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The Harbingers project, which studied the working lives and scholarly communication behaviour of early career researchers (ECRs) over 6 years, found evidence of changing attitudes to questionable (grey) publishing. Thus, whilst predatory publishers have come to be treated with equanimity, as a problem easily dealt with, there was growing concern with the high volume of low-grade research being generated, some of which by 'grey' open access publishers for want of a better name (questionable and non-standard have also been used). With the recent announcement (2023) that the government of Malaysia (a Harbinger case country) is not providing Article Processing Charges (APCs) for articles published by MDPI, Frontiers and Hindawi on quality and cost grounds, we set out to see what lay behind this decision and whether other countries exhibited similar concerns. Information was obtained by asking Harbinger country leads, mostly embedded in research universities, from Australia, China, France, Israel, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, UK, and the US to conduct desk research to establish what is happening. It was found that countries, like ECRs, appear to have formed into two different camps, with China, Poland, France, and Spain joining Malaysia in the camp of those who felt concerned about these publishers and the UK, US, Israel, and Australia belonging to the camp of the unconcerned. Explanations for the split are furnished and whether the Malaysian position will prevail elsewhere is considered. Finally, in this paper, we have aired issues/concerns, rather than provided robust, systematic data. For a systematic study we shall have to wait for the fuller study we are hoping to conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Scholarly monographs provide a good example to show the evolution of the impact that digital publishing has had over the last few decades in the transmission and communication of scientific information. On the one hand, in the area of Social Sciences and Humanities relevance in quantitative terms has been undermined, giving prominence to other document types such as research papers published in academic journals. Moreover, their visibility and accessibility have been conditioned by a number of factors that form an intrinsic part of the digital medium itself. Based on these two fundamental premises, this paper aims to analyze only the situation of scholarly monographs in institutional systems for research assessment and tenure, from the perspective of the various proposed requirements regarding accreditation for the different figures of university teaching staff and the request for Spanish recognition of six-year research periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After two-years of talking to around 170 early career science/social science researchers from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US about their work life and scholarly communications during the pandemic, the Harbingers-2 project is in possession of a mountain of verbatim data. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the kinds of comments ECRs are raising, with a focus on those that provide a particular interesting and illuminating take on ECRs' experiences under difficult times. Comments, for instance, that might challenge the established order of things or that presage big changes down the line. The selection of comments presented here were made by the national interviewers shortly after the completion of the last of three rounds of interviews (two interviews in the case of Russia). The understandings, appreciations and suggestions thus raised by the ECRs are insightful and constructive, which is what we might have expected from this cohort who are very much at the forefront of the research enterprise and veritable research workhorses. Sixteen broad scholarly topics are represented by quotes/comments, with the main focus of the comments on a subset of these: research performance and assessment, scholarly communication transformations, networking and collaboration, social media and access to information/libraries, which suggests, perhaps, where the action, concerns and interest mainly lie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Around 170 early career researchers (ECRs) from 8 countries were interviewed about the whole range of their scholarly communication attitudes/behaviours during pandemic times and this paper analyses what they said about predatory journals in a wide range of scholarly communication contexts. Because of the delicacy of the topic there was just one question exclusively directed at predatory journals, which asked about policies rather than actions, which yielded nevertheless wide-ranging comments on the topic. ECRs also volunteered information on predatory journals in another half dozen questions, most notably including one on questionable research practices. The source of data was mainly the final interview of three undertaken, with some comparisons made to rounds one and two. Findings disclose the existence of a whole raft of formal and informal assessment policies/codes that direct ECRs to legitimate journals and away from predatory ones. Despite being junior, ECRs are very accultured to the criteria of what is considered as prestige and quality and believe predatory publishing is not even conceivable. They are far more concerned about low-quality research, preprints and borderline 'grey' journals. The pandemic has increased the level of questionable practices and low-quality research, but predatory journals were only singled out by a relatively small number of ECRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes