PARTICIPATION OF READERS / USERS IN DIGITAL MEDIA. Case of eltiempo.com, elespectador.com, semana.com y lasillavacia.com

Abstract

We attended a heterogeneous deployment and often contradictory assessments of the role of the user in the context of interactive digital journalism: from the notion that these are the “main engine” of a media work and therefore are at the center of his journalistic project, to the idea that simply are incorporated as an additional source to which by tradition were being collated, through the criteria that users self-generated content would be just an indicator of topics of interest to readers, then they may be appropriate for journalists to give them a full development.

In the article the concept of interactivity arises from various authors. Interactions of readers / user are described with the contents of the studied digital media and happening between these and other subjects (journalists, managers of media, the characters or sources of information, other readers, etc.). It indicates that for enable this interaction is used especially readers’ forums, video streaming, “videocomments” and video on demand.

Finally a series of questions are proposed of which could be from other analyzes of this type: What place should be the reader / user in the journalistic project of digital media? If is given a central place to the user in the project, what are the implications for journalistic practices and professional identity? Is it possible to preserve intact in online media conception of the media and journalists as unquestionable filter information (gatekeeping)?