Journal of Radio & Audio Media
ISSN: 1937-6529 (Print) 1937-6537 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hjrs20
WhatsApp as a Tool for Participation on Spanish
Radio: A Preliminary Study of the Program Las
Mañanas on RNE
Flávia Gomes-Franco e Silva, Juliana Colussi & Paula Melani Rocha
To cite this article: Flávia Gomes-Franco e Silva, Juliana Colussi & Paula Melani Rocha
(2018) WhatsApp as a Tool for Participation on Spanish Radio: A Preliminary Study of
the Program Las Mañanas on RNE, Journal of Radio & Audio Media, 25:1, 77-91, DOI:
10.1080/19376529.2017.1370712
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19376529.2017.1370712
Published online: 16 Apr 2018.
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WhatsApp as a Tool for Participation on
Spanish Radio: A Preliminary Study of the
Program Las Mañanas on RNE
Flávia Gomes-Franco e Silva, Juliana Colussi,
and Paula Melani Rocha
This study was conducted in an environment of widespread use of social
media and mobile applications in the mass media. The general goal of the
study was to analyze the use of WhatsApp in cybermedia, specifically in radio.
A case study was proposed to examine the use of WhatsApp on the program
Las mañanas de RNE, broadcast by Spanish National Radio. It was found that
the public was very accepting of the program’s initiative to solicit WhatsApp
voice messages, beginning in November 2015. The case study used audio files
of a direct broadcast that included specific times for audience participation.
The use of WhatsApp was accepted by the audience, in addition to the use of
the conventional telephone, as a tool well-suited to listener participation in
radio programming. Finally, the study highlights the importance of interactive,
participatory spaces in broadcasts through the creation of synergies with new
forms of online participation.
Introduction
Online means of communication have increased the power of citizens to disseminate information and have stimulated other forms of communication using different technologies (Meso Ayerdi, 2013). Cyber-media have guaranteed the possibility
of citizen participation on interactive digital platforms such as Twitter and Facebook
(Carrera, Saiz De Baranda, Herrero, & Limón, 2012; García de Torres et al., 2011;
Gomes-Franco E Silva, 2014; Noguera Vivo, 2010), in order to disseminate content
Flávia Gomes-Franco e Silva (M.A., King Juan Carlos University) is an assistant professor and researcher at
the faculty of Juridical and Social Sciences at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) in Madrid (Spain).
Juliana Colussi (Ph.D., Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa) is an associate professor and researcher at
the School of Human Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia.
Paula Melani Rocha (Ph.D., Universidade Federal de São Carlos) is collaborator research at the Laboratory of
Advanced Studies in Journalism at Campinas State University (LABJor—Unicamp). Researcher FAPESP.
adjunct professor of the post-graduate program in Jornalism at the Ponta Grossa State University.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/hjrs.
© 2018 Broadcast Education Association
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19376529.2017.1370712
Journal of Radio & Audio Media 25(1), 2018, pp. 77–91
ISSN: 1937-6529 print/1937-6537 online
77
78 Journal of Radio & Audio Media/May 2018
in environments where the audience is connected. And it is the behavior of this
audience that calls for the incorporation of interactive tools such as WhatsApp, in
order to offer new means of participation and increase the possibility of dialogue
with the medium.
The appropriation of new technologies by the cyber-media has provided audiences with a range of tools that promote listener participation (Hermida, 2011). It is
argued in the relevant literature that the use of Web tools has led to increased
contact between journalists and their audience, and that the public has become an
active agent (Cajazeira, 2013; Gomes-Franco e Silva & Puebla Martínez, 2014).
Theoretical Framework
Audience Participation in Radio Programming
Radio communication has undergone a notable transformation since the adoption
of interactive digital platforms, and some authors consider it the medium that has
changed the most as a result of audience participation (Peña Jiménez, 2012).
Public participation in radio programming is traditionally associated with telephone calls broadcast live or with a time delay. The traditional telephone continues
to be used on radio programs as a means for audience participation, although today
it shares spaces reserved for audience contributions with online social media. The
introduction of audience participation by telephone democratized radio and offered
additional advantages such as reducing the time necessary for responses between
interlocutors and allowing for changes to programming in order to include more
participatory spaces, etc. (Peña, 2011).
