Clics y comentarios como expresiones del dilema de intereses de los usuarios ante las noticiasel caso del agregador de noticias de lengua hispana Menéame

  1. Begoña Zalbidea Bengoa 1
  2. Santiago Urrutia 1
  3. Idoia Camacho-Markina 1
  4. José María Pastor 1
  1. 1 Universidad del País Vasco (España)
Journal:
Revista Latina de Comunicación Social

ISSN: 1138-5820

Year of publication: 2020

Issue: 75

Pages: 327-339

Type: Article

DOI: 10.4185/RLCS-2020-1429 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: Revista Latina de Comunicación Social

Abstract

Introduction. The study aims to analyse the diversity of the interests of users of social networks by identifying what kind of information audiences visit and what kind of news they comment on. To this end, the activity of the users of the most successful Spanish-language news aggregator, the Menéamesocial network, was investigated, by examining audience behaviour with respect to the content published on the network. Methodology.The research was carried out using a sample of 3,720 news items randomly selected from a total of 51,520 items published on the front page of Menéamethroughout more than five years (2010-2015). The number of visits and comments that each item received was analysed, and the two variables, clicks and comments, were related to the type of content and its thematic categories. Results. The results show that there is a clear opposition between clicks and comments in terms of content types, with two main trends with respect to hard and soft news items. On the one hand, on average the latter receive almost 4,000 visits more than hard items, which on average receive around 5,500 clicks. However, hard news tends to provoke a greater amount of comments than soft news. The average for the former is 66 comments, while soft news receives 10 less (55.7). Discussion and conclusions. Data suggest that clicks and comments express two main interests of users in front of news and that they are both opposing and complementary.

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Funding information

Journalism Department. University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. Spain. She is currently the Vice-Dean of Communication and Foreign Relations of the Faculty of Social and Communication Sciences of the University of the Basque Country (Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea – UPV/EHU). She has a Degree (1996) and a PhD (2002) in Information Sciences from the UPV/EHU, and she is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social and Communication Sciences of this university. She was in charge of the Doctoral Program in Social Communication (2009-2017) and edited the scientific journal ZER. Revista de Estudios de Comunicación (2014-2018). She has two sexennia recognised by the CNEAI. She is a member of the research group Ética, Información y Ciudadanía (GEIC – Ethics, Information and Citizenship), which is carrying out the research project “Reacciones desde la ética ciudadana en la red social ‘Menéame’ ante los contenidos de los medios de comunicación convencionales y sociales en España” (Reactions from citizen ethics on the ‘Menéame’ social network to the content of the conventional and social media in Spain), funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government. Since December 2006 she has participated uninterruptedly in funded research projects, in one of which she was head researcher: “La información de salud en la prensa diaria vasca” (Health information in the Basque daily press). She is directing three doctoral theses and is the author of the book Formación de portavoces: Cómo conseguir una comunicación efectiva ante los medios y otros públicos (Training spokespersons: how to achieve effective communication with the media and other publics) and of publications on how diverse health issues are treated in the press, the educational function of the mass media, and press offices in the local administration, amongst others. idoia.camacho@ehu.eus

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