On digital slow journalism in Spanish: An overview of ten media cases from Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Spain

Abstract

The journalism of the 21st Century has gone through a serious transformation consistent with the digital ecosystem. With the aim of shedding some light onto the current journalistic panorama, this article tackles questions relating to digital slow journalism in Spanish, mainly centred on the need of these media to reinvent itself and look for new formulas such as innovation and content quality. Our research is based on an international study – Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Spain – using a triangulation and mixed method with exploratory, descriptive and quantitative techniques: consultation of documentary sources, case studies, in-depth interviews, Delphi study (two rounds with 29 international experts) and surveys (a total of 2000 surveys, 500 surveys per country). These techniques were applied to 10 representative digital Media entities within the slow journalism context in four Ibero-American countries: Revista Anfibia (Argentina), La silla vacía (Colombia), Revista Arcadia (Colombia), Jot Down (Spain), Revista 5W (Spain), CTXT (Spain), Yorokobu (Spain), Panenka (Spain), Letras Libres (Mexico), Gatopardo (Mexico). This essay reflects on the content and elaboration of these publications, journalistic genres, the professionals who work on them and the future challenges facing these projects. The reader profiles of these outlets, their knowledge of slow journalism and their consumer habits are also explained.