New Social Practices on Brazilian TV: Reconfigurations in News Production and Distribution

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze Brazilian telejournalism, from the five main broadcasters, and to identify the new reconfigurations in the way of production and distribution of digital content, in order to map the changes that occurred, from the process of mediatization of society, and the convergence of media. The starting point was the questioning of what new approaches and appropriations of telejournalism could be for the production and distribution of news. The methodology included storage and analysis of videographic material, with virtual nonparticipant observation and interviews with newsroom professionals, characterizing a case study. The theoretical foundation addition is Television studies, Transmedia jornalism, Transmedia Storytelling to journalism. It was considered that Brazilian telejournalism spreads across several platforms in the incorporation of a transmedia telejournalism.

1. Introduction

This research investigated the changes that have occurred in Brazilian broadcast television since the digitalization process, which began in 2007 and is scheduled to end in 2023, a fact that culminated in the alteration of the way TV is produced and broadcasted. Historically, it is relevant to present part of the trajectory of the ongoing digitalization process in the country, to get an idea of its magnitude and irreversibility, due to the countless technical advantages and improvements in immediacy and also in mobility and participation.

In 2007, the process of digitalization of Brazilian television started in the city of São Paulo, as it also happened with the implementation of TV in Brazil, in 1950. Then, in 2008, 12 other cities (Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Goiânia, Manaus, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Salvador, Campinas, Belém, Teresina, Natal, Maceió, and Cuiabá) adopted the new system (HDTV), which follows the Japanese model of high definition digital TV. In 2009, another 37 cities made the migration. From this period on, the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Communications has not made data available to follow the development of the process.

Among the changes, digitalization has brought the possibility of media convergence, which for Jenkins [1] refers to a situation in which multiple media systems coexist in partnership and connection. The author proposes several possibilities to account for the dimension of this phenomenon such as alternative convergence, corporate convergence, cultural convergence, and technological convergence. Here it is recorded to get a dimension of the complexity that involves technical, social, economic, and cultural issues.

In the general context of television, due to its amplitude and the extensive universe of possibilities, this research proposed to make a specific cut focused on television journalism, in order to investigate the changes that have occurred in the way it is produced and broadcasted since digitalization. The initial hypothesis was that with the digitalization of broadcast TV in Brazil, and the advanced process of the mediatization of society, TV journalism has been reinventing itself to keep its audience captive. Since in more than 70 years, there has been a sharp drop in the audience, in the last 20 years, and a loss of hegemony, but even so, TV journalism continues to be a reference space for the viewer, due to its credibility. Therefore, for this research four networks with the largest audience in the country and their respective news programs—Globo (Jornal Nacional), SBT (Jornal do SBT), Bandeirantes (Jornal da Band), Record (Jornal da Record), and also TV Cultura¹ (Jornal da Cultura)—were selected as a sample for the research analysis, for one concurrent week of each news program. In addition to the analysis of the audiovisual material, interviews with the editors-in-chief/executives of each news program were conducted to investigate the production mode of each of them, before and after digitalization.

On the other hand, the Brazilian Media Survey (Pesquisa Brasileira de Mídia – PMB) [2] reveals that the Internet has been growing and surpassing some traditional media in the preference of the Brazilian population, and even though television remains in first place it shows a reduction in the number of viewers. This growing drop in audience, added to the convergence and the process of mediatization of contemporary society led some researchers to decree that the end of television was a matter of time, and with it also the object of study of this research—television journalism. But on the contrary, according to McLuhan [3], the media do not disappear but are transformed. For Thompson ([4], pp. 9–10) “new media are developed and introduced, they change the ways in which individuals relate to each other and to themselves”.

PBM [2] has also shown that there is a change in the viewer’s behavior when watching television, who is no longer always sitting in front of the television set, but doing other activities at the same time. Of these, 35% divide their attention between television and food, another 28% divide it with the cell phone, and 24% talk to someone else while watching television. Only 23% of those surveyed revealed that they do no other activity while watching television.

From these initial reflections, this research aimed to answer the following problem: What can be the new approaches and appropriations of telejournalism, for the production and exhibition of news, in the context of the mediatization of society, and the convergence of media and Transmedia?

The hypothesis set as starting point is that telejournalism has been using a dynamic process of participation, spreading across several platforms, characterizing a scenario of transmedia telejournalism, and can be characterized as transmedia telejournalism due to the peculiarities of the adoption of a transmedia narrative.

