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The European Association of Regional Television (Circom) is an umbrella organization of regional broadcasters in Europe, currently composed of a total of 43 broadcasters from 29 countries. These public service media play a decisive role in information reality owing to their proximity, the cultural development of their communities, and the emotional bond they have with their audiences. This research analyzes the relationship between European regional media, innovation, and digitization processes and the fight against disinformation in the current media context through interviews with Circom network managers. In turn, the resulting sample has been compared with the models of Hallin and Mancini (2004), demonstrating that this classification is not significant in terms of innovation and digitization approaches but is decisive in the analysis of disinformation and the strategies used by the media in each country. Innovation, digitization processes, and business structure have conceptualization problems in solving the pressure that today's convergent environment exerts on linear television. After analyzing the results, it becomes clear that there is a pressing need to renew and redefine professional profiles, adapt content to different formats, and conquer young audiences, although there is no agreement on the best way to face these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to provide the first academic attempt at a map of research on disinformation in Spain. In order to accomplish this, literature on the subject in recent years was reviewed and a query was made on the database of the State Research Agency. This was performed under the section dedicated to grants, using the search keywords "disinformation", "verification", "fake news", "factchecking" and "fact checking". Repetitions and those projects that were not relevant to the areas of Social Sciences, Law and Information and Communication Technologies were filtered out. Thus, 18 research projects granted between 2018 and 2021 were analyzed. The selection involved the aforementioned keywords, and the variables of the study included the university associated with the project, its budget, the area and sub-area and type of grant resulting from the query. Others were also added afterwards, such as the focus and the object of study, the methodology and the context, all designed by the authors of this article. The consultation was performed from December 12th to 16th, 2022. As a consequence, the final approval that was communicated at that time, corresponding to 2021, has not been included; unlike the proof of the concept of that year. Among the results, the sum of over one million euros among all the projects belonging to all mentioned areas is worth noting. This accounts for an average of one hundred and six thousand euros per project, with the University of Vigo (three projects) and the University Carlos III, in Madrid, at the top of the ranking when it comes to this field of study. In terms of budget, the University of Cádiz, with one hundred and thirty-nine thousand euros, and the University of Vigo, with one hundred and thirty-eight thousand, six hundred euros, were the ones that received the biggest portion of funding in the calls from 2018 to 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020, the COVID-19 worldwide health crisis began accompanied by a wide dissemination of news, fake news and comedy content related with different aspects of the event. This research analyzes the proliferation of memes and funny publications with political content during the third wave of the pandemic. Starting hypothesis is that this type of content is a reflection of current events and materializes social criticism. Th Throught a quantitative and content analysis of the main accounts, it have been selected memes and publications of remarkable profiles of Twitter and Instagram users. This information has been coded according to their design, discourse and distribution, with the intention of identifying the publications about pandemic of this type with the greatest reach and with the highest engagement rate. In conclusion, it can be affirmed that memes and humorous contents constitute an release valve for citizens in the face of mediatized crises and catalyze emotions, providing a sense of community, expressed through a common and universal language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media have become an essential means of transmitting information and have transformed the concept of political communication, enabling new audiences to easily select any topic. This has allowed both public and private television networks to provide multiscreen coverage of electoral campaigns while encouraging conversation and debate among users. The content of RTVE's social networks before, during, and after the televised electoral debate on 4 November 2019 (before the general election of 10 November 2019) was analyzed. The presence of conversation and interaction among the audiences was also examined, namely that originating from the general Facebook and Twitter accounts of RTVE's social media (La 1 de TVE, La 2 de TVE, RTVE, Canal 24 Horas, and TVE Internacional). Additionally, those showing specifically informative content (Telediario de TVE and Los desayunos de TVE) were also scrutinized. After extracting the publications, those that both related to the debate and generated significant user engagement were selected to compare the topics from the televised debate with other topics that were most widely featured on social media. The results revealed that much more content and a higher level of interest in the debate were found on Twitter accounts, while Facebook was the most neglected by the television station. The RTVE and Canal 24h channels topped the list for both social networks, as did the news broadcast on Twitter in terms of specific content related to the debate, compared with the general interest accounts owned by the television station. Furthermore, the irrelevance of the content broadcast on social media becomes apparent through the lack of dialog and interaction between the audience and accounts. Moreover, the marginal flow of "debate on debate" among the users is evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The impact of the two debates for the Spanish national elections in April 2019 has been analyzed. They were broadcasted on RTVE and Atresmedia on April 22nd and 23rd respectively. Methods: A telephone survey was conducted in Madrid, Barcelona, A Coruña and Vigo. Out of 8000 calls, 734 complete answers about the debates broadcasted on those dates were obtained. Results: 52% of the respondents have watched one debate and from them 28% have consulted further information. From this last group, 21% have used social networks, but fewer than half have actively participated (43.2%). Discussion and conclusions: There is an age and gender gap in the consumption of information about the televised debates through social networks as well as in their use of each of them. Internet users prefer these networks to obtain information but they do not participate and do not give any credibility to the data offered during the debates. The topics drawing more interest are the same for the users of social networks and those of traditional media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current media ecosystem, one of the main pillars of political party communication campaigns is focused on the appearance of political leaders on television. The presence and exposure of political candidates in this medium, across different informative formats, from entertainment to infotainment, draws the attention of a considerable section of citizens beyond the electoral campaign. The electoral debates are one of the most hegemonic television formats relating to politics, that brings together a large number of spectators. The interest of the Spanish audience in this type of format, without a historical tradition in Spain, has been remarkable to watch during the last twenty-six years of broadcasting. The evolution of the audience for these programs confirms a high level of interest by Spanish spectators and has reached historically high ratings for the networks broadcasting them, which is one of the quantitative indicators unanimously accepted as a standard in the study on audiences. However, the incorporation of new screens and channels into the electoral debates has widened the mainstream viewing scenario. The current multiscreen