No abstract

The COVID-19 has caused not just an unprecedented sanitary crisis but a social crisis, which has affected, among many other fields, the local journalism, which had to adapt to meet the public’s information needs about coronavirus. In this study we analyzed the evolution of local news about COVID-19 in Spain throughout the pandemic by examining local news articles in social media. Using a unique dataset of over 230k Facebook posts published by Spanish local media organizations during 2020 and 2021, we found evidence that the interest of local media in COVID-19, measured as the proportion of the news related to COVID-19, changed as the pandemic evolved. Our results also show that the interest that local media readers had in COVID-19, measured as the proportion Facebook interactions related to COVID-19, was even higher, and also evolved during the pandemic. Although the interest in COVID-19 of local media and their readers essentially progressed in parallel, we also identified some periods in which they behaved differently. While a fatigue with COVID-19 related news would be expected after 2 years of pandemic, a clear decrease of interest was not observed neither in journalists nor in readers.

The local press has always played a central role in the Portuguese society. Recently, new innovative technological projects to develop mobile applications and focus on local journalism in Portugal have emerged. These initiatives allow the development of better and more appealing services for local users. However, due to the important social role of the local press, this also brings along some responsibilities. Our main research goal is to study the accessibility issues in local journalism in Portugal. To this end, we first describe the current situation of local journalism in Portugal and some accessibility issues raised by the appearance of mobile applications. We then develop a simple checklist that allows the assessment of whether these applications have prevented social exclusion and facilitated the access of local information to a wide range of users, including disabled citizens. This tool provides the regional news publisher with information to improve its democratization of access to local information in Portugal. Using the cognitive walkthrough method, we illustrate the proposed framework by presenting case studies of five mobile applications in Portuguese local and regional press. This study concludes that despite the great potential that mobile applications showcase, several accessibility issues have not been properly addressed.

La comunicación y divulgación de la ciencia es un pilar fundamental para entender el proceso de transformación social y económica de un país, ya que la generación de nuevos conocimientos, no pueden traer beneficios a la sociedad, si éstos se mantienen restringidos a un ambiente exclusivamente científico. Esto tiene especial importancia es países en vías de desarrollo como es el Brasil. En este sentido, el Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología, Innovaciones y Comunicaciones, el MCTIC, es el responsable de la implementación y ejecución de programas nacionales para la difusión de la ciencia en Brasil. El sitio web del MCTIC, es el medio más importante para llevar a cabo tales objetivos. En este trabajo analizaremos este portal, y su efectividad como herramienta para divulgar y promover la adquisición de información sobre ciencia. En particular, este trabajo se centra en el análisis de la usabilidad del portal de MCTIC. La usabilidad es uno de los parámetros más importantes para evaluar la efectividad y calidad de un portal, y es esencial para que las plataformas puedan ser utilizadas con éxito. Veremos que, aunque la utilización de esta plataforma digital ofrezca nuevos caminos para la disposición de la información al ciudadano, todavía persiste un retraso significativo en lo que respeta su estructura, especialmente, la usabilidad.