an important contribution to comparative research by examining data journalism in Spain and Austria. This paper examines the practice of data journalism from a triple perspective: (a) the common features of day-to-day work, (b) the organizational structure and the role of the teams in newsrooms, and (c) the obstacles to and the future of data-driven reporting. Results from content analysis of data-driven news stories in El país and Der standard (N = 136) show differences and similarities in the covered topics, sources, narrative style, visualizations, interactive functions, and levels of transparency. Interestingly, only 36.8% of the analyzed news stories correspond to the normative expectations of transparency by incorporating both sources and methodological details. While the Spanish newspaper shows significantly higher levels of transparency compared with the Austrian newspaper, both newspapers perform very similarly when it comes to providing access to raw data, which was the case in only every fifth news story analyzed. Findings from focused interviews with the heads of data journalism teams deliver interesting insights into specific challenges that each news outlet is facing when creating day-to-day data-driven news stories. This research confirms the relevance that data journalism has achieved in countries such as Spain and demonstrates the effort of journalists in countries without access to information and transparency laws to create data-driven stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convictions of political corruption depend on public communication, since for citizens, to perceive deviant behaviours, these must receive attention. In Spain, this type of behaviour is part of the agendas of citizens, media, and politicians and, to fight against it, accountability is essential. In addition to the judiciary and legislature (in their oversight role), the media and social media help voters, MPs and others to make informed decisions and press for action. However, the interrelationships between different agents, types, and forms of control for accountability are a rather unexplored research topic, especially when considering non-accountable institutions (those that have power, but are not directly accountable to the electorate, such as the monarchy). The debate on the inviolability of the emeritus presents a perfect scenario to describe what formulas and what kind of sanctions (legal, labour, reputational or personal) for accountability have occurred in Spain in the case of a non-accountable institution. This study explores the agendas of media, Parliament, and Twitter (and their inter-influences) during the Geneva papers scandal. We analyzed 189,037 tweets, 1,220 journalistic pieces and 78 parliamentary initiatives related to the former monarch. The main results show that the media, social networks, and Parliament have acted as agents of accountability with Juan Carlos I, as if it were an accountable institution. Online newspapers and Twitter have led the oversight, while the parliamentary initiative has been ineffective and has essentially served as an instrument of partisan communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After two-years of repeat interviewing around 170 early career science/social science researchers from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US about their work life and scholarly communications in pandemic-times, the Harbingers project is now in possession of a mountain of data on what constitutes a very important academic topic. The purpose of the paper is to share the early highlights of the data, with a focus on the main and lasting impacts of the pandemic. The data presented comes from the national interviewers, who had conducted 3 rounds of interviews with their 20 or so early career researchers (ECRs) over two years and, thus, knew them well. They were asked to provide an ‘aerial view’ by identifying the most important impacts they had detected while things were still fresh in their minds. The main findings are that: 1) ECRs, the research workhorses, have generally proved to be resilient and perseverant and some have prospered; 2) the pandemic has fast-tracked researchers to a virtual and remote scholarly world, with all the advantages and disadvantages that comes with it. The data, however, is nuanced, with significant differences occurring between countries, especially China and France. The paper also updates a literature review on the topic previously published in this journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to dissect the presence of female writers in the main four cultural supplements of Spanish reference press: Babelia (El país), Cultura/s (La vanguardia), El cultural (El mundo) and ABC cultural (ABC). For this, we analyzed the "books of the year" recommended between 2010 and 2021 (n = 1,286), as well as the juries in charge of elaborating these ranks. The results show the subsidiary role reserved for women in this sphere of cultural information: they barely author 25.3% of the selected books, although some degree is progress is observed in the historical series, after going from 4.8% in 2011 to 37.8% in 2020. The increase in the presence of women in the juries has contributed to this phenomenon --the correlation between ratio of women in both lists being statiscally significant (rs = 0.647, p < 0.001)--, together with the commitment of supplement such as Babelia and Cultura/s to literature written by women. On the contrary, there still seem to be pockets of exclusion in El cultural and ABC cultural, which reduce the visibility of work of female writers in Spain. According to our findings, women authors