In a specific focus, this research dealt with the journalistic field [5], which exists within the structure of television. “The journalistic field acts, as a field, on the other fields. In other words, a field, itself increasingly dominated by commercial logic, increasingly imposes its limitations on other universes” ([5], p. 81). In television, this journalistic field is configured in the concept of telejournalism, which “is a specific kind of journalism, which produces reports and news coverage with the use of audiovisual resources. Therefore, when thinking about telejournalism, the primary element to build a report or coverage is the image” ([6], p. 3).

As a general objective, the research analyzed the context of Brazilian telejournalism, the four main broadcasters with the largest audience in the country, and São Paulo’s TV Cultura², and identified new configurations in the mode of production and exhibition of digital content.

The research has the TV news as an empirical object points out social relevance, both to the field of communication and to the mediatized society, since Brazilian TV news is a reference and presents, even in times of convergence and mediatization, good levels of credibility. The new ways of producing and consuming TV news are important because they change the hegemonic scenario—where there was only the possibility of a broadcaster (media) talking to the masses (receiver) and bring new possibilities to be explored in the practical field, such as a more effective and direct participation of the viewer, who can even controllably interfere and change the production process. It is true that there has always been participation by the general public in any form of journalism, from the early days through letters, telephone, etc. What has changed is the way and speed in which this participation can occur—digital, online, at the time of screening, or in production.

2. Methodological instruments

Since this is a qualitative research, the methodological instrument [7] initially relied on the prediction of a series of procedures and techniques, starting and continuing throughout the course of the work, based on bibliographic research, which was maintained throughout the period of execution. The clipping and storage of all the videographic material comprised another stage of the research, with the definition of a specific week (from May 04 to 09, 2020) for all five TV news programs researched (Jornal Nacional, Jornal da Record, Jornal da Cultura, SBT Brasil, Jornal da Band). As shown in Table 1 below is a proposal for the interviews. The observation that should have taken place in the newsrooms was done virtually, based on the content displayed and not, as was initially planned, on the production process, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Date	Name	Job title	Broadcaster	TV News
07/13/2020	Marília Assef	Journalism; Coordinator	TV Cultura	Jornal da Cultura
07/23/2020	Danilo Rocha	Multimedia Director	TV Cultura	Jornal da Cultura
08/06/2020	Marcelo Tas [8]	Commentator and host	TV Cultura	Jornal da Cultura
08/12/2020	Beatriz Cioffi	Transmedia Planning Director	TV Record	Jornal da Record
08/17/2020	Patrícia Rodrigues	Editor-in-Chief	TV Record	Jornal da Record
09/10/2020	André Basbaum	Band’s Editorial Chief	TV Bandeirantes	Jornal da Band
12/22/2010	Ricardo Villela	Globo’s Editorial Chief	TV Globo	Jornal Nacional
01/23/2021	Rodrigo Hornhardt	SBT’s Editorial Chief	SBT	SBT Brasil
02/02/2020	Leão Serva [9]	Journalism Director	TV Cultura	Jornal da Cultura

Table 1.

Interviews conducted – Professionals Journalism.

Prepared by the author.

The observation characterized this research, despite the difficulty of framing it in a single style, but it is necessary to consider observation as a type of research based on active interaction between researcher and researched group, “and, mainly, in the conjunction of research with broader processes of social action and collective appropriation of knowledge” [10]. In the case of this research, it can be considered, according to Peruzzo [10] as participant observation, conducted virtually and not in loco, emphasizing that specifically the role of the researcher as “autonomous” (emphasis added). The “group” (emphasis added), or any element of the environment, does not interfere in the research, “with regard to the formulation of the objectives and the other phases of the project, nor in the type of information recorded and the interpretations given to what was observed” [10] so that in this way the reliability of the research can be guaranteed and there is no interference from the researched community. Another characteristic proposed by Peruzzo [10] for this type of observation is also aligned with the research proposals, insofar as, “the observer may be “covert” or “revealed,” that is, the group may or may not be aware that it is being investigated” [10]. In this stage, a notebook was used, in which the researcher followed a script of topics to be observed in all news programs, such as production time, size of the local team and correspondents, available resources, and work routine, among others, in a virtual way. In the third stage, still within the observation that became nonparticipant and virtual, some interviews were conducted according to the availability of the professionals from the stations. The interview conducted was of the in-depth type [11], with open and closed questions, since “through the in-depth interview, it is possible, for example, to understand how communication products are being perceived by employees, to explain the production of the news in a communication vehicle.” ([11], p. 63). According to the model of typologies for conducting interviews, in academic research, proposed by Duarte [11], quantitative and qualitative forms are presented, with unstructured, semi-structured, and structured questions.s open and closed. Also according to the author, the interview can be open, semi-open, and closed, with the use of a central question, a script, or a questionnaire, and use two types of approaches—in-depth and linear. In the case of this research, we opted for the model presented in Table 2, based on Duarte’s [11] proposals.

