| Summary: | The expansion of Web 2.0, based on the acceptance of collective intelligence, is stimulating a global revolution in the ways of information management. This is a scenario where some alterations within the journalistic profession are imposed: the reporter becomes a gatekeeper, an observer of the symbolic content that originates from readers, rather than the traditional gatekeeper, i.e. a filter that determines the content that is necessary to post. In this new mediamorphosis, the media are becoming meeting places where people come to talk to each other. However, Ecuador poses certain challenges that hinder the development of a participatory journalism, including regulatory regimes (after the adoption of the Communications Law in 2013), low connectivity to the Internet, and even some sociocultural factors, such as low participation of Ecuadorian citizens in the public space. This article presents the results of a national survey of journalists from major Ecuadorian print and electronic media, with the goal of shedding light on the influence social networks have on those journalists’ daily routines. The results indicate a low interaction between reporters and their audiences, along with a partial ignorance of the potential that citizen participation has in the transformation of journalism.
|
|---|