When the telephone was adopted as a participatory tool, this brought about a
process of adaptation by radio professionals. Radio was transformed from a unidirectional medium where letter-writing was the only means for public response1 and
slowly opened up to on-air dialogue.
With the advance of new technologies, the introduction of additional forms of
communication between radio stations and their audience has been favorable for
interaction and conversation, facilitating bidirectional discourse. To express their
opinions on air, listeners can now use not only the traditional telephone, but also
digital media such as email and the aforementioned social media, which were
adopted by Spanish radio in 2009–2010 (Peña Jiménez & Pascual, 2013).
In this new media scenario, communication with the audience requires different
kinds of strategies in order to capture the attention of the public, which now inhabits
a hyper-connected environment, with multiple platforms available for the consumption of content. Radio can use social media, for example, to increase its social
capital, with positive effects on the content of its broadcasts (Dasilva Pérez, Santos,
& Meso Ayerdi, 2015). In an analysis of interactive strategies of Spanish radio
stations, it was found that listeners sent messages using both social networks and
email (Peña Jiménez, 2012). In addition, instant messaging applications such as
Silva, Colussi, and Rocha/WHATSAPP ON SPANISH RADIO 79
WhatsApp have gained ground as smartphones became ubiquitous for both interpersonal communication and communication with the media.
The Use of Apps for Audience Participation
Aware of the fact that 88.2% of users in Spain access the Internet using their
mobile phones (Fundación Telefónica, 2016), the mainstream media in the country
set out to develop apps and content adapted to use on the fourth screen (CostaSánchez, 2014), revolutionizing the industry of content production. Other authors
have discussed the power of smartphones to efficiently establish a connection with
the media audience and the importance of smartphones to the work of journalists
(Toural & López-García, 2015).
WhatsApp was launched in 2009, allowing for the instant exchange of messages
among smartphone users. Five years later, Facebook purchased the app for 21.8
million dollars (Aparicio, 2016). WhatsApp can be used on all smartphones and
tablets, and on the World Wide Web.
In 2016, with the increasing use of smartphones and smartphone-friendly apps, the
Center for Sociological Research (Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas—CIS,
2016), which conducts quantitative social research on Spanish society, incorporated
a new series of questions addressing communication technologies into its surveys.
Their results indicated that 72.1% of respondents had utilized WhatsApp or other
instant messaging applications such as Line or Snapchat in the previous 6 months. In
addition, 44.3% said that they used these applications on a continuing basis, while
41.7% used them several times a day. According to the Annual Study of Mobile
Marketing (Estudio Anual de Mobile Marketing, IAB Spain 2015), WhatsApp is the
fastest growing and most widely used application in Spain.
Until recently, platforms such as WhatsApp or Snapchat were a cause of concern
for journalists working in cyber-media (Weichert, 2016). Now, however, these
applications are widely used by the media as additional channels for the distribution
of information, and WhatsApp is a great ally of radio as a medium for audience
participation (Holton, Lewis, & Coddington, 2016).
Objectives, Research Questions, Hypothesis, and Methods
This study presents a preliminary analysis of the use of the instant messaging
application, WhatsApp, as a tool for audience participation in radio. This is particularly interesting in Spain, which is the European leader in smartphones penetration
(Bravo Cuiñas, 2015). Emphasis in WhatsApp allows an assessment of its role as an
online strategy for participation and audience engagement. We studied the morning
radio program Las mañanas de RNE, which airs Monday through Friday from 6:00
am to noon on Spanish National Radio (Radio Nacional de España—RNE).
80 Journal of Radio & Audio Media/May 2018
Based on the results of the second wave of the General Study of Media (Estudio
General de Medios—EGM, 2016), conducted in April–May 2016, RNE has
1,417,000 daily listeners Monday through Friday. The program Las Mañanas de
RNE has one of RNE’s largest audiences, with 927,000 daily listeners.
