Digital journalism in Spain: Technological, sociopolitical and economic factors as drivers of media evolution

Abstract

Digital journalism has been a reality in Spain for nearly 30 years. In this time, the number of digital media outlets has steadily increased to become the most abundant type of media in the 2020s, ahead of print, radio and television. Based on a quantitative analysis of the authors’ own database of active digital media outlets ( n = 2726) and an examination of Spain’s technological, sociopolitical and economic development in recent decades, this article identifies several factors that have spurred the evolution of digital journalism in Spain. The study results show a correlation in the period from 1994 to 2020 between the percentage of Internet users and the number of active digital media outlets, which showed very similar progress. The study also detects a relationship between the country’s economic evolution and the expansion of digital media, albeit with a seemingly paradoxical effect: digital media, especially digital native media companies, proliferated even more when the economy was at its worst. The article highlights the subtle effects of political factors on the development of digital media in the period under study, although increasing political polarization has triggered additional transformation processes in recent years.

Quality of science journalism in the age of Artificial Intelligence explored with a mixed methodology

“…The economic crisis of 2008 led to a loss of circulation and advertisement incomes. Other characteristics are that journalism in Spain tends to rather comment than inform while few journalists are members of journalism associations which is affecting their working conditions negatively [ 36 ]. Media ownership is concentrated to a few owners while outlets often have political affiliations or leanings.…”

E-Commerce as a Source of Revenue in Spanish Digital News Media

“…Spain leads Europe in the quantity of digital-native brands within its media rankings. It is remarkable for the proliferation of digital-native brands such as El Confidencial and Eldiario.es, which not only compete with, but also occasionally surpass, traditional outlets in terms of influence and audience reach (Salaverría & Martínez-Costa, 2023). These trends are not limited to national platforms but extend to regional and local media, mostly privately owned, and frequently using co-official languages to engage local communities (Negreira-Rey et al, 2022).…”

Digital-native news media: Reach in 46 countries, top brands and user profiles in Spain

“…Digital-native news media have become a sizeable part of many online news markets (Salaverría, 2016) and have thrived despite, or even as a result of, challenging circumstances (Salaverría, 2021;Salaverría and Martínez-Costa, 2023), populating the "media ecosystem" from the periphery to the epicenter (López-García, Silva-Rodríguez and Vázquez-Herrero, 2023; Vázquez-Herrero, Negreira-Rey and López-García, 2023), although legacy brands enjoy structural advantages (Nelson, 2020). Nichols et al (2018: 6) identified two "waves" of digital news start-ups: first, "ad-supported aggregators which bundled together news from multiple sources -often as part of a 'portal' model", which we have shown is still present in some countries; and second, digital-born news sites that "produce their own content".…”