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How and why do people still get print newspapers in an era dominated by mobile and social media communication? In this article, we answer this question about the permanence of traditional media in a digital media ecosystem by analyzing 488 semi-structured interviews conducted in Argentina, Finland, Israel, Japan, and the United States. We focus on three mechanisms of media reception: access, sociality, and ritualization. Our findings show that these mechanisms are decisively shaped by patterns of everyday life that are not captured by the scholarly foci on either content- or technology-influences on media use. Thus, we argue that a non-media centric approach improves descriptive fit and adds heuristic power by bringing a wider lens into crucial mechanisms of media reception in ways that expand the conceptual toolkit that scholars can utilize to analyze the role of media in everyday life.

“Solutions to the problem of knowledge are solutions to the problem of social order.”(Shapin and Shaffer 1985, 312)This special issue showcases research on digital journalism in Latin America. As s...

This research examines the role of gender and class inequalities in the experience of reading print newspapers. We draw on data from two complementary sources: a survey of news, technology and entertainment consumption ( n = 700) administered in the greater Buenos Aires area, and 158 semi-structured interviews conducted in the City of Buenos Aires and other towns in Argentina. Our findings indicate that although news consumption in general appears to be evenly distributed, with no significant gaps according to age, gender, education and socioeconomic status, print newspaper consumption seems to be the preserve of older, more affluent, mostly male audiences in ways that reinforce patriarchal family patterns – it is usually husbands and fathers who decide for the entire household which newspaper is purchased and when that takes place. In addition, newspaper reading is carried on by those at the top of the income-earning pyramid, and reinforces class status mainly due to the persistent associations between newspaper readership, civic duty, and professional prestige. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of these trends for print newspapers and their role in society.

This article seeks to contribute to theorizing the dynamics of incidental news consumption. Through an analysis of 200 semi-structured interviews with people in Argentina, Finland, Israel, Japan, and the United States, we show that intentionality in news consumption can be viewed on a continuum, which goes from deliberately setting apart time to access the news on specific outlets to skimming through unsought-for news on social and broadcast media, with intermediate practices such as respondents setting up an environment where they are more or less likely to encounter news. Drawing on structuration theory, this article conceptualizes incidental news in the context of the wider media environment and across multiple levels of analysis and explores how individual agency and social structure interact to shape information acquisition practices.

This article comparatively examines news avoidance in a rapidly changing media environment. We utilize findings from a large dataset of 488 in-depth interviews with media consumers, conducted in Argentina, Finland, Israel, Japan, and the US. We aim to make a contribution to the study of news avoidance by providing a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the drivers, practices, and patterns of news avoidance as they occur in and are shaped by a variety of national contexts. We argue that news avoidance is shaped not only by individual characteristics, but is also manifested and performed as part of specific time frames and socio-cultural factors. We distinguish two drivers of intentional news avoidance: cognitive and emotional. The cognitive drivers are accentuated by distinct country-level contextual factors, whereas the emotional drivers for news avoidance are shared across diverse national contexts. peerReviewed

While political communication scholarship has long underscored the importance of political talk—casual conversations about news and politics that occur in everyday situations—as a way for citizens to clarify their opinions and as a precursor for political engagement, much of this literature tends to depict political talk as uncomfortable and difficult for citizens. Yet, this focus on the challenging aspects of political talk has been informed predominantly by the US context. To what extent may a different picture emerge when looking across different cultural contexts? And how are these dynamics shaped by the affordances of the multi-platform social media environment? This paper explores these questions through a unique dataset of 122 qualitative interviews conducted between 2016 and 2019 with young people (ages 18–29) from five countries: Argentina, Finland, Israel, Japan, and the United States. Rather than solidifying the avoidance of controversial political talk as the key strategy at the disposal of young people, our findings point at a five-pronged typology of young people, with each type representing a different approach toward political talk. Our typology thus contributes to a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of various approaches towards political talk employed by young people across different countries and in relation to different digital media affordances.

“Science is not politics. It is politics by other means.”Bruno Latour (1993), The Pasteurization of France.Hernando Rojas and Sebastian Valenzuela have made a forceful and eloquent case for greater...

Much has been written about the crisis of print newspapers, but with more attention paid to issues of production and distribution rather than reception. Furthermore, the scholarship on contemporary...

