Participatory interviews in digital newspapers: models and opportunities for interactivity

Abstract

The evolution of participatory interview formats that appeared from 2015 to 2020 in the leading digital newspapers in Spain (El paí­s, El mundo, ABC, AS, El diario.es, and El confidencial), as well as Facebook live because it is a new channel for content distribution via social networks, is analyzed. The content of a sample of more than 300 digital interviews was analyzed, considering the narrative scheme between the interviewee and interviewer, the style that the new format acquires on the Internet, the level of audience participation, and the interconnection of the interviewee with the audience/reader. The levels of interaction and reaction of the audiences were analyzed, as well as the possibility of a new type of journalistic storytelling with different levels of interaction that seeks to achieve audience participation, allowing them to feel part of the dialogue, and to expand other possibilities for participation with the interview. This new format encourages online media to evolve towards more dialogic spaces with their audiences using textual, graphic, or auditory language to build a narrative story that fuels curiosity and arouses interest in participation by the audience/reader.