Comments in online news could be the contemporary enactment of the eighteenth-century cafés that founded public sphere. This article assesses to what extent do these forms of digital discussion fit in Habermas’ principles for democratic debate, using his discursive ethics as a demanding normative benchmark. The sample of more than 15,000 comments was selected from the online versions of five national newspapers of record from different political and journalistic contexts: The Guardian (United Kingdom), Le Monde (France), The New York Times (United States), El País (Spain), and La Repubblica (Italy). The ethical guidelines and legal frameworks set up by the newspapers as well as their moderation strategies were considered to understand the different settings of the conversations. Two models of audience participation emerge from the analysis, one where communities of debate are formed based on mostly respectful discussions between diverse points of view and another of homogenous communities, in which expressing feelings about current events dominates the contributions and there is less of an argumentative debate.

FinanciaciónEste trabajo ha sido subvencionado por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades de España dentro del proyecto RTI2018-095775-B-C44.

Pere Masip is a professor of journalism at the University of Ramon Llull, where he also gained his PhD in journalism. He is the main researcher of the research group Digilab: media, strategy and regulation. His main research interests are media convergence, digital journalism, and the impact of technology on journalistic and communication practices. He has participated in several national and international projects. He is currently coordinating a research, development, and innovation project funded by the AbstractBased on a quantitative approach, this paper presents some of the preliminary results of a research project focused on the analysis of the motivations that encourage citizens to actively participate in online news media, using the mechanisms provided by their websites, and through open social network platforms. The findings show that, although there is a widespread discourse of distrust in connection to journalists and the traditional media institutions, as well as general criticism of the actual practices of journalists, the common understanding of the participatory dimension of the media does not entail discourses of change or modification of the existing hegemony. Instead of turning to alternative sources, such as citizen journalism or non-traditional media, or taking the lead by creating their own content, citizens prefer to continue to respect journalism as a profession and the traditional media institutions as the main producers of news as well as the most trusted sources of information. Furthermore, although in previous studies audience participation "in" the media has been highlighted, the findings of this research show that the practice of user recommendation or dissemination of media content through social networks has been adopted by a large number of citizens. KeywordsParticipatory journalism; Active audiences; UGC; Online journalism; Social networks; Surveys. ResumenEste artículo presenta los primeros resultados de un proyecto de investigación centrado en el análisis de las motivaciones que impulsan a los ciudadanos a participar activamente a través de los mecanismos que con ese fin ofrecen los medios digitales y a través de las redes sociales. Los resultados muestran que a pesar de los discursos generalizados de desconfianza en torno a los periodistas y los medios de comunicación tradicionales, así como las quejas generales sobre la práctica de la profesión periodística, la dimensión participativa de los medios de comunicación no conlleva un discurso o modificación de las hegemonías existentes. En lugar de recurrir a fuentes alternativas (como el periodismo ciudadano o medios no tradicionales), o generar contenidos informativos propios, los ciudadanos siguen confiando en los periodistas y los medios tradicionales como los principales productores de noticias, así como las fuentes de información de mayor confianza. Por otra parte, aunque tradicionalmente se ha destacado la participación de las audiencias "en" los medios, los resultados muestran que las prácticas de recomendación o diseminac...

In little over a decade, essential concepts in research on communication have become zombie concepts (Beck & Willms, 2004) and are no longer effective for understanding the profound transformation that has taken place with the arrival of the internet. Public sphere, deliberation, audiences, public... the academic literature has oscillated between an initial optimism about the potential for strengthening democracy of communication technologies to a critical scepticism. This text reviews the academic literature with regard to the forms of social deliberation adopted in the context of the media and social networks and its impact on the public sphere.

Like many news media organisations, European public service broadcasters are adapting their corporate strategies to the specific demands of the evolving communicative environment. Digitisation and convergence have been usually presented as an opportunity to reinvent Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) into Public Service Media, by producing and delivering (news) content across traditional radio, television and new online platforms. While investment in digital facilities has set the basis for a more integrated operation amongst the different news media outlets, finding a workable template to implement professional cross-media practices has been more complex than expected. With the aim of exploring key challenges of convergence affecting PSB newsrooms, this article presents a multiple-case study that investigates current convergence processes of five European mid-sized public broadcasting corporationsthe UK's BBC Scotland, Spain's CCMA and EITB, Norway's NRK and Flemish-Belgian' VRT. Combining an array of qualitative methods, the study focuses on specific convergence parameters, including newsrooms' physical structure and management, cross-media production routines and workflows, degree of multi-skilling in journalists, professional identities, and attitudes towards convergence. Findings show that public broadcasters tend to follow a similar pattern in basic aspects, like grouping radio, television and online newsrooms together in the same physical space, even if this model has different outcomes in terms of cooperation across media and journalists' involvement.