Chapter in a book: ONLINE JOURNALISM AND DESIGN THINKING (original) (raw)

Outstanding challenges in Journalism are centred on business models, changing audience’s practices, declining audiences, of print sales and the access to media by its homepage, mobile first acclaimed strategies, the ever-changing algorithm parameters of Social Media that directly affect the access and distribution of media content, the increase relevance of personalization in content and channel distribution (mobile applications, podcasts, messages, newsletters, etc.) (Doctor, 2016; Hazard Owen, 2016; Lichterman, 2016); the inherent and outstanding differences between broadcast, print, mobile, online and social media ecologies, ambient and technological environments (Wang, 2016); the urgent need to recover core values of journalism like ethics, quality, credibility and transparency, in relation also to start-ups, crowdsourcing and entrepreneurial successful initiatives; the notion of ‘news as a product’ (Bilton, 2016); and the balance between adblocking, native and sponsored advertising and content. Thus, essential individual traits, skills and mind-set, the future of journalism is foreseen in the form of professionals who (alone or in collaboration) are able to monetise content in innovative ways, connect to its publics in interactive new formats, grasps opportunities and respond to (and shape), its environment (Briggs, 2012). Then, the abilities needed are: Produce on multiple platforms, understand the economics, build your brand, master match (filter, organize), clean and copy (curate), learn basic coding, know your audience and engage on social media (Albeanu, 2015; García, 2015b; Gourarie, 2015; Harding, 2015; Kramer, 2015; Klein, 2015; Levin, 2015; Parker, 2015; Peer, 2015; Powers, 2015; Rajan, 2015; Stern, 2015; Sterns, 2015). In the Media Life (Deuze, 2012), the Design Thinking approach would capture the specific aspects and features related to the interface design and the creation of content, genres, formats and models; the affective and rational considerations and descriptions of the media as artefacts, activities and arrangements as well as the user behaviour between actions and affordances, animations and performances (Serrano Tellería, 2016). Keywords: Cyberjournalism, Design Thinking, Online Journalism