¿Qué pasa with American News Media? How Digital-Native Latinx News Serves Community Information Needs Using Messaging Apps

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231218542
• Author: Lourdes M. Cueva Chacón,Jessica Retis
• Date: 01 May 2023
• Subject Matter: Part IV: Adaptation

ANNALS, AAPSS, 707, May 2023 237

DOI: 10.1177/00027162231218542

¿Qué pasa with

American News

Media? How

Digital-Native

Latinx News

Serves

Community

Information

Needs Using

Messaging Apps

By

LOURDES M. CUEVA

CHACÓN

and

JESSICA RETIS

1218542ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY¿QUÉ PASA WITH AMERICAN NEWS MEDIA?

research-article2023

Traditional and legacy Spanish-language news outlets

are shrinking, leaving many communities in the U.S.

without news that satisfies their critical information

needs. At the same time, news media entrepreneurs are

adopting and adapting to technological changes that

offer new venues for news delivery. We use a mixed-

methods research approach to analyze Latinx digital-

native news media organizations that distribute news in

Spanish via mobile instant messaging (MIM) apps.

Results show that journalists took a bottom-up approach

to meeting the information needs of their audiences,

choosing MIMs because their readers were already

established on those platforms. Our work also reveals

that news delivered via MIMs focuses mostly on health,

emergencies and public safety, civic information, and

economic development.

Keywords: Latinx digital native media; critical infor-

mation needs; Spanish-language media;

WhatsApp; mobile instant messaging

Other articles in this volume detail how and

why local journalism is shrinking (Peterson

Correspondence: lcuevachacon@sdsu.edu

Lourdes M. Cueva Chacón is an assistant professor in

the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San

Diego State University. Her research focuses on digital

journalism in the Americas and Latino/a/x journalism

in the U.S. She is the coeditor of The Routledge

Companion to Latino/a/x Journalism (with Jessica

Retis; Routledge, forthcoming).

Jessica Retis is the director of the School of Journalism

at the University of Arizona. She is the coauthor of

Narratives of Migration, Relocation and Belonging:

Latin Americans in London (with Patria Román

Velásquez; Palgrave 2020), and the coeditor of The

Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture (with

Roza Tsagarousianou; Wiley 2019).

NOTE: The authors thank Nikki Usher, Phil Napoli,

Johanna Dunaway, Josh Darr, and Mike Miller for their

helpful feedback, along with the other participants at

the 2023 SSRC meeting in San Diego. We also thank

the journalists who participated in our study. The

authors received funding from San Diego State

University’s University Grants Program.

238 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

and Dunaway, this volume; Usher et al., this volume). Spanish-language news

media are following the same path and dwindling considerably. Prominent

Spanish-language dailies and weeklies have closed (e.g., Hoy of the Chicago

Tribune, Al Día of The Dallas Morning News, Ahora Sí of the Austin American-

Statesman), and others have become online only (e.g., La Opinión, El Diario). In

this process, local news outlets serving small Spanish-language communities

shrank the most (Retis 2019a). Napoli et al. (2018, 4) found that the larger the

Latino population in a community, “the less robust the journalism in that com-

munity” was. These trends have an adverse effect on the quantity and quality of

information these communities receive from surviving Spanish-language news

outlets.

Through this upheaval and along with most news providers, Latinx news

media are adopting and adapting to the production and distribution of news via

social media (Retis and Cueva Chacón 2021). As a way to fill information gaps,

some Latinx news media entrepreneurs are producing social-media-first news to

reach Spanish-speaking and immigrant communities in the U.S. through the use

of mobile instant messaging apps (MIMs) such as WhatsApp.

This study focuses on six digital Latinx news media that produce and distribute

news in Spanish via MIMs, and our analysis seeks to answer some of the key

questions laid out by the editors of this volume, namely:

•How are these information ecosystems evolving?

•Do they meet their communities’ critical information needs (CINs)?

•Do the changes in this information economy carry implications for media

policy?

We begin with a review of the role that Latinx news media has played in serving

Latinx communities, including a discussion of CINs, methods for assessing the

media ecosystem, and the role of MIMs in the ecosystem. Then, with a mixed-

method approach using case studies, interviews, and content analysis, we observe

the rationale and motivations of Latinx news media entrepreneurs for selecting

MIMs as the platform for delivering news as well as the CINs these journalists

are meeting via their reporting. We conclude with recommendations for journal-

ists, news media researchers, and media policymakers.

Literature Review

Latinx news media serving Latino/a/x1 communities’ information needs

For more than 200 years, Latino media served their audiences’ needs for

information and communication in Spanish, English, or Spanglish (Retis 2019a;

Retis and Cueva Chacón 2022; Rodriguez 1999). They evolved in parallel with

the various phases of arrival and settlement and, more recently, the subsequent

geographical dispersion throughout the country. Historically, Latino/a/x self-

representation and information needs have influenced the launch and develop-

ment of Spanish-language media. They evolved from legacy to new media and,