La nueva esfera pública en Puerto Ricoetnografía del periodismo sobre corrupción en tres diarios nacionales

Résumé

This research analyzes transformations in Puerto Rico’s public sphere through an ethnographic study on the treatment of corruption in the country’s three national newspapers – El Nuevo Día, El Vocero y Primera Hora – between June 1, 2013 and August 15, 2015. In particular, this ethnographic study is interested in the processes of journalistic production, both within and beyond the walls of the newsroom. It traces changes to the public sector that have come as a result of digital technologies, focusing specifically on two cases that garnered widespread media coverage. The ethnography includes 21 in-depth interviews with the directors of media outlets, as well as editors, journalists, academics, analysts, politicians, and citizens. Furthermore, the study employs a Follow the Conflict lens and includes interviews with journalists carried out while they are in the midst of reporting on corruption. These interviews, together with information obtained as a “participant observer” in the investigation, serve as evidence that the public sphere in Puerto Rico is undergoing an important process of transformation. At the same time, the issue of corruption reveals central aspects of the public sphere in its current state: first, that the media plays a fundamental role in monitoring political actors and improving transparency, and second, that the mediatization (through conventional and digital media) has prompted changes to the law, regulatory organisms, and in the arena of political decision-making.