Las Mañanas de RNE was selected for this study not only due to the prominence
and large audience of RNE, but also because RNE is actually the only public Spanish
radio station that can be tuned in from all over Spain. The program is part of the
Spanish Radio and Television Corporation (Corporación de Radio y Televisión
Española -RTVE), and started transmitting on January 19, 1937. This early start has
allowed the program to witness and diffuse significant events in Spanish modern
history like the Civil War, General Franco´s dictatorship and the subsequent transition to democracy. Additionally, Las Mañanas is RNE’s principal program, with a
broadcast schedule of 30 morning hours per week (6 hours per day). The program is
also broadcasted through Radio Exterior, the international station of RTVE, which
allows an audience that transcends the Spanish territory. It is an information/entertainment program (López Vidales & Gómez Rubio, 2014).
Fieldwork was conducted by listening to the entire program broadcast on Tuesday,
June 28, 2016, and conducting two interviews on the same day at RNE’s office in Madrid.
The case study consists of an analysis of the selected program with respect to certain
variables of interest, including the nature of segments, their duration, and the topics
addressed.2 The complete program was downloaded for free from the official Web site
of Radio Nacional de España, specifically from the link RNE a la Carta (RNE à la carte),3
where podcasts are available in mp3 format. The single emphasis on the program Las
Mañanas de RNE for this exploratory approach is justified by the fact that it is the only
program with a 6 hour duration broadcast, following a standard format in which spaces
for audience participation are maintained from Monday to Friday.
The minute-by-minute program log carried out for the purpose of analysis included
RNE news reports read every hour on the hour as part of the first segment of each
hour’s programming. The case study was carried out in an effort to answer the
following Research Questions:
RQ1: How many times is WhatsApp number announced throughout the program
in order to invite audience participation?
RQ2: In what segment or segments is the program’s WhatsApp number
announced?
RQ3: In what segments of the program are the voice messages sent by listeners
broadcast?
RQ4: How many voice messages are broadcast during the program?
RQ5: What is the average length of a voice message?
RQ6: How much time is spent broadcasting voice messages compared to other
forms of audience participation (social networks, conventional telephone,
etc.)?
Silva, Colussi, and Rocha/WHATSAPP ON SPANISH RADIO 81
The research was conducted to test the following hypotheses:
H1: Despite the increased use of WhatsApp, use of the conventional telephone is a
more common form of audience participation.
H2: The time dedicated to broadcasting WhatsApp voice messages is similar to the
time used to read messages sent to the program through social networks.
In addition to the case study, two semi-structured interviews were conducted in
order to contextualize the information gathered through the program analysis and to
obtain complementary information regarding the implementation of WhatsApp as a
means for audience participation, a profile of the listeners who sent voice messages,
and the criteria for selecting messages for broadcast. The data obtained through
interviews were cross-checked with those obtained in the program analysis. The
following individuals were interviewed4:
a. Alfredo Menéndez, director and presenter of Las mañanas de RNE.
b. Ángela Fernández, manager of social media and audience participation on the
program.
Results
Case Study: Presence and Forms of Listener Participation
The contents of different program segments are described in Table 1, a minute-byminute program log. The “segment” column indicates the name of the segment as
announced on the broadcast. Where the name of the segment was not announced,
the default formula “ordinal number + hour” is used in the table, as can be observed
in the fourth, fifth, and sixth hours of programming. The content described was
broadcast during the hour indicated, i.e., between 9:00 and 10:00 in the case of
the fourth hour, between 10:00 and 11:00 for the fifth hour, and between 11:00 and
noon for the sixth hour. As can be observed from Table 1, the program has a 6 hour
duration. Contents have been classified following the main argument in each program´s section (news or entertainment).
The program provides two spaces for audience participation. In the first, which
takes place during the fourth hour, listeners send in their comments and opinions
about topics discussed in previous segments. The second such space is available for
public contributions on a topic proposed during the last seconds of the fourth hour.
Audience participation in the first space is focused on political topics, while the
second space is much broader than the first and participation is intended to be
enjoyable and entertaining. On June 28, the fifth hour was used to speak with
listeners about films that they enjoyed, without entering into the history of film.
A call for audience participation was made at three moments in the program other
than the audience participation times themselves: at the end of the first hour, together
Hour: OnAir time
option
Segment
Segment
1
6:00 a.m.
Spain at 6
News
2
7:00 a.m.
