Digitization of Ibero-American journalism and its effect on the journalist's relationship with the audience. Comparative study of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Mexico and Portugal

The future of journalism in the Ibero-American region depends on the capacity of media and journalists to adapt to the accelerated technologization and digitalization that is changing media structures, information processes and the nature of journalism itself. This process of digitalization of journalism in Ibero-America is analyzed in this article using the open data derived from the results of the second wave of the Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS), conducted between 2012 and 2016 with 3,586 journalists from nine countries of this region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Mexico and Portugal). The correlation between the importance of technical capacities and tools such as social media and online search engines in the journalistic work and the influence of the audience in this work was confirmed. Regarding digitalization of the journalistic profession in general, not many differences were observed between Ibero-American sub-regions, neither geographical nor linguistic, although they were observed between countries.