síntesis, Madrid
Kovach B, Rosenstiel T (2007) The elements of journalism. Three Rivers Press, New York
Meyer P (1973) The precisión journalism. Indiana University Press, Bloomington
Peña-Fernández S, Lazkano-Arrillaga I, García-González D (2016) La transición digital de los
diarios europeos: nuevos productos y nuevas audiencias. Comunicar 46(24):27–36
From Meta-Journalism and Post-Journalism to Total Journalism 207

Pérez Seijo S, López-García X (2017) Periodismo inmersivo y radiotelevisiones públicas europeas:

comparativa de las aplicaciones móviles de consumo inmersivo de no ficción. In: Herrero J, Trenta
M (eds) El fin de un modelo de política. Cuadernos Artesanos de Comunicación 129. Sociedad
Latina de Comunicación Social, Tenerife
Salaverría R (2005) Redacción periodística en Internet. EUNSA, Pamplona
Salaverría R (2015) Los labs como fórmula de innovación en los medios. El Profesional de la
Información 24(4):397–404
Vázquez-Herrero J, Negreira-Rey M-C, Pereira-Fariña X (2017) Contribuciones del documental
interactivo a la renovación de las narrativas periodísticas: realidades y desafíos. Revista Latina
de Comunicación Social 72:397–414. https://doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2017-1171
Wolfe T, Johnson EW (1973) The new journalism. Harper and Row, New York

Xosé López-García Professor of Journalism at Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC),

Ph.D in History and Journalism (USC). He coordinates the Novos Medios research group. Among
his research lines there is the study of digital and printed media, analysis of the impact of tech-
nology in mediated communication, analysis of the performance of cultural industries, and the
combined strategy of printed and online products in the society of knowledge.

Alba Silva-Rodríguez Associate Professor of Journalism at the Department of Communication

Sciences at Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. She is Ph.D. in Journalism and Member
of Novos Medios research group. She is secretary of the RAEIC journal. As a researcher she
focuses on the assessment of digital communication, especially the study of mediated conversation
in social media and the evolution of media contents in mobiles devices.

Sabela Direito-Rebollal Ph.D. Candidate at Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC). She

holds a Degree in Audiovisual Communication (USC), a Master’s Degree in Communication and
Creative Industries (USC) and a Degree in Movie and TV Script from the Madrid Film Insti-
tute. She was visiting scholar at the University of Hull (United Kingdom) and the Vrije Univer-
siteit Brussel (Belgium). Her research focuses on innovation, audience trends and programming
strategies of European public service media.

Jorge Vázquez-Herrero Ph.D. in Communication, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

(USC). He is a Member of Novos Medios research group (USC) and the Latin-American Chair of
Transmedia Narratives (ICLA–UNR, Argentina). He was visiting scholar at Universidad Nacional
de Rosario, Universidade do Minho, University of Leeds and Tampere University. His research
focuses on digital interactive non-fiction digital storytelling—mainly interactive documentary—,
micro-formats and transmedia, immersive and interactive narratives in online media.