EXPERIMENTING WITH USERGENERATED CONTENT IN JOURNALISTIC PRACTICES: adopting a user-centric storytelling approach during the covid-19 pandemic coverage in Latin America

EXPERIMENTANDO COM CONTEÚDO GERADO POR USUÁRIOS NA PRÁTICA JORNALÍSTICA: adotando um enfoque narrativo centrado no usuário durante a cobertura da pandemia de covid-19 na América Latina

EXPERIMENTANDO CON EL CONTENIDO GENERADO POR EL USUARIO EN LAS PRÁCTICAS PERIODÍSTICAS: adoptando un enfoque narrativo centrado en el usuario durante la cobertura de la pandemia de covid-19 en América Latina

ABSTRACT

Many scholars have recognized the benefits that user-generated content (UGC) can bring to news publications. In this context, the coverage of the pandemic has undoubtedly forced news outlets around the world to embrace such content to present relevant information during this time. To understand how Latin American outlets are exploring UGC in news reporting, we proposed an exploratory study that includes a devised observation of 80 news websites and their social network channels between April and August 2020. During this period, we conducted a systematic observation to analyze how these outlets open spaces for the public and experiment with integrating user content into their news processes. Our findings suggest that the majority of the observed portals have punctually adopted UGC with minimal engagement. However, the pandemic disrupted interesting experiments regarding the integration of UGC into news creation that generate innovative forms of storytelling.

Keywords
Journalism; User-Generated Content; Storytelling; Pandemic; Latin America