Pesquisa	Questions	Interview	Model	Approach
Qualitative	Semi-structured	Semi-open	Script	In-depth

Table 2.

Typology model adopted for the research.

Prepared by the author, based on Ref. [11].

The selection of the interviewees followed, according to Duarte [11] by convenience (also known as accidental) because it was based on feasibility, which was found in each of the researched broadcasters, provided that the interviewees are journalists, or involved in the production and distribution of journalistic content. Convenience, “occurs when sources are selected for proximity or availability” ([11], p. 69). The last stage of the research was the tabulation of the data collected through observation and subsequent comparison between the networks and their respective news programs, with respect to the new practices of production and display of content. In the interviews conducted, a new element was included, which was the context of the pandemic of the new coronavirus, where questions were included about how and what adaptations were made due to the process of social isolation, where journalism was considered an essential service to society. This research, of exploratory nature, intended to study, from a methodological complex that basically comprises bibliographic research, virtual ethnographic research, and remote interview, the effects and the changes of paradigms in the field of contemporary TV journalism, which shares with the audiovisual and the textual not only the look and the communicational process but also its own existence.

From the cut of a week from May 04 to 09, 2020, the five TV news programs (Jornal Nacional, Jornal da Record, Jornal da Cultura, Jornal da Band, and SBT Brasil) selected as empirical objects of this research, with observation and virtual analysis of the content, the field research was adapted to the online form, due to the impossibility of being in the newsroom and performing the activities in person.

3. A new media ecology based on the mediatization and transmediation of television news

In seeking connections with the new media ecology, it is necessary to present its initial trajectory, starting from McLuhan’s proposal, as an expanded theory that covers, “according to the chosen-theoretical enunciator, almost all aspects of communication processes, from the relations between media and economy to the perspectives and cognitive transformations that subjects undergo because of their exposure to communication technologies.”³ ([12], p. 17). According to the author, from some discussions with McLuhan, in the 1960s, postman defined media ecology as: “the study of media as environments” (emphasis added), turning a metaphor into a theory, with a specific field [12]. It is precisely in this study of the media—as environments, that the research on Brazilian TV journalism is inserted—, as constituents of a larger web, but with its own characteristics and peculiarities, that the research aimed to identify.

Although media ecology does not focus on any particular medium, it is a transmedia theory, for all purposes and for all times, “its reflection begins with the emergence of language. And it continues with the transition from orality to writing, reaches our hectic days of digital life, and on some occasions does not give up on outlining future scenarios”⁴ ([12], p. 18). It is in this context that the observed news programs work in an integrated manner with digital social networks to extend and overflow their content beyond the broadcast.

The ecological metaphor applied to media presents, according to Scolari [12], two possible interpretations, the first being of media as environments and the second, of media as species. For the proposal of media as environments, the author synthesizes a basic idea of the ecology of media: “communication technologies from writing to digital media technologies—have generated environments that affect the subjects that use them”⁵ ([12], p. 29) this context at present is easier to be identified, with the connected media environment. In interpreting Innis on media as species, Scolari [12] places the relationship between media as a basic component of his conception of communicational systems, and cross-media competence occupies a central place in his reflections. These communicational systems can be identified in the very distribution structure of the TV news content. For McLuhan [3], Scolari [12], no medium acquires meaning or existence alone, but in constant interaction with others. Defined by Scolari ([12], p. 30) as an intermediary dimension of the interpretation of the ecological metaphor, “media are like “species” that live in the same ecosystem and establish relationships with each other. “In this way, it is possible to identify an ecosystem or micro ecosystem in the production and distribution scenario of the TV news content, where several elements are related, such as television broadcasting and other forms and formats of content distribution, such as digital social networks and the Internet.

