Ciberjornalismo de proximidade
[Cyberjournalism of proximity]
by Pedro Jerónimo
The study which we echo here, has resulted from a route which sought to answer two big questions: what kind of content does the regional press produce in the context of cyber journalism? What are the factors that determine the production routines of ciberjournalism in the regional press? Although the goal was to search the unknown, trying to answer the questions raised, there were some expectations as a result of the studies on cyberjournalism, regional press and journalism of proximity. So, it was expected that the news was the most frequent content in the cibermeans of the regional press -mainly due to transposition from the traditional means - and that the tradition of paper production, human resources and time were the factors that would most determine the cyber journalistic production routines. What is presented in this book is the result of a proposal to frame cyberjournalism while branch of journalism and to study the production routines of some of the journalists of the regional press in Portugal for the Internet. This objective was accomplished by updating, analysis and discussion of the main theoretical production on cyberjournalism, production routines, regional press and journalism of proximity. The survey on regional cibernewspapers that are published more regularly, in their paper versions, trying to understand their evolution; and the in-depth study of the ciberjournalistic production routines in the newsrooms of three of the main Portuguese regional newspapers, seeking to understand what determines them. From there we intended to try to describe the adoption process of the Internet by the Portuguese regional press and the creation of cibernewspapers; identify the ciberjournalistic production existing there; observe the journalists’ experience regarding these routines; identify the resources involved; characterize the cyberjournalists of proximity (if they existed); meet the newsrooms contexts that adopted the Internet and cyberjournalism; understand what determines the cyberjournalistic routines production in the regional press. To this end, the database of the Regulatory Authority for the Media (ERC) was used and own researches were developed, so as to be possible to identify the regional newspapers published more regularly by traditional means (daily to weekly); the study Bareme Regional Press was also applied (Bareme, 2010), from which the three districts with more audience were identified: Castelo Branco (74.7%), Santarém (73.4%) and Leiria (70.1%). For each one of these territories, it was possible to determine 1) the newspaper with more audience, 2) the newspaper that presented regular production in the respective cybermean and also 3) that the three final choices could represent different kinds of property. So, we got to the names of the newspapers Reconquista, O Mirante and Região de Leiria, respectively – all with weekly periodicity.
