Interaction in online media: Readers’ reaction to news and opinion

Authors

  • Cristian González Arias Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso
  • Josefina Rodríguez Cuadra Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso

Abstract

The comments in digital journalism websites are a new practice developed thanks to the increase in internet interactivity. Most of the electronic journalism media have implemented blogs on their websites in order to receive feedback from their readers. The emergence of this practice brings the concrete possibility of analyzing key aspects of the relation between the communication media and their audience and of recognizing some characteristics of the extension of public space to a virtual milieu. A corpus of 480 commentaries linked to 24 articles of two different genres was constituted, namely opinion columns and news, in three Chilean electronic media. The readers’ response to the main article and the other comments were analyzed, trying to identify the specifi c type of response to comments and whether the positioning is in favor of or against the object of response. The findings show that the commentators respond more to other comments and the general topic than to the contents presented by the media. It can also be claimed that the form of response is affected by the journalistic genre of the main article, as well as by some particularities of the newspapers studied.

Keywords: blogs, cyber journalism, public sphere, interactive communication, online comment.

Author Biographies

Cristian González Arias, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso

Cristian González Arias es Doctor en Lingüística por la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile y Docteur en Sciences du Langage por la Universidad París XIII, Francia. Realiza docencia e investigación en su calidad de profesor adjunto en la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, en Viña del Mar, Chile. Su especialidad es el Análisis del Discurso, particularmente desde la perspectiva semiolingüística, trabajo que ha realizado sobre diversas formas de expresión del discurso en el espacio público. Actualmente, dirige el proyecto Fondecyt Nº 11100486, “Nuevas prácticas discursivas en el espacio público: los cometarios de los lectores en los blog de periodismo”.

Josefina Rodríguez Cuadra, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso

Josefina Rodríguez Cuadra es estudiante de Licenciatura en Lengua y Literatura Hispánicas en el Instituto de Literatura y Ciencias del Lenguaje Pontifica Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. Realiza tareas de investigación en el ámbito del Análisis del Discurso.

Downloads

Published

2014-12-26

How to Cite

González Arias, C., & Rodríguez Cuadra, J. (2014). Interaction in online media: Readers’ reaction to news and opinion. Calidoscópio, 12(3), 305–313. Retrieved from https://revistas.unisinos.br/index.php/calidoscopio/article/view/cld.2014.123.05

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 3 (2014): September/December

Section

Articles

License

I grant the journal Calidoscópio the first publication of my article, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution license (which allows sharing of work, recognition of authorship and initial publication in this journal).

I confirm that my article is not being submitted to another publication and has not been published in its entirely on another journal. I take full responsibility for its originality and I will also claim responsibility for charges from claims by third parties concerning the authorship of the article.

I also agree that the manuscript will be submitted according to the journal’s publication rules described above.