3
8:00 a.m.
Spain at 7
News
Spain at 8
News
4
9:00 a.m.
Fourth hour
News
Economic notes
Fourth hour
Contents
Duration
Journalist/presenter
News
Program preview and
invitation to participate
News
Telephone interview
News
Talking politics
Telephone interview
Telephone interview
Invitation to participate
Talking politics
Studio interview
Economic analysis
Telephone interview
Preview of other program
Audience participation
57 minutes 43 seconds
2 minutes 17 seconds
Alfredo Menéndez
Daniel Bermejo
57 minutes 18 seconds
2 minutes 42 seconds
30 minutes 00 seconds
20 minutes 19 seconds
5 minutes 54 seconds
3 minutes 22 seconds
25 seconds
17 minutes 35 seconds
26 minutes 04 seconds
3 minutes 01 second
2 minutes 08 seconds
2 minutes 48 seconds
7 minutes 35 seconds
Alfredo Menéndez
Program preview and
invitation to participate
49 seconds
Alfredo Menéndez
Ángela Fernández
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Gabriel Herrero, “J”
Alfredo Menéndez
Mariló Montero
Alfredo Menéndez and
Ángela Fernández
Alfredo Menéndez and
Javier Capitán
82 Journal of Radio & Audio Media/May 2018
Table 1
Program Log of Show Broadcast on June 28, 2016
6
11:00 a.m.
What else about
Parabolas?
Classics of the big
screen
Sixth hour
The Torres Brothers
Source: Authors
Entertainment Audience participation
37 minutes 04 seconds
Alfredo Menéndez, Javier
Capitán, Raquel Martín,
Alonso and Ángela
Fernández
Santiago García
Cremades
Eva Sandoval
Mathematics
8 minutes 56 seconds
Film and music classics
14 minutes 00 seconds
Studio interview
Telephone and studio
interview
Recipes
30 minutes 40 seconds
13 minutes 40 seconds
Alfredo Menéndez
15 minutes 40 seconds
Sergio and Javier Torres
Silva, Colussi, and Rocha/WHATSAPP ON SPANISH RADIO 83
5
Fifth hour
10:00 a.m.
84 Journal of Radio & Audio Media/May 2018
with the program preview presented by Daniel Bermejo, at the end of the third hour,
by Ángela Fernández, and at the end of the fourth hour, together with a program
preview and the introduction of the next topic by Alfredo Menéndez and Javier
Capitán. In addition, five other invitations were made during the times set aside for
audience participation, informing listeners how they could participate in the program.
The public participates in Las mañanas de RNE using different means of communication. On the June 28 broadcast it was announced that listeners could participate
by calling a free telephone line (900 137 137), by using the social networks
Facebook and Twitter (@lasmananas_rne), or by using WhatsApp (620 57 57 12).
Figure 1 illustrates the frequency with which this information is announced during
the program. It is clear that the telephone number is announced more frequently,
leaving less time available to announce information on social networks and the
number at WhatsApp.
In the first space for participation, five people participated by telephone and five
voice messages sent over social networks or WhatsApp were selected. In the second
space, there were many telephone calls, amounting to 12 instances of audience
participation that were broadcast, and messages by six other listeners who opted for
social networks or instant messaging were selected as well (see Table 2).
The total time of participation by telephone was 5 minutes and 30 seconds in the
fourth hour and 14 minutes and 24 seconds in the fifth hour, totaling 19 minutes and
54 seconds. The time spent on reading messages sent through Facebook and Twitter
was 9 seconds in the fourth hour and 20 seconds in the fifth hour, totaling only
29 seconds. Finally, the time dedicated to voice messages was 1 minute and
14 seconds in the fourth hour and 1 minute and 9 seconds in the fifth hour, totaling
2 minutes and 23 seconds.
Figure 1
Frequency with Which Forms of Audience Participation in the Program Were
Announced
5
4
3
2
1
0
Hour 1
Hour 2
Telephone
Hour 3
Hour 4
Social Networks
Hour 5
Hour 6
WhatsApp
Table 2
Log of Audience Participation
4 (9:00 a.m.)