This article examines patterns of gender discrimination in the authorship of news stories in general, and opinion pieces in particular. Drawing on feminist media scholarship, content analysis of 3013 articles from eight Argentine news sites and their respective social media accounts during 2017 shows that 32.63 percent of the stories with bylines were authored by women; stories about sports, politics, and crime were less likely to have a female byline; there were no significant differences across news sites; and this gap was smaller on the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the news outlets examined than on their home pages. In the case of opinion pieces, the percentage with female bylines dropped to 15 percent, which amounts to a significant difference with other genres even after controlling for other variables, such as topic or news site. On the basis of these findings, we reflect on how factors such as news topics, the format of the news article, and the type of digital source interact with gender as a structuring mechanism of media representations.

This article analyzes the domestication of WhatsApp among Argentine individuals going through young, middle, and late adulthood, drawing on 158 semi-structured interviews and a 700-person survey. Findings show variance in domestication processes related to the different life stages that users belong to. Young adults (18–34 years, in our sample) adopt WhatsApp as a taken-for-granted platform where sociability is mainly produced in groups with friends and enacted through an “always on” availability. Middle adults (35–59 years) appropriate this platform partly shaped by a constellation of work and care responsibilities. Late adults (60 years and older) find in WhatsApp a connection with younger generations in addition to age peers, while enacting less continuous modes of availability than those in other life stages. We propose that considering life stages in domestication processes contributes to unpacking broader dynamics of the social mediation of everyday life.

Research on trust has come to the forefront of communication studies. Beyond the dominant focus on informational trust and its country-specific articulations, trustworthiness evaluations can relate to the materiality of news and its global manifestations. Especially in digital algorithmic environments, understanding news trustworthiness requires a holistic approach, which combines informational and socio-technical aspects while addressing both institutional and interpersonal trust. Drawing on 488 in-depth interviews with media consumers in Argentina, Finland, Israel, Japan, and the United States, this article investigates news (dis)trust from the lens of socio-materiality. The six trust-oriented affordances we identified—selectivity, interactivity, customization, searchability, information abundance, and immediacy—reveal important socio-technical commonalities that underlie news trust across countries. These affordances, moreover, point to an interplay of trust and self-agency. Taken together, the findings illuminate the lived experience of news trust as manifested across cultures and offer a broader understanding of trustworthiness within current media ecology.

This study investigates the persistence of gendered choice and use of media, particularly in Japanese domestic settings. It shows how women’s significant presence in the digital media environment does not necessarily translate into substantial changes in gendered power dynamics in choosing and using particular media for certain purposes at home. This project’s authors, researchers from Argentina, Finland, Israel, Japan, and the US, analyzed interview data from Japan by drawing on the Foucauldian concept of micro-level power, which is categorized into three main types: personal authority, media affordances, and space-time constellations. Through this process, we interviewed 77 individuals, revealing that persistent gendered media choices and use exist in Japan. The project team also looked for similar cases in other countries for further theoretical implications. As a result of this investigation, we argue that the patriarchy continues to influence women’s choice and use of media at home even in this media-saturated digital age. Our interview data show that “old media” such as radio, television, newspaper, and magazines not only mediate information and entertainment contents at home, but also structure people’s quotidian use of media, both old and new, and sustains existing gendered assumptions and values. peerReviewed

En este artículo efectuamos un análisis crítico de 132 publicaciones recientes sobre la crisis de la prensa escrita. Encontramos que la discusión sobre el fenómeno se ha organizado principalmente en torno a tres grupos temáticos: la dimensión económica y financiera para entender la crisis, la descripción y el análisis de las dinámicas laborales de los periodistas, y el posible impacto de la crisis en el rol social y los valores de la prensa. Las investigaciones han sido heterogéneas en cuanto a sus enfoques conceptuales y al conjunto de técnicas utilizadas: fundamentalmente estudios de caso y, en menor medida, estudios comparativos. Además, se han centrado principalmente en las dimensiones productivas de la información, dejando mayormente de lado la recepción de las noticias y el consumo de diario en papel. Finalmente, en el artículo esbozamos un marco posible para repensar la crisis, pero también una agenda de investigación futura, desde y en Latinoamérica.

