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Copyright of AIDS & Behavior is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Comunicación 'Vivat Academia' is the property of Facultad de Ciencias de las Informacion de la Universidad Complutense (Espana) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

When information is shared it is consumed in a more reflective manner and it is easier to understand and assimilate it, so seeking the participation of the social audience should be among the main concerns of a health sector communicator. The study performs an analysis of the interactions generated in Facebook of the largest private hospital in Spain, the Povisa Hospital, between 2016 and 2018. The results show that the posts that are most shared are those that transmit positive emotions, with images of patients and health professionals, with direct and affirmative phrases, coming from our own sources of information, and told through real stories lived by patients. The conclusions reached in this study can serve as effective formulas of connection between other hospitals and their social audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study tries to answer on three questions: how many citizens does the State access through the social media available to the set of entities of Central State Administration? What are the dominant strategies used by these entities in order to get the largest number of followers? How are the relationships with these entities through social media perceived by citizens? Questions that start from the hypothesis that the extension of social media audience of State is as relevant as that available to other large media corporations in our country, despite its recent implementation in many of its agencies. Secondly, this extension is very unequal and this depends on each entity communication policy strategy. As a third hypothesis, the extension of the accumulated audience is conditioned by the relationship and representation that society has of the different organisms. It is designed a quadruple methodology: 1) quantitative, 2) content analysis of the messages with more echo, 3) qualitative interviews to managers of institutional social media, and 4) discussion groups. One of the relevant results is the communication personalization effort in order to obtain a deeper link with citizen-receivers, replacing the traditional formal-burocratic language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

YouTube has turned into an audiovisual platform worldwide that leaves neither adults nor children indifferent. This work focuses on how the last sector mentioned, that is, minors and their imaginaries are represented in Spain and the United States through the phenomenon of youtubers. We examined 20 YouTube channels with a total of 204 videos, applying formal and content variables and manifest criteria based on minor's privacy. The analysis reveals similarities in the pattern of behaviour, insertion of advertising and the role of parents in content publication. The results show that adverti- sing is the central axis and that parents become guides throughout this process. In conclusion, parents overexpose their children in a business without regulations on advertising and representation of minors, who show unreal worlds and incite other minors to make a compulsive use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Applied Linguistics is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The academic major of community manager is scarcely present in the curricula of Communication degrees, despite the growing importance of social media as a source of employment and the fact that 75% of the job offers that include community manager tasks have a profile that is exclusive and different from those of other jobs in the digital area. Based on a sample of 731 employment offers with community manager tasks published in domestika.org, the main job portal specializing in this sector, an analysis of this professional profile has been made during the decade 2009-2018. The management of social media is no longer the sole domain of programmers and web designers. In fact, this position has experienced a transformation into a professional Communication profile, and each year more competencies and skills are demanded of the community manager, yet within a context of greater job instability. Furthermore, this position seems to be evolving toward the management of influencers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The libraries of Spanish universities have significantly increased their presence and activity on social networks, especially on Twitter. This article analyzes the use that Spanish university libraries (member of the Red de Bibliotecas Universitarias Españolas, Rebiun) make of Twitter. Specifically, through the analysis of social networks, content analysis and non-parametric statistical tests, this research analyzes the network generated on Twitter by the 59 Spanish university libraries that have profiles on this platform as well as the purpose, content, the format and engagement of their tweets. The results indicate that the university libraries form a single-component network on Twitter with a certain degree of cohesion, but with several communities, in which the tweets about service information and the tweets with pictures are the most numerous. Tweets with pictures generate greater engagement independently of their content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

YouTube, owned by Google, is the second search engine in the world. The increase in online video consumption has provoked a reaction in the journalistic industry to attend the need to connect with an audience that constantly demands audiovisual content. This exploratory research shows that although video has become a priority for media and social platforms such as Facebook, in Spain there are few journalists who take the initiative to take an active role in the main video sharing platform. From the analysis of active channels developed by reporters, we conclude that the role of the journalist promoting his/her professional profile on YouTube is scarce, and that most of his/her accounts ignore, alter or redesign his usual work activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on social media has generated important data and reflections on the conception and the type of use young users make of the digital online platforms. However, studies that analyze young people from a greater profile segmentation and specification are required. This article presents the results of a research carried out in Brazil, Colombia and Spain, with a sample composed exclusively of university students from the field of communication. The study focuses on analyzing how students (and future communicators) value and use social media and how important these tools are for their training and professional future. A hybrid methodology based on a matrix survey with quantitative and open questions was used. It may be concluded that communication students value social media positively and conceive them as a consolidated and long-lasting phenomenon, as well as a useful mean to obtain information or contact professionals. Nonetheless, it was observed that the students are concerned about the loss of recognition and credibility of journalists in social media and, more specifically, of politicians and government sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this article is to verify the relationship of the brand web experience through the organizational websites or the social travel media and to verify its influence on the quality of the electronic relationship and the electronic loyalty of the users. To confirm the hypotheses, quantitative techniques were used in a sample of 769 users. From the proposed model, we can conclude that the brand experience through social travel media is the most important direct predictor of the quality of the relationship and brand loyalty. [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]