television experience and audience participation across platforms, such as social networks, represent a challenge for the communication strategies of political parties and television networks, as well as for measurement of this new audience, which is significantly more active, while also generating more content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This article fact-checks the statements made in the televised debates that took place during the Spanish general elections of 2015, between Mariano Rajoy (PP) and Pedro Sánchez (PSOE), and 2016, between Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría (PP), Pedro Sánchez (PSOE), Albert Rivera (Ciudadanos) and Pablo Iglesias (Podemos). Methods: A total of 335 and 382 factual assertions were extracted from two thematic blocks of the 2015 and 2016 debates, respectively, and subsequently factchecked in order to determine their veracity. Results: More than 85% of the factual assertions made by participants were accurate. In fact, data accuracy was very high in the case of government representatives (95.4% in the case of Mariano Rajoy and 84.38% in the case of Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría), followed by Pablo Iglesias (92%), Albert Rivera (88.89%) and Pedro Sánchez (58.1% and 69.23% in the 2015 and 2016 debates, respectively). Discussion and conclusions: Participants in televised debates use a significant amount of factual assertions that reveal their more technical or political profiles. However, they hardly cite their sources, which complicates fact-checking by the audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metamedia and value networks are two emerging concepts in the communication area. The first one refers to the computing transformation of media processes and contexts, both in production and use of the media; the second one relates to the system encouraging information flows, knowledge, and communication social relationships. The revolution of metamedia and digital networks is to be seen in the way people use and consume information, as well as organizations and traditional media outlets. They understand the networks -mainly Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube- as the main value providers, as the present study concludes. This work offers the results of the Media management barometer, a survey undertaken at the end of 2015 and administered to 300 Spanish media companies to check their metamedia transformation and the use of digital social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey conducted among 5,500 professors and researchers from the three Galician universities received 463 answers. The results reveal a rise in popularity of professional and scientific digital social networks, but it also shows a lack of knowledge about them and inefficient use of them. Ninety percent of Galician university professors are present in a professional or academic network, but only 8.64 percent consider themselves experts. LinkedIn and ResearchGate have the largest number of members, although their average use is medium or low. Biomedical, engineering, and natural sciences scholars use more networks than the two previously mentioned; and social sciences and humanities scholars prefer Academia.edu. In total, 32.8 percent of the three universities' scholars that answered the survey use social networks at least once a month. Social networks are used primarily to disseminate and follow publications, and, secondly, to get citations and improve reputation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies attempt to test the predictive power and influence of Twitter in electoral processes. In this context, the present article provides a comparative analysis of the Twitter activity of political parties and candidates during the last campaign for the regional elections in Galicia (5.353 tweets analyzed) in order to find similarities or significant differences and determine if it is perceived strategic and common patterns in their use, both in the context in which they are issued as cognitive and emotional aspect, applying the tool "Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count "(LIWC). The study concludes that accounts of the parties are used most that the candidates, the dominant campaign issues are generic and can not establish a cause-effect relationship between increased use of Twitter and a best electoral results, since, both are seen even as inversely proportional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific or academic social networks have been gaining importance in recent years, highlighting their potential advantages: they allow contact with thousands of researchers from different institutions and countries with interests and common lines of work, perfect, or at least speed up, the basic objective of science, collaboration and the sum of efforts to achieve progress in a specific field of knowledge. In addition, somehow, they also democratize access to scientific knowledge, insofar as they are free networks that break down the barriers, mainly of an economic nature, of traditional publications, in addition to circumventing the selection criteria, usually not very transparent of those publications. In any case, this force is also its weakness; In them everything fits, without criterion or previous sieve of what really has scientific value and what not The criteria of the traditional means of scientific diffusion can be opaque and debatable, but there is a criterion, applied also by researchers with recognized trajectory. In this context, we examine the presence of teaching and research staff from the public universities of Galicia and Portugal in the two main academic networks: Academia.edu and ReasearchGate, establishing also comparisons between countries, universities and genres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following is a reflection on Spanish undergraduate studies that combine the concepts of marketing and public relations. Sharing origins and often functions and specialists, both concepts have run parallel paths that have merged on multiple occasions. This evolution has been studied from different points of view. Initially, marketing experts included PR techniques as an additional tool to grant it a greater specific instrumental relevance over time. On the other hand, PR scholars have tried to dissociate themselves from marketing in order acquire an independent position within the field of communication. In Spain, these conceptual differences are currently blurred due to the creation of new university degrees and double degrees combining both disciplines. This trend is evidenced within the Spanish university market which, throughout this article, will be compared to other markets, namely the American and the British ones, as a scientific reference for both concepts, and to the Portuguese one, given its geographical proximity. We will reflect on the reasons that have led the Spanish university market to combine both concepts and to offer official studies that include them in their nomenclature, far from the historical tradition in this country, where studies in public relations have been related to the field of communication, while those in marketing have been related to the field of economics. The identification of this trend in the job market of organisational communication professionals poses new challenges to training institutions, especially to universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The present research develops and suggests 29 indicators of transparency applicable to public televisions, to subsequently rehearse them experimentally with Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN) and Televisión Española (TVE). Methods: Using the analytical method, these indicators are applied to the information available on websites of TVN and TVE, to finally score their level of transparency using a 0 to 100 scale. Results: The greatest transparency is observed in relation to the production of information and access to contents, followed by economic information. The greatest opacity is related to the institutional information and information regarding the directive staff. Discussion and conclusions: The level of transparency of TVN and TVE is the same, both got a score of 62,069 over 100. Besides, the validity of indicators suggested to value the level of transparency is demonstrated and to stablish equitable and objective comparisons between them, even though they should be broadened in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]