Este trabajo examina la relación entre los contenidos presentados en las cuentas oficiales de Facebook y Twitter de ocho sitios de noticias de Argentina y el nivel de engagement que generaron en los usuarios. El análisis de una muestra de 2.039 noticias, publicadas entre los meses de marzo a noviembre de 2017, muestra que existe una relación entre el contenido de las noticias y el nivel de engagement que las mismas generan entre los usuarios. Si bien los sitios presentaron una mayor cantidad de noticias sobre temáticas de asuntos no públicos, como deportes, policiales o entretenimiento, los mayores niveles de engagement se registraron en noticias sobre asuntos públicos, como política nacional e internacional y economía. Estos hallazgos son consistentes con la literatura sobre proceso de adaptación de los medios al nuevo ecosistema mediático y apoyan la teoría de “ciudadanía monitorial” en el contexto digital. This paper analyses the relationship between the contents presented in the official Facebook and Twitter accounts of eight news sites in Argentina and the level of engagement they generate among users. The analysis of a sample of 2,039 news items, published between the months of March to November 2017, shows that there is a correlation between the content of the news and the level of engagement that they create among users. Although the sites presented a greater amount of news on issues of non-public issues, such as sports, police or entertainment, the highest levels of engagement were recorded in news on public issues, such as national and international policy and economy. These findings are consistent with the literature on the process of adaptation of the media to the new media ecosystem and support the theory of “monitorial citizenship” in the digital context.

Incidental consumption of news on social media has risen in recent years, particularly among young people. Previous studies have characterized what the main dimensions and effects of this phenomenon are. In this article, we complement that literature by looking at how this phenomenon unfolds. Inspired by practice theory, we aim to answer two questions: (1) what are the practices that subtend incidental news consumption on social media among young people? and (2) What are the social consequences of these practices? We draw upon 50 in-depth interviews with respondents aged 18–29 years from Argentina. Our findings show the existence of (1) strong connections between technology and content, “anywhere and anytime” coordinates, derivative information routines, and increasingly mediated sociability and (2) fragmentary reading patterns, loss of hierarchy of the news, and coexistence of editorial, algorithmic, and social filtering. We conclude by elaborating on the empirical and theoretical implications of these findings.

This article examines the tension between the possibilities afforded by innovations in news production and the normalizing force of established routines through a quantitative and qualitative study of blogging in five leading news sites in the United States over a 5-year period (2008–2012). The quantitative examination shows that the prevalence of the native storytelling features of blogs in the online editions of these sites was higher in 2008 than in 2012, with this decrease being relatively gradual during this period. The qualitative analysis suggests that during 2008, a significant minority of blogs in established news organizations operated as spaces that presented news in a personal and opinionated tone. This novelty wore down gradually, and by 2012, the vast majority of blogs exhibited a preponderance of the straight-news storytelling format, and blogs were used mostly as a vehicle for disseminating breaking news. The discussion draws on these findings to reflect on the theoretical and methodological implications of the study for accounts of innovation in journalism and the news.

21 páginas Esta investigación examina la oferta y la demanda de noticias en siete sitios de la Argentina a través de un análisis de contenido cuantitativo de las noticias publicadas de manera más prominente en las homepages o páginas de inicio y las listas de las "más leídas" durante un periodo de siete meses, que incluye la campaña presidencial y la asunción de un nuevo presidente en 2015. El análisis cuantitativo de más de 5500 noticias muestra que existe una brecha significativa y consistente entre las preferencias de los periodistas y los consumidores y una mayor variabilidad en las preferencias de los integrantes del público que en las elecciones de los productores profesionales de noticias. Este trabajo utiliza tales hallazgos para reflexionar sobre los conceptos de fijación de agenda y ciudadanía monitorial. This investigation examines the supply and demand of news in seven places in Argentina through a quantitative content analysis of the news more prominently published on homepages and "most read" lists over a period of seven months, including the presidential campaign and the 2015 presidential inauguration. The quantitative analysis of over 5500 news shows that there is a significant and consistent gap between the preferences of journalists and consumers and a greater variability in the preferences of members of the public than in the choice of professional news producers. This paper uses these findings to reflect on the concepts of agenda-setting and monitorial citizenship.

In face of public discourses about the negative effects that social media might have on democracy in Latin America, this article provides a qualitative assessment of existing scholarship about the uses, actors, and effects of platforms for democratic life. Our findings suggest that, first, campaigning, collective action, and electronic government are the main political uses of platforms. Second, politicians and office holders, social movements, news producers, and citizens are the main actors who utilize them for political purposes. Third, there are two main positive effects of these platforms for the democratic process—enabling social engagement and information diffusion—and two main negative ones—the presence of disinformation, and the spread of extremism and hate speech. A common denominator across positive and negative effects is that platforms appear to have minimal effects that amplify pre-existing patterns rather than create them de novo.