stand out for their youth (they are between 8 and 20 years younger than men, depending on the indicator), cosmopolitism (there are more foreign female writers, especially American, than Spanish) and origin (mainly, Madrid and Barcelona). This article evinces the collective imaginary, settled for centuries, by which literature was considered a men's affair, and reflects on the role of cultural journalism and its prescriptive function when it comes to breaking down gender stereotype --a task that, in view of the data provided in this paper, is still far from been completed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the thematic and conceptual structure of the Spanish scientific production published in Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science) journals. In this way, the aim is to identify the closest links between concepts and terms based on the co-occurrence of keywords used by the authors of the papers analysed, and also to point out the theoretical foundations that exist in the discipline through the co-citation relationships of articles in the bibliography of the documents in the sample. Finally, these results were compared with those obtained from the analysis of Spanish scientific production in Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). To achieve these objectives, a network analysis of the co-occurrence of keywords and co-citation of references in articles published in Communication journals between 2015 and 2021 in ESCI (N = 3,559) and SSCI (N = 1,738) with at least one author linked to a Spanish institution was carried out. The results point to similar structural cohesion values and to a thematic and methodological similarity between both sets observed. There is a marked tendency towards quantitative studies on new technologies. While in SSCI there is an almost absolute dominance of Journalism studies, in ESCI there is a greater diversity of other disciplines such as Audiovisual Communication or Advertising. However, the intellectual structure of the production in SSCI reflects a more specialised character than in ESCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since their formal proposal in 2010, various studies have been carried out on altmetrics from different perspectives and at different levels. However, the problem of the country-specific differences found in such studies has not been addressed in depth and considering the wide range of social media sources. This paper presents a cross-country comparison of altmetric coverage between Spain and a selection of 16 countries (EU-15 and the United States) in 22 research fields. All Spanish publications indexed in Web of Science that were published between 2016 and 2020, as well as all mentions of their altmetrics collected on Altmetric.com, were retrieved. The results show that, of the 434,827 Spanish publications considered, 55% are found on Altmetric.com. General altmetric coverage in Spain is similar to that in the rest of Europe and the United States, but it is in areas such as Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences where the lowest levels of coverage are found, although in the case of the latter the publications receive a higher number of mentions. Spanish publications reach a total of 3,569,553 mentions from different social media platforms, but Twitter is the main source of these mentions, accounting for 89%. Differences between research fields are also found, such as Environment & Ecology receiving a higher number of policy mentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Since the beginning of 2020, media around the world have started and intensified their TikTok activity to gain notoriety and reach young people, their main user group. However, as with other previously popularized social media, such as Facebook or Twitter, the platform’s logic is different from that traditionally employed by the media system when developing information products. The objective of this paper is to analyze the degree of adaptation to the logic of this network for the activity developed on it by the Spanish media. For this purpose, a combined methodology of quantitative and content analysis was applied to 446 videos posted by the official user accounts of 20 Minutos, Antena 3 Noticias, El Diario, El Mundo, and El País–the five media outlets with the largest online audience in that period–from the time the accounts were created until January 31, 2022. Specifically, we studied the activity developed, the notoriety achieved, and the interaction obtained, as well as the most common formats, topics, protagonists, and brand identity elements. The results show that the main Spanish media have tried to adapt to the entertainment logic of the platform both with the use of native editing resources as well as through the creation of original materials, predominantly soft news, about entertainment, celebrities, and lifestyle. The videos that gain more notoriety are those that are more adapted to this logic. However, the Spanish media analyzed post less frequently than international media, obtain fewer views, and register lower engagement levels; in addition, they do not use their presence on this social network to promote their other editorial products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