Listener
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Duration
1 minute 06
1 minute 05
1 minute 10
1 minute 01
1 minute 08
3 seconds
6 seconds
32 seconds
23 seconds
19 seconds
seconds
seconds
seconds
second
seconds
Topic
Political
Political
Political
Political
Political
Political
Political
Political
Political
Political
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
Journalist/Presenter
Tool
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Ángela Fernández
Ángela Fernández
Ángela Fernández
Ángela Fernández
Ángela Fernández
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
WhatsApp
WhatsApp
(continued )
Silva, Colussi, and Rocha/WHATSAPP ON SPANISH RADIO 85
Hour: On-Air time option
Hour: On-Air time option
5 (10:00 a.m.)
Source: Authors
Listener
Duration
Topic
Journalist/Presenter
Tool
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
9 seconds
34 seconds
10 seconds
22 seconds
08 seconds
2 seconds
1 minute 12 seconds
50 seconds
49 seconds
27 seconds
23 seconds
18 seconds
11 seconds
14 seconds
17 seconds
13 seconds
25 seconds
9 seconds
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Alfredo Menéndez
Ángela Fernández
Ángela Fernández
Ángela Fernández
Ángela Fernández
Ángela Fernández
Ángela Fernández
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Telephone
Twitter
WhatsApp
WhatsApp
WhatsApp
WhatsApp
Facebook
86 Journal of Radio & Audio Media/May 2018
Table 2
(Continued)
Silva, Colussi, and Rocha/WHATSAPP ON SPANISH RADIO 87
More time was spent on telephone participation than on audience participation
through other means of communication, which is justified, above all in the fifth hour,
given that the format is a conversation with listeners, asking them questions about the
topic being discussed. In the fourth hour, however, less total time was spent on
audience participation and direct comments by conventional telephone were usually
heard but not commented on by journalists.
Messages sent through Facebook and Twitter were read quickly, mostly in the
fourth hour, when no follow-up comments were made on them. In the fifth hour,
these messages were read more slowly and presenters commented on messages that
stood out to them. In comparative terms, the same thing happened with voice
messages sent through WhatsApp: In the fourth hour, they were simply broadcast,
while in the fifth hour they were broadcast and commented on. The average duration
of each voice message broadcast was 20 seconds.
Values of WhatsApp
According to Alfredo Menéndez, director and presenter of Las mañanas de RNE
since 2013, WhatsApp was introduced as a means of audience participation on the
program on November 20, 2015. The application was first used on Radio Nacional
de España, he said, during the 2015–16 season.
Menéndez remembered the introduction of the program’s WhatsApp number, and
stated that the adoption of WhatsApp by the public was overwhelming. “The truth is
that it’s always been a fantastic success, but so many messages arrived on that first
day, and they arrived so suddenly, that the server went down” (Menéndez, personal
interview, June 28, 2016).
The team adopted WhatsApp because it made it possible to send and receive
voice messages in the audience participation spaces of the program. Menéndez
considers the sound quality of WhatsApp voice messages to be one of the application’s positive aspects, which is an advantage over traditional answering machines
(no longer used on the program). He considers the application the perfect solution,
both for its agility and for the limited technical investment required in order to
receive, store, and edit voice messages sent by listeners.
With respect to the technical aspects of using WhatsApp audios on the programs,
Ángela Fernández, who is responsible for managing audience participation,
explained that the program includes
a folder within Dalet5 called WhatsApp, and we have a system that automatically routes all the messages we receive at our WhatsApp number into that
folder, and stores them there. What I do is listen to all the messages and clean
them up to improve their sound quality and make sure they don’t include any
silences, while adjusting them to the time available for listener participation and
preparing everything for broadcast (Fernández, personal interview, June 28,
2016).
88 Journal of Radio & Audio Media/May 2018
Menéndez and Fernández agree that using WhatsApp as a tool for listener participation allows the program to reach a segment of the public that uses the app and
provides them an easier and more comfortable way to express their opinions on air.
Menéndez also says that the application affords the program an appearance of
modernity. Fernández stresses the inclusion of listeners who didn’t previously
express themselves for different reasons, above all due to their nervousness about
doing so directly on a radio program. With WhatsApp, it’s possible for listeners to resend voice messages if they think that their first messages didn’t come out well.
