| Date post: | 28-Jul-2015 |
| Category: |
Social Media |
| Upload: | raquel-herrera-ferrer |
| View: | 166 times |
| Download: | 0 times |
Assessment of visual social media in digital
newspapers: El País as case study
Raquel Herrera PhD Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Professor of Structure of Communication at the Open University of Catalonia
Goals of this presentation
1) To situate visual social media among social media
2) To situate the Spanish landscape of digital newspapers
3) To assess how El País uses visual social media in its digital edition
1) What is the situation of visual social media within social media?
We are all familiar with social media
A group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0., and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.
(Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010: 61)
Social media can be…
Blogs and microblogs, wikis, social bookmarking, sites, content aggregation systems…
But, particularly, we tend to think…
Social media = Social networks
(probably because of their comprehensive structure and approach to dialogical communication)
Social networks rule in social media
Most monthly users in social media websites
Facebook: almost 1.45 B
QQ: almost 830 M Twitter/ Google +: more than 300 M
Photo credit: Jason Howie/ Flickr
Horizontal (multipurpose) social media are a worldwide phenomenon
Visual networks are increasingly important among social media
Most registered users in visual social media websites
Video: YouTube 1 B Vimeo/ DailyMotion 100 M
Pictures (mostly photos but also gifs, videos, infographics): Tumblr: 430 M (accounts)Instagram: 300 M Flickr: 90 MPinterest: 70 M
Chart credit: Chris Blackwell (Fullscreen)
Vertical (specialized) social media are also on the rise among social networks… should Visual Social Media be considered a separate category?
2) What is the situation of the Spanish landscape of digital newspapers?
There is an ongoing, significant decrease of both circulation and sales
on Spanish newspapers
Infographic source. PR Noticias
In fact, Spanish analogical media are altogether losing to
digital consumption
Source: EGM General Summary 14 15
Investments (and hopes) are focused on their digital
counterparts
El País, from historical newspaper to digital platform
The newspaper was born in 1976. The first digital version appeared in 1996 (as El País Digital).
It was redesigned 5 times in its first 17 years online, and presented an on-off subscription system (as El País.es).
The latest redesign is from October 2014, with some responsive and thematically global changes added in May 2015 (as El País.com).
Elpais.com: a visual homepage (I)
Elpais.com: a visual homepage (II)
Elpais.com: a visual homepage (III)
Elpais.com: a networked homepage (I)
Elpais.com: a networked homepage (II)
Elpais.com: a networked homepage (III)
Elpais.com: a networked homepage (IV)
3) But, how Elpais.com uses visual social media?
Other (visual) social media profiles,
partially hidden by Elpais.com (I)
Other (visual) social media profiles,
partially hidden by Elpais.com (II)
Other (visual) social media profiles
from Elpais.com: Netvibes
Reproduces the sections and contents from both Elpais.com at large and from Eskup, which is its own social network (but is presented only as a
widget).
Other (visual) social media profiles
from Elpais.com: YoutubeAgain, it reproduces Elpais.com’s homepage’s sections.
There is an uneven distribution of videos.
It competes with Elpais.com’s videos in the homepage.
3) But is Elpais.com also present in other significant (visual) social media?
Tumblr/Instagram/ Vimeo/ DailyMotion/ Flickr/ Pinterest
Other (visual) social media with an Elpais.com official profile:
InstagramIt was created the first week of September 2014, supporting the candidacy of Madrid as an Olympic city.
It used to feature lots of regrams from El País photographers and supplements.
In the last month it has become more varied and features more breaking news and, all in all, more pictures (rising from 204 to 290 pictures since May 1).
Other (visual) social media with an Elpais.com official profile:
Many boards are focused on supplements. Specific topics from the homepage are not thoroughly ‘pinned’ (e.g.: infographics). Old covers do not constitute an
archive, but are presented to be bought as ‘mementos’.
Conclusions about Elpais.com and
(visual) social media• Elpais.com presents a significant percentage of visual content
(photos, videos), which is published and shared within news pieces or as standalone.• Social media reinforce Elpais.com news, but (visual) social media
updates are not equally interconnected. Thus, visual social media are not treated as distinct (but complementary) platforms for specific purposes.• Elpais.com has to decide whether to increase its (visual) social media
presence through its homepage or to make it depend on specialized (targeted) supplements.
