Martín Oller Alonso

Journalistic performance in Latin America: A comparative study of professional roles in news content

Comparative research across the world has shown that nation-level variables are strong predictors of professional roles in journalism. There is, however, still insufficient comparative research about three key issues: cross-national comparison of journalistic role performance, exploration of how – or whether – organizational variables account for variation in role performance across countries, and the performance of specific journalistic roles that prevail in regions with post-authoritarian political trajectories. This article tackles these three issues by comparatively measuring journalistic performance in five Latin American countries. Based on a content analysis of 9841 news items from 18 newspapers, this article reports findings from Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador and Mexico, by analyzing the presence of the ‘interventionist’, ‘watchdog’, ‘loyal’, ‘service’, ‘infotainment’, and ‘civic’ roles. Results show that the region is far from homogeneous and that while ‘country’ is a strong predictor for most of the roles, other variables such as ‘media type’, ‘political orientation’, and ‘news topic’ are also significant predictors to varying levels.

Hacia la democratización del periodismo participante: tres modelos de transparencia en la gestión de las entrevistas corales de MARCA.com

Interviews of MARCA.com are one of the main forms of online hybrid journalism: users organize an interview with the guests proposed by the online media. Its appeal lies mainly in the low information production costs, the possibility of introducing the concept of Bakhtin’s polyphony (quoted by Araujo and Melo, 2003), and the generation of a more flexible speech, as we described in a previous paper (Barredo and Oller, 2013a). The interplay of these characteristics is the cause that in the five matches between Real Madrid and Barcelona in the season 2010-11, 30% of the total words came from coral interviews (Barredo and Oller, 2013b). However, in these previous studies we have noted an arbitrary function of the organization: in addition to the explicit guidelines in the rules of participation, the online newspaper discards or chooses questions based on undisclosed criteria. With this article we offer three management models which explore the concept of online transparency. Those models can avoid, in our opinion, the stagnation of the coral interviews or similar forms linked to direct marketing (advertorials) and not to journalism.

Nostalgic representation of reality in television fiction: an empirical study based on the analysis of the Spanish television series Cuéntame cómo pasó

The Spanish transition from dictatorship to democracy is often described as an example of negotiation or agreement between the elites (Sanchez Cuenca and Aguilar, 2009: 433). Journalistic and political elites, aware of their important historical role, agreed a consensus on certain issues (democracy, constitution, amnesty) or characters (King Juan Carlos I), in order to ensure the stability of the democratic process (Zugasti, 2007, 2008). Television, which articulates the discourse of the masses, has been one of the basic means used to illustrate the development. Among the highlights of recent major audiovisual content, Cuentame como paso (2001-present) -a TV-series designed to explain changes with a nostalgic tone in Spanish society since 1968 until today- stands out. By choosing a random sample of episodes for this research we propose to verify the validity of the representation of the political process which contextualizes the series. By analyzing many elements, such as the opinions of the main characters, their personal, political and geographical situations, we try to show the construction of a focal point that sanctifies the official version. We also stress the pacifying and nostalgic tone, which constructs stereotypes and taboos about the process and which characterizes this series as a symbolic culmination of the democratization undertaken by the elites.

Género, ideología y prensa digital: la construcción informativa del Día Internacional de la Mujer Trabajadora en www.abc.es y www.elpais.com (2001-2010)

En este trabajo diseccionamos los elementos que integraron las representaciones mediaticas del Dia Internacional de la Mujer Trabajadora en dos de las principales cabeceras digitales espanolas durante la ultima decada (2001 – 2010). Cada uno de los ciberdiarios significo una tendencia informativa, orientada en funcion de determinadas caracteristicas contextuales: www.abc.es construyo una cobertura centrada en el simbolismo conmemorativo de esta fecha, mientras que www.elpais.com diseno una escenificacion critica, preocupada por temas o problemas mas que por alusiones nominales. Junto a las conclusiones de tipo general se proponen algunos hallazgos instrumentales, ya que utilizamos como metodologia principal el analisis de contenido informatizado, una tecnica pionera en el ambito de los estudios de genero y los medios de comunicacion. El analisis de las frecuencias lexicas no jerarquizadas permite la reconstruccion del sentido de una representacion mediatica mediante la deconstruccion de sus vestigios. Y en ese aspecto mostramos algunas escalas que pueden ser incorporadas a otros analisis especificos porque, entre otros logros, estimulan la objetividad, favorecen la precision y evitan en gran medida las injerencias personales del investigador.