News Organizations in Colombia Building Consensus through Social Media: A Case of Digital-Native La Silla Vacía

Abstract

Correlation of different segments of society is a major function of mass media and works by broadening individual’s perspectives and creating common ground between these different segments Little is known about how consensus building works in the networked, digital environment or how it works in Latin America. This study explores the premise on a social media page from a digital-native news organization in Colombia, La Silla Vacía, on the salient issue of Venezuela. It found that the news organization did provide a common ground within its comments, bringing men and women closer together in consensus (rs = 0.76, n = 10, p < 0.05) of the priorities of topics relating to Venezuela (substantive attributes). The study did not find a significant correlation between the topics prioritized by the posts and the topics prioritized by the comments. Audiences focus on Venezuela in relation to the local Colombian presidential election while the news organization focused on the country in relation to refugees and the political transition happening in Venezuela.