The Colombian Media Industry on the Digital Social Consumption Agenda in Times of COVID-19

Abstract

The pandemic and lockdown forced the media and its agents to transform and think differently. The situation brought with it the reinvention of productive routines and revitalized the information consumption agenda of audiences immersed in screen devices. The operational change of the Colombian media industry, at a time of conjuncture, is approached by this research from a mixed, quantitative and qualitative methodology, with the aim of evaluating the response of the national news company to citizens’ news expectations during lockdown. The case study outlines a digital characterization of the public’s relationship with the media and communication. The corpus of analysis is made up of the actions of the main news agencies in Colombia—press (2), radio (5), television (2)—and their actions on social media—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube—in the period between 1 January and 31 May 2020. The result of this study denotes a mediamorphosis of analogue media that revitalizes and integrates them into a 360° consumption chain, focusing on content that gives way to a creative culture that adapts to the demands of the market and imposes a see now, share now strategy to expand its market penetration.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• virus
• pandemic
• isolation
• media
• web-media