Copyright of Retos: Nuevas Perspectivas de Educación Física, Deporte y Recreación is the property of Federacion Espanola de Asociaciones de Docentes de Educacion Fisica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Materiales para la Historia del Deporte is the property of Polytechnic University of Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With the widespread of modern technologies and social media networks, a new form of bullying occurring anytime and anywhere has emerged. This new phenomenon, known as cyberaggression or cyberbullying, refers to aggressive and intentional acts aiming at repeatedly causing harm to other person involving rude, insulting, offensive, teasing or demoralising comments through online social media. As these aggressions represent a threatening experience to Internet users, especially kids and teens who are still shaping their identities, social relations and well-being, it is crucial to understand how cyberbullying occurs to prevent it from escalating. Considering the massive information on the Web, the developing of intelligent techniques for automatically detecting harmful content is gaining importance, allowing the monitoring of large-scale social media and the early detection of unwanted and aggressive situations. Even though several approaches have been developed over the last few years based both on traditional and deep learning techniques, several concerns arise over the duplication of research and the difficulty of comparing results. Moreover, there is no agreement regarding neither which type of technique is better suited for the task, nor the type of features in which learning should be based. The goal of this work is to shed some light on the effects of learning paradigms and feature engineering approaches for detecting aggressions in social media texts. In this context, this work provides an evaluation of diverse traditional and deep learning techniques based on diverse sets of features, across multiple social media sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Latino Studies is the property of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research investigates the influence of social medial on work-life balance within the institutional context. Data were collected using a survey questionnaire with 51 questions in five dimensions, which was applied through the "Google Forms" virtual platform. For the study, a descriptive survey was applied, with the participation of 228 professors from the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina [IFSC]. Through the statistical technique of logistic regression, it was possible to verify the interference of the use of social media on the work environment from the teachers' perspective. It was also concluded that teachers who use social media evaluate their access as infrequent, sometimes during the working day. Based on an analysis of the responses gathered, this work concludes that social media has a moderate impact on work-life balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conclusions of a research about the online communication of the nineteen museums belonging to the General Directorate of Fine Arts of Spain (Museo Nacional del Prado, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and Museo Lázaro Galdiano plus the sixteen Museos Estatales run by the Subdirección General de Museos Estatales) are presented. We monitored the use of social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others) as well as the museum websites. We analized: number of followers, use of languages, volume of publications, web pages, backlinks, as well as the follow-up of the online activities. The conclusions of our research show the good work done in significant aspects such as the content of the websites and some social network strategies (specially on Facebook), but also the lack of use of foreign languages, the difficult access to the press area, and transparency data in their websites. Museo Nacional del Prado is shown as the reference center in online communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the central aspects that explain the spread of fake news in social media is that people share them with their contacts. This study is the first investigation that longitudinally examines the variables that explain why users share information in the health area. Using two waves of a nationally representative sample of Chileans, we pinpoint the relevant causal factors. Analysis of the panel data indicates that four variables largely explain this phenomenon: 1) Attention to health issues; 2) Trust in information shared by others; 3) Trust in the media; 4) Credibility in fake news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In line with the research carried out about the effects of Twitter on the configuration of public opinion, this article analyses the features of the debate generated as the result of the presentation of the Law of the Referendum of Catalonia. We work with two samples (n1: 260.866 tweets and retweets and n2: 1.681 tweets) in order to study, on the one hand, the morphology of the retweet (RT) network and the obtention of the profiles -influencers, builders and bridges-that articulate it and, on the other hand, the conceptualization of the political situation by the users who lead the aforementioned network. Results show that there is a significant percentage (32%) of civil society users among influencers, compared to the 68% belonging to the central public sphere. Both profiles lead two ideologically polarized communities for and against this Law, moving away from the ideal of deliberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of Islamist terrorism on the Internet has changed quantitatively and qualitatively in recent years. Never, has it been easier to access all kinds of extremist propaganda through the net, in regular and social networks; in particular, thanks to Web 2.0. The stated objective of organizations such as the Islamic State is to spread an extremist ideology and subculture that justifies violence. This group directs its attention, above all, to young Muslims in the Western Diaspora. In this context, this paper analyzes the evolution of the presence of Islamist terrorism on the Internet for which it focuses on the measures recently approved in Europe to confront this ubiquitous, diffuse, and, at the same time, extremely dangerous threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The participation-based design of a social media strategy for health organizations, and the evaluation of the experience in the Reina Sofía University Hospital are presented. The methodology of collaborative and multidisciplinary design was developed in five phases: identification of target actors; consensus on objectives, channels and content lines; results analysis and feedback; (pre)campaign design; collaborative elaboration of social media strategy. The evaluation included social media monitoring (quantitative evaluation of external communication) and content analysis of semi-structured interviews with hospital managers (qualitative evaluation of internal communication). Results show the positive impact on the external communication and the participants' satisfaction with the co-design, revealing that participatory and interdisciplinary approach, managerial support and professionalization represent the main aspects of social media presence for health organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalists specialized in health information have changed their work routines because of Internet and social networks. Generating health content allows researchers, physicians and patients to be connected and, in this respect, media play a prescriber role in the society. In this paper, the prevailing precariousness in the media is analyzed in order to see if it affects health information and the specialization of its professionals. This work is based on a qualitative research, using in-depth interviews with health information journalists belonging to 16 Spanish media. The research underscores the priority of certain resources, the need to enable verification processes and to face new professional challenges. This research is part of the Aula Nebrija-MSD Spain of Communication and Health Sciences funded project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on the presence and activity of hospitals in social media is abundant, but that is not the case of other health-related organizations. In this research we have examined the profiles on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram of 240 health-related entities. It has been proven that health insurers are more present in social networks than the rest, followed by manufacturers of healthcare products, technology companies, pharmaceutical laboratories, biomedical products companies and hospitals. Nevertheless, users interact more with hospitals, although they are less frequent and less active on these platforms. These findings confirm that a greater presence and activity in social media does not correlate with a greater interaction by the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using several performances undertaken as part of a public art residency, this article discusses creative and playful approaches to social media data. Four pieces are discussed to demonstrate how social media posts can be reappropriated and represented. In this project, geotagged Flickr images were used as a foundation for arts performances to give new meanings to the spaces where the social media post was tagged. This demonstrates a way to bridge the quantitative–qualitative divide through the use of geographic big data in art, enabling scholars to move beyond the visualizations of big data produced by GIScience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

