Who Brings the News?

Abstract

The spread of mobile devices and digital networks generate new perspectives for the circulation of news. The development of mobile communication technologies and the migration of habits consolidated in personal computers promote the expansion of news aggregators for smartphones and tablets. This work seeks to inquire the operational logic of applications designed to aggregate journalistic content. An immersive analysis shows that the general operations of these apps are based on three dimensions: integration between news and online social media, always-on recommendation systems, and parameterization of outputs. It is argued that the approach between aggregators and social media makes the news extrapolate its information domain and start to circulate as symbolic reference for online interaction. Finally, this work posits that the operational logic of aggregators neglect fundamental aspects of new technologies related to locative information.