This is my presentation in the international conference Shaping the Future of News Media (Barcelona, 17-19/06/15), hosted by Universitat Pompeu Fabra and organized by the Integrated Journalism in Europe is a Lifelong Learning Programme Project. Read more in http://www.thefutureofnewsmedia.com/paginas/pagina_140_3.en.html

1. Assessment of visual social
media in digital newspapers: El
País as case study
Raquel Herrera
PhD Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Professor of Structure of Communication at the Open University of Catalonia

2. Goals of this presentation
1) To situate visual social media among social media
2) To situate the Spanish landscape of digital
newspapers
3) To assess how El País uses visual social media in its
digital edition

3. 1) What is the situation of visual social media
within social media?

4. We are all familiar with social media
A group of Internet-based applications that build on the
ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0., and
that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated
content.
(Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010: 61)

5. Social media can be…
Blogs and microblogs, wikis, social bookmarking, sites,
content aggregation systems…
But, particularly, we tend to think…
Social media = Social networks
(probably because of their comprehensive structure and
approach to dialogical communication)

6. Social networks rule in social media
Most monthly users in social
media websites
Facebook: almost 1.45 B
QQ: almost 830 M
Twitter/ Google +: more than
300 M
Photo credit: Jason Howie/ Flickr
Horizontal (multipurpose) social media are a
worldwide phenomenon

7. Visual networks are increasingly
important among social media
Most registered users in visual social media
websites
Video:
YouTube 1 B
Vimeo/ DailyMotion 100 M
Pictures (mostly photos but also gifs, videos,
infographics):
Tumblr: 430 M (accounts)
Instagram: 300 M
Flickr: 90 M
Pinterest: 70 M
Chart credit: Chris Blackwell (Fullscreen)
Vertical (specialized) social media are also on the
rise among social networks… should Visual Social
Media be considered a separate category?

8. 2) What is the situation of the Spanish
landscape of digital newspapers?

9. There is an ongoing, significant decrease of
both circulation and sales on Spanish
newspapers
Infographic source. PR Noticias

10. In fact, Spanish analogical media are
altogether losing to digital
consumption
Source: EGM General Summary 14 15

11. Investments (and hopes) are focused on
their digital counterparts

12. El País, from historical newspaper to digital
platform
The newspaper was born in 1976. The
first digital version appeared in 1996 (as
El País Digital).
It was redesigned 5 times in its first 17
years online, and presented an on-off
subscription system (as El País.es).
The latest redesign is from October 2014,
with some responsive and thematically
global changes added in May 2015 (as El
País.com).

13. Elpais.com: a visual homepage (I)

14. Elpais.com: a visual homepage (II)

15. Elpais.com: a visual homepage (III)

16. Elpais.com: a networked homepage (I)

17. Elpais.com: a networked homepage
(II)

18. Elpais.com: a networked homepage
(III)

19. Elpais.com: a networked homepage
(IV)

20. 3) But, how Elpais.com uses
visual social media?

21. Other (visual) social media profiles,
partially hidden by Elpais.com (I)

22. Other (visual) social media profiles,
partially hidden by Elpais.com (II)

23. Other (visual) social media profiles
from Elpais.com: Netvibes
Reproduces the sections and contents from both Elpais.com at large and
from Eskup, which is its own social network (but is presented only as a
widget).

24. Other (visual) social media profiles
from Elpais.com: Youtube
Again, it reproduces
Elpais.com’s homepage’s
sections.
There is an uneven
distribution of videos.
It competes with
Elpais.com’s videos in
the homepage.

25. 3) But is Elpais.com also present in other
significant (visual) social media?
Tumblr/Instagram/ Vimeo/ DailyMotion/ Flickr/ Pinterest

26. Other (visual) social media with an
Elpais.com official profile: Instagram
It was created the first week of
September 2014, supporting the
candidacy of Madrid as an Olympic city.
It used to feature lots of regrams from
El País photographers and supplements.
In the last month it has become more
varied and features more breaking
news and, all in all, more pictures
(rising from 204 to 290 pictures since
May 1).

27. Other (visual) social media with an
Elpais.com official profile: Pinterest
Many boards are focused on supplements. Specific topics from the homepage are
not thoroughly ‘pinned’ (e.g.: infographics). Old covers do not constitute an
archive, but are presented to be bought as ‘mementos’.

28. Conclusions about Elpais.com and
(visual) social media
• Elpais.com presents a significant percentage of visual content
(photos, videos), which is published and shared within news pieces or
as standalone.
• Social media reinforce Elpais.com news, but (visual) social media
updates are not equally interconnected. Thus, visual social media are
not treated as distinct (but complementary) platforms for specific
purposes.
• Elpais.com has to decide whether to increase its (visual) social media
presence through its homepage or to make it depend on specialized
(targeted) supplements.

29. Thank you for your attention!
raquel.herrera@gmail.com