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Social networks have become essential means of communication and have modified the concept of political communication. Social media have nowadays an increasingly important impact on election campaigns worldwide, and, therefore, the latest election processes within the Latin-American context are ideal environments for this analysis, due to both the volatility and the richness of the political-electoral competition, and their capacity to influence the exchange of political information through the different emotions of the audiences. This paper presents a systematized study of the communication that took place in social media during the first round of the 2022 Costa Rican electoral process (February 6th). The information has been collected from the data available at the Digital Media Communication Observatory of the Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, using the social listening tools Minerva Data, Kantar IBOPE Media's Adspend and Mention, with the objective of revealing the digital conversation trends in this campaign, an unprecedented electoral process with 25 presidential candidates. The reports from the Digital Communication Observatory show the evolution of the electorate's behavior in terms of interaction, sentiment, topics and voting intention, during the first round of the 2022 electoral process, as well as the general dynamics perceived in the social media and public web environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Training teachers means confronting them with challenges that enable them to develop social and technological skills for their future career. This article seeks to understand which social problems teachers draw attention to on Twitter and the educational arguments they put forward to address them in class. The digital sources used were also examined. The sample comprised 574 students of the bachelor's degree in primary education at the University of Seville, and our research was conducted in three phases with two types of coding, open and axial, based on grounded theory. The analysis yielded 19 social problems, 4 levels of complexity of educational arguments, and 12 most frequent sources of information. The findings show a need to develop skills to improve the critical filtering of information obtained from digital media and the communication of social problems that can potentially be used in education. Our conclusions highlight the viability of these activities in promoting social media as tools to further knowledge for teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital age, companies in pursuit of their interests have been forced to adapt to Communication and Information Technologies, making use of digital media to guarantee their validity. In this context, this study was born, with the objective of analyzing the management of strategic communication 2.0 developed by the main companies in the Telecommunications sector in Ecuador. This research is developed in three stages: the first, applies the bibliographic review to conceptualize and contextualize the evolution of digital communication in the country and in the investigated sector; the second seeks to describe the process of digital communication, through the analysis of the social network Facebook, to achieve this, metrics and Web analytics tools are incorporated; in the third, the communication management 2.0 is analyzed qualitatively. from in-depth interviews with experts in the area. Finally, a triangulation of information is developed that allows to describe communication 2.0. and the challenges of the new digital environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the observation of social networks utilized by seven NGOs in Medellin-Colombia. It is a result of the research project "Colombia: NGOs, Public Relations, fundraising and post-conflict", whose objective was to describe the communicative reality of NGOs in Colombia, in order to determine whether they are prepared, at the level of public relations management, to obtain the financial resources needed to fulfill their expected role in the Colombian post-conflict. This study´s significance lies on the worldwide trend of the use of online technologies by non-governmental organizations in connecting with their target audiences. According to the results of the study, in its 2017 version, in Latin America, the average number of subscribers in NGO´s social networks ranges between 2,300, for small NGO´s, and 50,000 for large NGOs; 48% of these accept donations online; 94% have a profile on Facebook and 54% have a profile on Instagram. (Nonprofit Tech for Good, 2017) In developing this article, the researcher initially worked on building a theoretical framework that would allow a proper grounding of the results and their subsequent discussion. The five key concepts of this framework were: Communication, Non-Governmental Organizations, strategic communication, public relations and social networks. Subsequently, an observation was made with a time window of five weeks, between April and May 2018. Four criteria were considered in choosing the sample: 1. The researcher sought organizations that were affiliated to the Antioquian Federation of NGOs, since this guarantees that they are legally constituted entities, all possessing a recognized trajectory and responsibility in the fulfillment of their missions (Antioquian Federation of NGOs, 2018: 1). 2. Preference was given to NGOs based on the city of Medellín, one of the regions in Colombia with the largest number of these organizations. In addition, this allowed the researcher geographical closeness and the possibility of greater contact with the sample. 3. Focus was on NGOs that work on post-conflict issues. 4. First-floor NGOs were chosen, that is, those with direct contact with the beneficiaries of their actions. In order to collect the information, the researcher developed a matrix to record the activity that each entity developed in the networks. The characteristics of digital media were the central axis of the analysis of these publications. For this second part, four variables were taken into account: 1. Which social networks did the NGOs use? 2. What kind of content did they publish on them? 3. What was the most frequently recurring theme in these publications? And finally, 4. What where the composition parameters of the messages employed? This methodology utilized a mixture of qualitative and quantitative variables. Results allowed the researcher to show that all the organizations observed in the sample have profiles in the currently most popular social networks; however, their publications do not consider all the parameters that digital communication theory prescribes as needed for success. Among the conclusions of the study then, a low correlation was found between the theory of the strategic use of social networks, and the day-to-day practice of these organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technologies are a wonderful asset, but societies need to be aware of its potential dangers. This article argues the need for anthropological evaluation of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies). The article is based on an extensive review of classic and recent works about Internet studies, and explores the meaning and human implications of the "digital revolution". Its goal is to shed light for conceptual thinking about digital environments. It focuses in five areas: what we could call "lonely togetherness"; the value of identity; information overload; community building, and what I will call the "power of the big five". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of twitter to purposes of external communication is widespread among institutions of higher education. The short messages and the free access to information have turned Twitter into the perfect channel to manage and control the reputational communication in the institutions. This research aims to describe the operation of the tool for purposes of external communication and, through analysis of the use made by Peruvian universities with more activity in these medium, details some principles that serve to promote the development of reputational communication in these educational institutions through the digital environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]