This study examines whether there is a thematic gap between the stories that journalists display most prominently and the stories consumers read most frequently in six mainstream American news sites. It looks at the choices of both groups in relation to each other and explores whether these choices vary in connection with the occurrence of a major political event, the 2008 presidential campaign. We find that during a time of routine political activity, there is a sizable gap between the news choices of journalists and consumers in which the former give more prominence to public affairs news (stories about politics, economics, and international topics) than the latter, but, during the campaign, this gap changes variously across the sites studied. Moreover, within the 2008 election cycle the predilection of journalists and consumers for public affairs news increases as election day nears, although journalists' choices are thematically less variable than those of consumers. These findings contribute to the s...

This study examines the uptake of multiple interactive features on news sites. It looks at the thematic composition of the most clicked, most e-mailed, and most commented stories during periods of heightened and routine political activity. Results show that (a) during the former period, the most commented stories were more likely to be focused on political, economic, and international topics (or “public affairs” news) than the most clicked and most e-mailed articles. (b) The 3 types of interactivity exhibited a greater presence of public affairs content during the period of heightened political activity than during its routine counterpart. (c) As the period of heightened political activity unfolded, consumers' propensity to click on, e-mail, and comment about public affairs stories increased. Haciendo Clic, Mandando un Correo Electronico, y Comentando: Como los Usuarios Toman Ventaja de las Formas Diferentes de Inactividad en los Sitios de Noticias Online Resumen Este estudio examina el consumo de sitios de noticias con caracteristicas interactivas multiples. Mira a la composicion tematica de los sitios mas cliqueados, con mas correos electronicos, y con mas historias comentadas durante periodos de actividad politica intensificada y rutinaria. Los resultados muestran que (a) durante el periodo anterior, las historias mas comentadas se enfocaron mas probablemente en temas politicos, economicos, e internacionales (o noticias de “asuntos publicos”) que las mas cliqueadas y que los articulos con mas correos electronicos. (b) Los 3 tipos de interactividad exhibieron una gran presencia de contenido de los asuntos publicos durante el periodo de actividad politica intensa que durante su contraparte rutinaria. (c) A medida que el periodo de actividad politica intensificada se desarrollaba, aumento la propension de los consumidores a hacer clic, mandar un email, y comentar las historias sobre asuntos publicos. Palabras claves: interactividad, medios interactivos, comunicacion politica, noticias online, elecciones en los EE.UU., noticias sociales, redes, discusion online Clics, courriels et commentaires : comment les usagers profitent des differentes formes d’interactivite sur les sites de nouvelles en ligne Cette etude examine l’usage de nombreux elements interactifs sur les sites de nouvelles. Il s’attarde a la composition thematique des nouvelles les plus cliquees, les plus envoyees par courrier electronique et les plus commentees lors de periodes de grande activite politique ou d’activite politique reguliere. Les resultats montrent que a) pendant la periode de grande activite politique, les nouvelles les plus commentees avaient plus tendance a porter sur des sujets politiques, economiques et internationaux (soit des nouvelles « d’affaires publiques ») que les articles les plus visites et les plus envoyes par courriel; b) les 3 types d’interactivite affichaient un plus haut degre de contenu d’affaires publiques dans la periode de grande activite politique que dans la periode d’activite reguliere; et c) au fil de la periode de plus grande activite politique, la propension des consommateurs a cliquer sur des histoires d’affaires publiques, a les envoyer par courriel et a les commenter augmentait. Mots cles : interactivite, medias interactifs, communication politique, nouvelles en ligne, elections americaines, nouvelles sociales, reseaux, discussion en ligne

This article contributes to understanding whether there is a thematic gap between journalists’ and consumers’ preferences, and whether the media converge or diverge across nations. The concurrent news choices of journalists and consumers in 11 online newspapers from six countries in Western Europe and Latin America were examined. A comparison of the most prominently displayed stories on the homepages of each of these sites and the most frequently clicked stories on these sites shows a pattern of convergence across divergence: A thematic gap in the online news choices of journalists and consumers that is shared by all sites despite different levels of preference for public affairs reportage (news about political, economic, and international topics). The theoretical implications and social relevance of these findings are discussed.