After an initial period characterized by experimentation, amateurism, small audiences, technological difficulties, and scarce funding, podcasting is now fully consolidated. The aim of this paper is to analyze the characteristics of the Spanish podcast sphere: its structural, personal, thematic, formal, economic, and dissemination aspects. To this end, a content analysis of 21 variables was applied to the 206 programs that attained the highest popularity in the general rankings of Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iVoox during the first quarter of 2021. Along the structural dimension, the results reveal the preponderance of digital-native podcasts in comparison with previously broadcast podcasts, and of podcasts promoted by radio stations or those associated with networks over independent ones. Regarding the personnel involved, programs produced by professionals from the media or other cultural industries are more popular than those produced by amateurs, while those presented by men are more popular than those presented by women. Regarding their themes, content related to mystery and/or crime, history, entertainment, and emotional well-being predominates. In the formal sphere, the majority of programs are exclusively audio programs, produced weekly and in Spanish, with a limited presence of the other co-official languages in Spain. In terms of funding, the most common situation is production by media groups or podcast networks, followed by monetization on YouTube and offering additional services. Based on all this, the main conclusion of this study is that podcasting in Spain has abandoned the democratizing potential attributed to it by some theorists and researchers in its beginnings to become embedded in a largely commercial logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to provide the global community of interested scholars with an updated understanding of digital humanities in Spain, in terms of researchers and research centres, disciplines involved and research topics of interest, trends in digital resources development, main funding bodies and the evolution of their investment since the early nineties. One of the characteristics that differentiates this study from previous approaches is the information used to carry out the research. It combines large datasets of publicly available data from trusted sources with a handpicked selection of records grouping information scattered over the Web. Most of the evidence detected by other studies has been numerically confirmed. At the same time, the new metrics and values established constitute a reference base for monitoring the future evolution of the discipline, and thus favour comparisons. Half of the researchers were found to be affiliated to only nine institutions, whereas the other half of them were scattered across 84 locations. Department affi- liation showed a varied pattern of the different degrees of specialization in each institution. Although the major historic role played by Philology was confirmed, the rising interest of other areas of the Humanities and Social Science produces a wider picture, which helped to identify five large clusters of research topics, centred on major disciplines. The quan- titative analysis of funding, a dimension almost unexplored in the Humanities, proved to be a valuable way to assess the discipline and its historical evolution. In fact, it revealed interesting trends that led to our proposal of a three-phase periodization in the consolidation of digital humanities in Spain. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations regarding how to deal with issues that could harm the future development of this research area and the role that Spanish researchers can play in the international context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of think tanks in Spain has been growing in the last few years with an equally increasing number of social and grassroots movements. This article offers content analysis results from a selection of eight Spanish think tanks in the digital press during a seven-year period, adding new conclusions to previous literature for the same period. Not only does this research explore the appearance on the media, but also the type of mentions and authorship of the articles and blogs included in the digital press, contributing to a deeper study of think tanks. The objective of this study is to analyse the limited presence of Spanish think tanks in media outlets and whether their appearance is ideologically motivated. The article built a constructed week sampling and followed a content analysis methodology to gather quantitative and qualitative elements from the selected sampling (n=1,101). The paper concludes that the presence of think tanks in the Spanish digital press is limited, causing not only a lack of knowledge of their existence but also raising questions about how they try to impact on the policymaking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a research study whose objective was to identify the facilitating factors and barriers that, in the opinion of representatives of the Spanish scientific community, impact the implementation of the new open science model in four areas: open access, open research data, research assessment and open peer review. A qualitative study was designed in which information was obtained through interviews with researchers, editors of scientific journals, representatives of assessment agencies and vice-chancellors, and through a focus group of librarians with expertise in aspects of open science. The enabling factors and barriers identified were related to the researcher and the fruit of their research, as well as to the scientific ecosystem, which provides direct institutional support and backing (universities/research centres), the regulatory framework (management of the science system) and the science communication system (media). The results indicate that a shift in scientific practices toward the open science model can only be achieved if there is a policy framework that integrates all initiatives and links into the scientific assessment