#OurChangingClimate incorporates social media tools into a public practice design project that examines climate change as a place-based and everyday experience. Based on the pilot stage of the project, an initial series of workshops with youth in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, we found that we were able to sow seeds for strengthened community resilience by creating a hybrid online–in real life (IRL) space where participants could gain new understandings about the causes and impacts of climate change and network within and outside of their community. Together we begin to envision new opportunities to mitigate against the adverse impacts of climate change and contemporary climate disruptions. Incorporating social media offered opportunities for a focus on open and accessible exchange, the unique perspectives of specific communities, and public circulation of ideas between community members and designers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our digital world is increasingly visual. Mobile applications focused on digital photography such as Instagram are vehicles for the creation, manipulation and instant diffusion of images. Instagram is therefore an open window to research in Social Sciences and Digital Humanities, and an opportunity to investigate how young users of this application develop visual culture in their local environments through global visual languages. The present work analyzes the production of Instagram in Granada from a sample of 955.564 publications and 375.758 images published and geolocated over a year (between April 2017 and April 2018), with the aim of showing how the image of a city is socially constructed. The geographical, social network, and content analysis of the study sample has allowed to establish which are the main focal points of visual attraction of the city, as well as the most active neighborhoods and districts; the most relevant members of a user network that is self-constructed in a heterogeneous and open manner, with strong intermediary nodes of an "instagramist" style that connect subcommunities; as well as the widespread use of the application both for business promotion and for the development of individual creativity. All this indicates how the Instagram publications in Granada make visible the importance and incidence of tourism in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much the excellent science uses web 2.0 tools to encourage public engagement in the research process is analyzed. Understanding participation, from the perspective of responsible research and innovation, not only as the communication of scientific results, but also the involvement of society in scientific development. For the analysis, an ad-hoc questionnaire developed using the Delphi method was designed and validated. The study sample is constituted by Spanish projects financed by the European Research Council in 2015. Among the results obtained, the reduced use of digital applications stands out. In fact, only 23.9% of projects have a website and less than 15% have a social profile. Regarding participation mechanisms, a limited 3% uses web 2.0 to involve citizens. With reference to the characteristics of the communication, it can be concluded that it is unidirectional from the institution responsible for the project to society -97% of the cases- and presents a high level of specialization -in more than 80% of the cases a technical language is used and the messages posted are aimed solely at experts-. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of social media forces the communication of science and scientific journals to adapt to this new environment. Previous studies and theoretical models such as Utaut and Utaut2 have proven that there is a relationship between the perception of future performance of technology (performance expectancy), the difficulty of use (effort expectancy) and the social influence to which the individual is subject, on the real use of technology, but there is still scarce research about the mechanisms that cause this effect. Starting with Utaut, the hypothesis is that there is an indirect conditional effect of the performance expectancy, the effort expectancy and social influence, over the actual use of social media in scientific journals, where the effect is driven through the intention of use and the size of the effect is moderated by gender and age. A survey was carried out on 300 editors of the top 20 in Social Sciences of the Google Scholar ranking. Confirming partially Utaut, the results of moderated mediation show that performance expectancy and social influence of editors affect the use of Facebook and Twitter, through the intention to use, but it is not the case of ResearchGate, Academia and Linkedln. There is not enough evidence about the moderation of age and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