This article examines whether there is a gap between the news choices of mainstream journalists and those of their public. It looks at the choices of both groups in relation to each other and explores whether these choices vary in connection with the occurrence of major political events. The heuristic value of this approach is demonstrated through a mixed-method study of the news choices of journalists and consumers in the main Argentine online sites. A content analysis of the top stories chosen by journalists of that country’s two leading sites and the stories that consumers of these sites click most often yields two key results. First, during periods of relatively normal political activity, journalists choose stories about political, international, and economic subjects substantively more than consumers. Second, during periods of heightened political activity, consumers increase their interest in these stories, and the gap with the choices of journalists either disappears or narrows. Furthermore, interviews with journalists and with news consumers show that the presence of this gap during ordinary political times and its change during extraordinary periods are shaped by divergent and dynamic interpretive logics.

This article assesses the main findings and dominant modes of inquiry in recent scholarship on online news consumption. The findings suggest that the consumption of news on the internet has not yet differed drastically from the consumption of news in traditional media. The assessment shows that the dominant modes of inquiry have also been characterized by stability rather than change (because research has usually drawn on traditional theoretical and methodological approaches). In addition, these modes of inquiry exhibit three systematic limitations: the assumption of a division between print, broadcast, and online media; the notion that the analysis should treat media features and social practices separately; and the inclination to focus on ordinary or extraordinary patterns of phenomena but not on both at the same time. On the basis of this assessment, this article proposes an integrative research agenda that builds on this scholarship but also contributes to solve some of its main limitations.

El acceso incidental a la información ha sido uno de los modos típicos del repertorio informativo de los ciudadanos en las sociedades modernas. En los últimos años, este tipo de acceso al contenido de actualidad dejó de ser periférico y secundario para convertirse en central y primario, sobre todo para los usuarios más jóvenes y conectados. La mayor parte de las investigaciones sobre este fenómeno se ha enfocado en las consecuencias del acceso incidental a la información para el aprendizaje sobre la actualidad, la fijación de agenda y la participación política, pero no en las causas que subyacen al incremento de esta práctica. Para subsanar esta falencia, en esta investigación analizamos los factores que explican el consumo incidental de noticias a través de redes sociales. A partir de una encuesta domiciliaria en Buenos Aires, Argentina (N = 700), encontramos que hay tres tipos de características vinculadas con esta práctica: primero, los encuestados más jóvenes y de mayor nivel socioeconómico son los más propensos a ejercerla; segundo, el acceso incidental a la información está relacionado con la conexión constante a internet, posibilitada por dispositivos ubicuos y portables (los celulares “inteligentes”), y tercero, el uso de sitios de internet y el vínculo con otras personas como fuentes de información sugieren que la estructura del contenido en línea (online) potencia las interacciones entre sitios y redes, y facilita el intercambio social de información. A partir de estos hallazgos, reflexionamos sobre los repertorios mediáticos de los consumidores de noticias, la relación con las tecnologías de información y el rol de las noticias como moneda social.

Online news media have become a key part of social, economic, and cultural life in many societies. Research about these media has grown dramatically, especially in the past few years, but there have been few reviews of this research and none of the most recent scholarship. This article reviews scholarship on online news production published since 2000. It examines research on five key topics: historical context and market environment, the process of innovation, alterations in journalistic practices, challenges to established professional dynamics, and the role of user-generated content. A tension between tradition and change emerges from this discussion and is evident at two levels. First, the world of practice seems to straddle the re-enactment of established forms and tinkering with alternative pathways. Second, the modes of inquiry oscillate between using existing concepts to look at new phenomena and taking advantage of these phenomena to rethink these concepts and come up with new ones. The article concludes by identifying shortcomings in the existing scholarship and suggesting avenues for future studies to overcome them. It suggests how scholarship on online news production could contribute to rethinking some of the fundamental building blocks of understanding communication and society in the contemporary media environment.

This entry discusses recent scholarship on the production and consumption of online newspapers. The analysis of production dynamics reveals the main challenges faced by news organizations to generate revenue and to innovate as they move online. It also discusses various factors that have shaped how news organizations have dealt with the internet, and some of the consequences of this approach for news production practices and professional development. Scholarly analyses of consumption issues introduce two important discussions about the contemporary development of online news: whether news consumption complements or displaces traditional news media, and whether it results in audience fragmentation or homogenization. This body of work also illuminates some consequences of online news consumption for democracy. Building on this assessment, the entry concludes by considering some main implications for studies on online newspapers and suggests various areas for further research. UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Centro de Investigación en Comunicación (CICOM)