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The research describes and analyzes the use of social media as news sources by the four digital newspapers most read in Spain. A no probabilistic sample of news extracted from the online editions of El País, El Mundo, La Vanguardia and ABC was analyzed quantitatively. The sample was formed by the news most read by the audience that included social media contents. The content analysis was practiced on diverse classifications of contents, depending on their volumen, their nature (written, visual, audiovisual and hybrid), their use compared to traditional news sources, their informative function and their thematic. The results reveal that Spanish journalists carry out a restrictive use of social media as news sources and that the informative value of the contents is complementary and not essential in most of the cases. Only pictures are reliable sources of information and relevant, both in the news that only include sources from social media and in those elaborated also with traditional sources. The most used social media are, in this order, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Its contents were correctly cited in 95% of the news and only were detected a lack of citation or confusing or incomplete attribution of the sources in a marginal percentage of the cases.

The research analyses the use of information sources in television news on European issues and its relationship with political pluralism and pluralism of information through direct observation of a sample of selected stories. The results reveal that political and governmental representatives still occupy a relevant position in the informative space. In addition, the visibility of those sources is enhanced my means of individual appearances given on camera and through text-picture correspondence. Civic sources, consisting of anonymous citizens, reach a similar degree of representation but only in news including direct quotes. On the other hand, an increase of the number and types of news sources do not necessarily ensue a larger degree of political pluralism. To the contrary, it has been proved that Spanish television networks tend to express unique opinions in the news and often show a clear political orientation in favor of the European integration process.

En: Doxa Comunicación: revista interdisciplinar de estudios de comunicación y ciencias sociales. e-ISSN 2386-3978 n. XXV, 2017, pp 129-148 El slow journalism surge como respuesta a la sobrecarga informativa generada por la aceleración del ciclo de producción de noticias en una era digital marcada por la aparición de nuevos operadores (redes sociales, agregadores de noticias). El estudio de casos practicado y la reflexión sobre la función que el “periodismo lento” debe ejercer en la actualidad indican que este sigue siendo útil para mejorar la calidad de los productos informativos. Por otra parte, se confirma la existencia de una demanda en alza de contenidos multimedia que analicen los hechos informativos en profundidad. Estas necesidades están siendo cubiertas por empresas informativas independientes de los grandes medios, más interesados en rentabilizar otros mercados de demanda masiva como las noticias breves de actualidad. Slow journalism appears as a response to the information overload generated by the acceleration of the news production cycle in a digital era marked by the emergence of new operators (social networks, news aggregators). Both the study of cases practiced and the reflection on the function that the so-called “slow journalism” must exert today indicate that this type of journalism is still useful to improve the quality of information products. On the other hand, the existence of an increasing demand of multimedia contents that analyze the facts in depth is confirmed. That need is being covered by companies that are independent of the mainstream media, which are more interested in developing other mass demand markets such as latest news.

La capacidad de los espectadores de television para comprender y retener informacion audiovisual es limitada. La saturacion informativa en la que se cae constantemente en los informativos de television generalista en Espana no resulta eficaz para mejorar la recepcion del mensaje en este medio de comunicacion social. Una encuesta practicada entre sesenta voluntarios demostro que, a corto plazo, la audiencia solo es capaz de recordar el 35% de las noticias de un informativo de television. No obstante, si es posible mejorar el procesamiento de informacion por la audiencia de television. Los resultados demuestran que el modo de relacionar los codigos audiovisuales en las piezas informativas influye de forma determinante en el recuerdo y en la comprension de datos. Un alto grado de coordinacion entre el audio y el video favorece el recuerdo y la comprension del mensaje, aunque estos empeoran en presencia de imagenes impactantes y cuando se produce una saturacion de codigos audiovisuales. Por otro lado, informaciones con grados mas bajos de correspondencia entre codigos audiovisuales obtienen tasas mas altas de recuerdo y comprension cuando se introducen otros factores que no implican distraer la atencion del espectador en un grado tan elevado como ocurre con las denominadas “imagenes llamativas”.

Slow journalism appears as a response to the information overload generated by the acceleration of the news production cycle in a digital era marked by the emergence of new operators (social networks, news aggregators). Both the study of cases practiced and the reflection on the function that the so-called “slow journalism” must exert today indicate that this type of journalism is still useful to improve the quality of information products. On the other hand, the existence of an increasing demand of multimedia contents that analyze the facts in depth is confirmed. That need is being covered by companies that are independent of the mainstream media, which are more interested in developing other mass demand markets such as latest news.