106 scientific studies, extracted from Web of Science (WoS), regarding brand content strategy within social media were assessed through a quantitative and descriptive bibliometric analysis. The aim is to examine the state, evolution and research designs of this topic. The results reveal findings on the signs of methodological diversity and maturity in this area, expressed through the predominance of empirical works, diversity of actors, methodological designs and analysis units that will enhance new research opportunities in the area of digital communication in digital environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to characterize the modeling and diffusion of news topics in social media and determine the factors that influenced them. Big Data analysis methods such as topic modeling and sentiment analysis were used to analyze one year of tweets from Colombian newspaper El Tiempo. We found that the appearance of long-term topics was related to the message's attributes. Theoretical implications and contributions in light of innovation are mentioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Direct exposure to natural disasters and related losses are associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is less clear whether indirect media exposure is associated with PTSD. Objective: This study investigated key exposure-related risk factors for PTSD and examined the effect of media exposure on the prevalence of disaster-related PTSD. Method: Typhoon Hato directly hit Macao on 23 August 2017. It was one of the most serious natural disasters ever to strike southern China. One month after the event, 1876 Chinese university students in Macao were recruited into a cross-sectional study (mean age 20.01 years, SD = 2.63; 66.2% female). Self-reported typhoon exposure, media use and exposure to disaster-related content, and PTSD symptoms were collected using an electronic survey. Univariable analyses assessed associations between risk factors and PTSD, which were then included in a series of multivariable logistic regressions. Results: The prevalence of PTSD was 5.1%. Adjusted models demonstrated that being male (vs female) [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.68, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.07–2.63], home damage (aOR = 2.86, 95% CI 1.71–4.78), witnessing people injured (aOR = 2.33, 95% CI 1.36–4.00), and almost drowning during the storm (aOR = 8.99, 95% CI 1.92–41.99) were associated with PTSD. After adjusting for direct exposure, indirect exposure to disaster-related social media content, including information related to drowning victims (aOR = 1.29, 95% CI 1.00–1.67) and residents’ emotional reactions (aOR = 1.98, 95% CI 1.44–2.72), was associated with PTSD. Viewing more information about the storm itself (aOR = 0.37, 95% CI 0.28–0.49) and images of heroic acts (aOR = 0.72, 95% CI 0.55–0.94) were significantly associated with lower odds of PTSD. Conclusion: These findings add to the literature demonstrating that some types of media use and certain media content following a natural disaster are associated with PTSD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Nicaragua, there exist polarized opinions with totally opposite versions of the political conflict that took place between April and July of 2018. In the hegemonic version, the media tell of an insane dictatorship assassinating peaceful protestors. This article, however, comes from other experiences and other indignations. We employ the category of "soft coup" and locate the popular sectors' capacity of resistance in their anti-imperialist history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internet creates a complex interplay between communicative practices, political influence, diffusion of ideas, and technological infrastructure. The growing dominance of large online platforms (Facebook, Google, Twitter...) and the development of opaque algorithms, not under public evaluation, are reordering the power relations between political and social actors that shapes and defines the public agenda. We present the results of two longitudinal empirical studies from two communication campaigns (n= 688,982 and n= 48,864 unique publications) of the Spanish political party Podemos. The results show the impact of two different guiding metaphors and the intermediary effects of large social platforms in shaping the public agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dixit. Comunicación, Profesión, Conocimiento is the property of Universidad Catolica del Uruguay Damaso Antonio Larranaga and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Acciones e Investigaciones Sociales is the property of Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y del Trabajo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Mediterranean Journal of Communication / Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación is the property of Revista Mediterranea de Comunicacion / Mediterranean Journal of Communication and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