and reward system, and if the necessary funding is in place to support this transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the context of disinformation in Spain from the perspective of the pseudo-media (i.e., websites that mimic conventional media to offer partisan content based on alternative facts). Using a quantitative (N = 1,143) and qualitative (n = 396) methodology, this research analyses publications from eight Spanish pseudo-media that reach more than 4 million unique users. Results reveal an interest in three topics: vaccination, restrictions and speculation about Covid-19, national politics--focused on criticism against government--and topics related to human rights--mainly LGBTI, gender, immigration--with a total of 58.1% of the content published in four sections (International, Spain, Society, and Economy). The study reveals a growing trend towards polarisation and the use of clickbait techniques in four out of ten headlines. The Internet and social media are the most common sources quoted, while a third of the items lack sources or correspond to opinion pieces. Minorities and vulnerable groups are framed as a social threat, and the presentation of the coalition government as a danger to Spain that must be put to an end, which makes the discourse of these websites in tune with the ideology of the far right wing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Explores science and social science early career researchers' (ECRs) perceptions and experiences of peer review, seeking also to identify their views of any pandemic-associated changes that have taken place. Data are drawn from the Harbingers-2 project, which investigated the impact of the pandemic on scholarly communications. Peer review, one of the activities covered, is singled out as it proved to be the activity of greatest concern to ECRs. Findings are obtained from interviews, which covered around 167 ECRs from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US, supplemented by an international survey that took the data out to a bigger and wider audience for confirmation and generalisation. Results obtained are enhanced by comparisons with pre-pandemic evidence yielded by Harbingers-1, the forerunner of the present study, and anchored in an extensive review of the literature. Main findings are: 1) most ECRs were experienced in peer review, both as reviewers and authors, but few had formal training; 2) half the ECRs had a lot or some reservations as to whether peer review vouches for the trustworthiness of research; 3) inadequate reviewers and slow processes were the main peer review associated problems; 4) there was a strong feeling that some kind of compensation, whether monetary or reputational, could help in dealing with these problems; 5) the pandemic impacted most on the speed of processing, with the majority of ECRs saying it had slowed the process; 6) nearly everyone thought that any pandemic-induced impacts would be temporary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TikTok, already widely used before the pandemic, boomed during the quarantine that locked down large parts of the world, reaching 2 billion downloads and 800 million monthly active users worldwide by the end of 2020. Of these 800 million users, 41% are aged between 16 and 24 years. This social network, widely known for its entertainment videos, is increasingly becoming a place for political discussion and therefore a unique opportunity for political actors to (re) connect with young people. Acknowledging that the political uses of TikTok are still understudied, this paper aims to explore whether and how Spanish political parties are including TikTok as part of their communication strategy. Through an affordance-centered content analysis of all the posts published by the five most important Spanish political parties (PP, PSOE, Ciudadanos, Podemos, and Vox), the current results show that, although all Spanish political parties have adopted this platform, their usage is unequal. From a quantitative perspective, PP was the first party to open a TikTok account, but its usage has been discontinuous; Podemos and Ciudadanos are the parties that publish the most and most constantly, while Vox has only published nine posts and the PSOE one. Nonetheless, from a qualitative perspective, Podemos and Vox generate more engagement and seem to understand and exploit TikTok's specific affordances better. The findings allow it to be concluded that, although globally Spanish political parties do not fully exploit the platform's affordances and tend to use it as a unilateral tool for promotion, the most engaging posts are those favoring interaction and geared toward politainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The World Health Organization (2011) has emphasized communication as one of the biggest challenges and places risk communication among the essential competencies required to tackle a pandemic. In light of the Covid-19 crisis, the aim of this paper is to assess how information forms and sources influence the public's information-seeking behaviors, and the perception of government's crisis response strategies during the pandemic. An online survey was conducted between March 14 and April 14, 2020, the first four weeks after the declaration of the State of Alarm in Spain. The online questionnaire included questions regarding information-seeking behavior, trust in different sources and channels, perception of government communication management, message retention, and demographic questions. Findings show a synchronous use of multiple media and platforms in line with channel complementarity theory. Three of the four most used information channels are