Menéndez is surprised at the wide age range of WhatsApp users who sent voice
messages to the program. Compared to the listeners who participate through social
networks, she says, “the profile of WhatsApp users is more varied” (Menéndez,
personal interview, June 28, 2016). This is due to the extensive use of mobile phones
and of WhatsApp.
According to Fernández, the kinds of voice messages sent by listeners can be
classified into two categories: politics and entertainment. As was observed in the
case study, audience opinions on political topics discussed on the program are
reflected in the first space for audience participation. In the fifth hour, listener
participation centers on a light topic such as the one on the program that we listened
to, which was comedy films.
Certain criteria are applied when selecting voice messages sent by listeners: they
should relate to the proposed topic and they should be respectful. Messages tend to
be selected if they are representative of others that were also sent, preferably if they
are short. We determined in this study that there was there was no set duration for
voice messages, but that short messages were more likely to be aired than longer
ones. Fernández said that the number of voice messages received per day through
WhatsApp varied significantly and declined to give any specific number.
Conclusions
Despite the extended use of smartphones and of WhatsApp in Spain, listener
participation by conventional telephone continues to be given more air time in the
program Las mañanas de RNE, confirming H1. In addition, the telephone number is
announced more than the WhatsApp number during the program, which could
suggest a preference for the traditional technology for audience participation. The
interviews, however, revealed that WhatsApp has come to be seen as the ideal tool
for audience participation in radio programming.
On the other hand, the direct interaction over conventional telephony justifies
the greater amount of time it is given, and the case study indicates that conversations between the listening public and journalists during the time devoted to
audience participation take place using the telephone. WhatsApp voice messages
are played on the air only after a process of selection, while participation by
telephone is broadcast directly, in a conversational format. The voice messages
Silva, Colussi, and Rocha/WHATSAPP ON SPANISH RADIO 89
broadcast on the program are short (about 20 seconds) compared to telephone
calls, which last an average of 1 minute and 10 seconds.
It is clear that one of the great advantages of WhatsApp for radio is the quality of
the audios received from listeners, which is higher than that of telephone answering
machines. This advantage could lead to the gradual replacement of the latter with
audio files recorded and sent through instant messaging applications, which would
justify characterizing WhatsApp as a disruptive technology.
H2, which foresees a similar time dedication to spaces for audience participation
through different media (instant messaging and social networks for this case), is
refuted. As the research indicates, the radio program does not reserve the same
amount of time for the broadcasting of voice messages sent by means of
WhatsApp as it does for the reading of messages sent through social networks. The
amount of time dedicated to playing voice messages is almost five times greater than
that used for reading messages sent through Facebook and Twitter. While all of these
are social media, we observed different priorities set for each of them.
According to the interviewees, the use of the application attracts new radio
audiences and promotes community building. These point to possible new
hypotheses that could be tested in future studies using research methods that
take account of listener perception of innovative tools for audience participation
in radio broadcasting.
The combination of quantitative and qualitative tools was opportune to
answer the research questions posed in this study, as well as for the assessment
of the stated hypotheses and the presentation of the results obtained. The
literature surveyed together with the case study based on specific variables
and the perspectives obtained from semi-structured interviews, allow a deeper
understanding of the object of study and highlight its importance in the current
context of communication.
This preliminary analysis confirms the relevance of new online participatory
spaces in traditional radio broadcasting. As was mentioned in the theoretical framework, communication technologies have revolutionized traditional radio, allowing
for a variety of interactive tools that support audience participation and that diffusion
of content not only through radio waves, but also digitally through computers, tablets
and smartphone screens.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
Although letters are slower means of communication than phone or online applications,
the value and importance of these in the context of radio should not be ignored or
undervalued. The efficiency and relevance of letters for the communications of both
broadcasters and the public must be signaled out.
The variables used in the study were identified in a preliminary test based on an analysis of
the June 1, 2016 program.
<http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/rne/>.
Our sincere thanks to Alfredo Menéndez and Ángela Fernández for their collaboration.
90 Journal of Radio & Audio Media/May 2018
5.
Dalet is software used in the production and transmission of radio programs and for the
management and editing of sound files, among other things.
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