Contemporary Digital Journalism: Issues and Challenges

A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 1284

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Facultat de Filologia, Traducció i Comunicació, Universitat de València, Valencia 32, 46020 Valencia, Spain
Interests: digital journalism; political communication; quality and narrative journalism; ethics

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Guest Editor
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Valladolid, 47011 Valladolid, Spain
Interests: digital journalism; multimedia narrative; artificial intelligence; journalism education

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Digital journalism has experienced a magnificent growth in the last three decades and an exponential evolution, as evidenced by a comparison between digital native media and legacy media. The 30th anniversary of the first online media, which takes place in 2024, marks a milestone to assess the current issues and challenges faced by contemporary journalism. This Special Issue seeks to collect research concerning the definition and characterization of the field to the last AI developments assisting journalists and the ethics involved. The different transformations of digital journalism highlight the relevance of the technological dimension, from the production and distribution of content to the continuous updating of professional skills. These issues should not be divorced from the main functions of journalism, for e.g., the expanded selection of content, the renewal of funding and business models, as well as new relationships with empowered and hyper-selective audiences. In this sense, this Special Issue encourages research on high-quality digital journalistic content—investigative journalism, narrative journalism, multimedia reporting, collaborative journalism—and the challenging conditions of production. We seek to receive innovative approaches relying on a wide range of social science-based methodologies. Potential topics include, but are not limited to: 

  • Definition of contemporary digital journalism;
  • Challenges in digital journalism production and content distribution;
  • Innovation in connecting with diverse audiences and communities;
  • Funding digital journalism;
  • Application of AI and ethical issues;
  • Quality digital journalistic storytelling and modalities;
  • Profiles, skills and training of digital journalists.

Dr. Dolors Palau-Sampio
Prof. Dr. Pilar Sánchez-García
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • digital journalism
  • professional skills
  • AI
  • ethics
  • innovation
  • funding & business models
  • quality journalism
  • audiences

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 339 KiB  
Article
Mediatised Participation: Citizen Journalism and the Decline in User-Generated Content in Online News Media
by Simón Peña-Fernández, Ainara Larrondo-Ureta and Irati Agirreazkuenaga
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(5), 266; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13050266 - 16 May 2024
Viewed by 288
Abstract
The second generation of web tools shook the journalist profession approximately two decades ago with the proactive incorporation of audiences into the media. Citizen journalism and user-generated content arose as an object of interest due to the democratising value of participation attributed to [...] Read more.
The second generation of web tools shook the journalist profession approximately two decades ago with the proactive incorporation of audiences into the media. Citizen journalism and user-generated content arose as an object of interest due to the democratising value of participation attributed to them, with empowered citizens who could emulate the professional and institutional practises of journalists. However, difficulties soon came to the surface, and audience participation in news media began to be limited. Within this context, this article conducts a critical review of studies on audience participation in news media based on a systematic literature review. The results indicate that, in general, audiences showed low interest in the creation of informative content and that their participation has grown increasingly problematic. In addition, journalists are reticent as they defend their professional role above all else, while company strategies have prioritised making participation profitable. For this reason, the idea of citizen journalism that offers user-created content through the media appears to be a thing of the past, with many characteristics that could define it as a failed innovation. Therefore, the text concludes that audience participation in the media could be defined as mediatised participation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Contemporary Digital Journalism: Issues and Challenges)
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