considered mainstream news media. However, the second source of information is WhatsApp. People who relied more on the mainstream news media for Covid-19 information are generally most likely to express positive opinions of the government's communication strategy. Findings also show that people less able to make correct attributions of governmental information were the most critical of the government's crisis response. Finally, trust in public authorities' decreases as the crisis evolves as a general matter. It is specially truth for the WHO, but there is also a striking exemption for local governments. Implications for theory and empirical research and recommendations and new issues to address are identified and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Political polarization and information disorders are not new phenomena on the media agenda, but they have acquired considerable prominence in the wake of international events such as the election of Donald Trump. The present article seeks to help in understanding the interrelation of these concepts -disinformation and polarization- in the European quality press in recent years. Six newspapers (El Mundo, El País, Le Figaro, Le Monde, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian) from three countries were selected on the basis of their quality, audience and representative character of their editorial lines between 2017 and late 2022, and a qualitative and quantitative frame analysis (n = 286) was carried out. Having observed all the definitions of polarization in the press, it was seen that party political alignment has the greatest presence in the international scenario, coming before the division of public opinion. In the sample, Spain has a prominent position, claiming to be a polarized pluralist country, as opposed to United Kingdom, which closely observes what happens in the United States, or France, where these phenomena have achieved less penetration. The conclusion is that political polarization is presented as a chronic problem caused by political actors who are not going to cease doing so, as opposed to information disorders, which are produced by certain specific international actors, such as Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Jair Bolsonaro, who take advantage of communication flows on social media and the latter's lack of regulation. This article suggests that the way to resolve or at least alleviate the problem is by defending quality information and public media, emphasizing citizen responsibility in the face of social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The transformation that the communicative environment has undergone in recent decades poses a challenge for the media in relation to their audiences, as trust is sensitive to social, economic, cultural, and technological changes. The aim of this research is to deepen the understanding of the reasons and factors that influence the loss of trust in the media by audiences who traditionally trusted news more (young people and adults aged 25-54), examining the relevance of disinformation and polarization in discrediting the media. Firstly, the state of the issue is reviewed from the theoretical point of view and the data provided, among others, such as the Digital News Report and several studies about the global loss of trust in other institutions, with special reference to the Edelman Trust Barometer. Secondly, the article adopts a qualitative methodology to investigate the motivations and expectations of citizens regarding the media. Specifically, three discussion groups were held in various Spanish cities. To ensure representativeness, sociodemographic diversity was considered, including gender, age, and educational level criteria, among others. Among the findings, it stands out that one of the main reasons for distrust towards the media is the perception that news is biased for political or economic reasons. The Covid-19 pandemic, which was rife with disinformation, has influenced attitudes towards the media and the way news is consumed. Once the pandemic was overcome, trust in the media decreased and participants sought alternative sources of information. However, some differences in perceptions and consumption habits are noted depending on age and educational level. Finally, the research indicates that distrust extends well beyond the media ecosystem, affecting all institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research is to analyse the electoral misinformation circulating in the public space as a whole during campaign periods. The sample is made up of 481 rebuttals published by the verification media Maldita.es, Newtral, Efe Verifica and Verificat in relation to 409 pieces of misinformation during the six campaigns carried out in Spain during the political cycle that began in the general election in November 2019, which also includes the regional elections held in Galicia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Madrid, Castilla y León, and Andalusia. The methodology consists of a content analysis of 13 variables articulated around five dimensions of study: scope of generation and/or dissemination, format, epistemological authority, prominence, theme, and discourse. The results show: (1) the predominance of the citizen space of social networks as a field for the generation and distribution of electoral misinformation; (2) the crude construction of misinformation, with a preponderance of text as a misinformation element accompanied by multimedia resources shared without alteration; (3) the pre-eminence of problematic materials disseminated anonymously and without citing sources and those actually distributed by the political