El estudio identifica el grado de adopción de los medios sociales por parte de los jóvenes de la Costa Caribe de Colombia, los medios a los que acceden con mayor frecuencia, así como los usos principales que hacen de ellos. Mediante un análisis cuantitativo de tipo correlacional, se analizaron las respuestas de 502 jóvenes entre los 16 a 28 años pertenecientes al Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje en la Costa Caribe. Los resultados mostraron que el grado de adopción de los principales medios sociales es de 68 %, donde los usados con mayor frecuencia son Facebook (69.4 %), Google+ (57.6 %), Instagram (45.6 %) y Twitter (42.6 %). Los datos también revelan que el uso principal que los usuarios hacen de los medios sociales es obtener información de noticias, seguido de conectarse con amigos, conectarse con familiares y encontrar música y videos. De acuerdo con la revisión de literatura, el estudio es el primero realizado en Colombia con una data obtenida de jóvenes de estratos 1 y 2 que tienen acceso frecuente a internet, lo cual contribuye a conocer la importancia que tienen los medios sociales para este grupo y a identificar las utilidades comunicacionales e informativas que brinda cada medio. Asimismo, se discuten las implicaciones prácticas del estudio.

Esta investigación pretende determinar el papel que juegan los principales líderes de opinión ecuatorianos en la conformación de la opinión pública de su país, especialmente en la vertiente política, a través del análisis de sus intervenciones en las principales redes sociales (Twitter y Facebook). Hemos monitorizado la producción de contenidos en esas dos redes de 12 sitios importantes de Ecuador, elegidas en función de su intensidad, y del engagement con sus audiencias (volumen de retuits, de likes). Otra variable que hemos medido es la objetividad/subjetividad junto a la de información/opinión. Construction of public opinion in Ecuador from political participation in social networks Abstract This research aims to establish the role of the main Ecuadorian opinion leaders in shaping public opinion, especially on political matters, through an analysis of their activity on social networks (Twitter and Facebook). We monitored the Twitter and Facebook content production of 12 important sites in Ecuador, chosen for their intensity and engagement with their audiences (retweets and volume of likes). Another variable that we measured was the objectivity/subjectivity of the information/opinion. Keywords: public opinion, Ecuador, politics, social media, propaganda

El salto de la esfera política convencional a los social media ha implicado la aparición de nuevos espacios, fórmulas y lenguajes para la comunicación política. En pleno proceso de evolución hacia una web más visual los partidos y líderes políticos han pasado a integrar diversos tipos de imágenes en su discurso 2.0. Estas imágenes han sido cuidadosamente seleccionadas para lograr el máximum comunicativo y suscitar la participación de los internautas en su distribución, posibilitando su conversión en memes. En este sentido, el presente artículo ha tenido por objeto conocer la utilización de las imágenes en el discurso 2.0 de los partidos políticos españoles en Twitter. A partir del análisis de contenido como método de investigación se estudió el empleo de dichos contenidos gráficos por los principales perfiles políticos –tipología de imágenes, estrategias comunicativas, hashtags o etiquetas más habituales, repercusión, etc.- en la conversación online que se estableció durante la celebración del Debate sobre el Estado de la Nación en España (2015). Este análisis de contenido se completó con el etiquetado temático de los memes gráficos, a partir del análisis de las significaciones del texto (imagen y texto). El trabajo efectuado ha permitido señalar divergencias en el empleo de los memes por los perfiles políticos con presencia en la Cámara. No obstante, más allá de las estrategias comunicativas desarrolladas, se han podido determinar unos perfiles con mayor potencial memético.