class, especially the right wing; (4) the majority role of the political class, particularly the left, generally characterised in a negative manner, although the political class of the right receives a greater proportion of positive treatment; (5) the abundance of sectoral and ideological themes, with a prominent presence of attacking elites as the predominant populist discursive feature; and (6) the profusion of direct attacks on political rivals, especially related to ideological and management issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of El Profesional de la Información is the property of EPI SCP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research aims to know the opinions and attitudes of the Spanish population towards hate speech through a survey of 1,022 persons of both sexes and over 16 years of age. The results show a high awareness of hate speech: participants could identify these messages, assess their different intensities of severity, and understand the harm it causes. This high awareness may be because almost half of the sample has felt alluded to by these types of messages at some point. This group is more proactive in denouncing and counterattacking hate messages, although it is more frequent to remain on the sidelines. There is a hierarchy in the ratings in which racist and sexist comments are considered more severe than those directed at other minority groups (e.g., homeless people). Among the main reasons why people publish these expressions, participants point to the education of the authors, in particular, the rudeness and disrespect that are also perceived as a generalized aspect in today’s society. The polarized Spanish political context is seen as beneficial to the appearance of these messages, as well as the lack of a democratic culture that respects ideological diversity. What is most interesting is that although there is awareness of the seriousness of hate messages in other spheres and towards various groups, hate speech has become normalized in politics, as previously stated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the implementation of open science in Spanish universities considering four perspectives: (i) regulations, policies, and strategies; (ii) knowledge production; (iii) research results; and (iv) perception by different academic actors. A qualitative and quantitative methodology is applied, drawing information from university websites, institutional reports, European project databases (Cordis), the Web of Science database, surveys of teaching and research staff, and surveys of vice-rectors and library directors. The information is grouped into regional university systems, according to the autonomous community to which each university belongs, and is analyzed on that basis. The results of the quantitative study show increasing interest in open-science activities, expressed as a growing number of publications, and an increase in participation, leadership, and funding in European projects. Institutional policies and regulations on open science, on the other hand, are few and focus almost exclusively on open access. The development of institutional repositories is one of the great achievements of the Spanish university system, and open-access publishing (mainly green open access) has grown considerably in the last decade. Teaching and research staff are not knowledgeable about open science, although in general they take a positive view toward it, while university policymakers report that most actions to promote open science are still in the process of being implemented. The results reveal heterogeneity among the various institutions’ practices and implementation. As a regional system, the Catalonian university system stands out above the rest for its degree of open-science policy development and implementation and for its intense research activity in the field of open science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incorporating a gender perspective in the media entails implementing strategies to work with information in a democratic way. The mobilisation of Las Periodistas Paramos in Spain in 2018 influenced a change towards such a perspective, which is also one of the most relevant innovations identified in Spanish media. The purpose of this work is to draw, for the first time, a map of the initiatives adopted by the Spanish press to incorporate the gender perspective into its newsrooms. To do this, style guides and other initiatives aimed at providing guidance on the introduction of the gender dimension are examined, and semi-structured interviews are used to find out how four women journalists responsible for such an incorporation carry out their work. The results show a substantial, although also uneven, presence of initiatives in the 21 newspapers analysed. Most of the style guides –10 of them have one and nine of them have been accessed– are outdated, obsolete or being updated. Most also contain aspects related to the gender perspective, although they do not include this term explicitly and often do not adapt to today’s reality. In the newspapers that do not have a Style Guide or other types of measures, a sensitivity towards the subject is perceived. On the other hand, four newspapers have a gender editor whose main function is to ensure that the perspective is transversal and reaches all sections, genres and content. These professionals make a positive assessment of their still brief trajectory and agree that journalism has advanced considerably and done important pedagogical work in society in terms of gender, although it seems that this figure will remain necessary for quite some time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]