Analyzing television for Williams [13], as a specific cultural technology, comprised examining its development, its institutions, its forms, and its effects in a critical dimension. The author began his research through three aspects, “(a) versions of cause and effect in technology and society, (b) social history of television as a technology; (c) the social history of uses of technology” ([13], p. 24). When referring to the versions of cause and effect in technology in society, the author starts his studies stating that television has changed the world, and to justify this he listed nine senses that prove this. Among all the nine senses pointed out by him, we highlight that television became available as a result of scientific and technical research and in its character and use it exploited and emphasized elements of a passivity and a cultural and psychological inadequacy, which have always been latent in people, but which television now organized and came to represent ([13], p. 25). On the senses indicated by Williams [13], they can be distinguished into two broad classes of views, with the first being that technology is accidental and known as “technological determinism.” It is a very incisive and now largely orthodox view of the nature of social change. According to him, new technologies are discovered by an essentially internal process of research and development, which sets the conditions for social change and progress ([13], p. 26). In the second class of views, called the “symptomatic technology” view, the author presents as less deterministic. “Television, such as any other technology, becomes available as an element or a medium in a process of change that is already occurring or is about to occur” ([13], p. 26). Where certain technologies or a complex of technologies are considered as symptoms of change of another kind, “research and development are assumed to be self-generating but in a more peripheral way. What is discovered on the margins is then appropriated and used” ([13], p. 27).

The second aspect presented by Williams [13], which treats the social history of television as a technology, shows that the invention of the television was neither a single event nor a series of events, rather it depended on a series of inventions for other purposes and development in electricity, telegraphy, photography, film, and the radio, the invention stood out as a specific technological goal between 1875 and 1890, and then after a break it developed from 1920 onwards as a specific technological enterprise until the first public television systems in the 1930s.

The third and final aspect related by Williams [13], which deals with the social history of television technology uses, begins with the observation that it is not true that in modern societies when a social need is revealed, the appropriate technology to meet it is found. The author goes on to question what were the needs that led to the development of a new media technology. He responds by exemplifying the development of the press as a response to the development of an expanded social and political system in response to the crisis of the system. “New relationships between men and between men and things were being intensely experienced, and in this area, particularly the traditional institutions of church and school, or the stable community and the renitent family, had very little to say” ([13], p. 34). In the specific case of television, the author highlights the investments that were required for signal distribution, “these were systems designed primarily for transmission and reception as abstract processes, with little or no prior definition of content” ([13], p. 37). Moving forward to contemporary times, it is possible to observe that television is immersed in a new scenario that puts it in convergence with other media, as Jenkins [1] proposes, where multiple media systems coexist and in which content passes fluidly through them. “Convergence is understood here as an ongoing process of interstices between different media systems, not a fixed relationship.” ([1], p. 377). For the author, convergence goes through several strands, such as alternative convergence when: “informal and sometimes unauthorized flow of media content when it becomes easy for consumers to archive, comment on the content, appropriate it, and put it back into circulation” ([1], p. 377), as corporate convergence when: “commercially directed flow of media content.” Convergence is also assumed to be cultural by: “change in the logic by which culture operates, with emphasis on the flow of content across media channels. Or technological from the “combination of functions within the same technological apparatus” ([1], p. 377). This media convergence scenario proposes a participatory culture, where fans and other consumers can participate in the creation and circulation of new content. in this context that initially develops in entertainment and fiction, but that is gradually approaching telejournalism, through transmedia strategies, which can characterize transmedia journalism, and in the case of this research a transmedia telejournalism.

In, his doctoral thesis, Moloney [14] examines how transmedia storytelling methods emerge from the entertainment industry but can be used in a journalism context. According to the author, Journalism has been facing many crises such as the loss of audience and relevance by the public. In his research, he asks whether with the expansion of media on various platforms with the possibility to interact makes it more difficult to attract the audience to a socially relevant issue or to a story. “Faced with similar problems, the entertainment industry has developed a means to engage fans in a way that draws them in across multiple media platforms, captures their imagination, and involves them personally in the story being told” ([14], p. 5). Some experts describe transmedia storytelling methodology as “the art of world building” ([14], p. 5). In his research, the author shows that journalists can better engage their audiences by adapting transmedia storytelling methods for journalism. Comparing entertainment, transmedia narrative theory, and technique with examples from journalism that illustrate one or more of these techniques. Moloney [14] explores whether journalists can reach more individuals, achieve better engagement and participation from their audiences, and more fully communicate the complexity and context of any given story. Transmedia journalism is presented by Renó and Flores [15] as an ongoing perspective within contemporary journalism, where it comes to be a language that contemplates at the same time, several media, with various languages (or formats) and different narratives, which complement each other, to attract a multitude of users. This perspective is directly related to the phenomena that we intend to investigate during this research, to contribute to the conceptual, theoretical, and practical reflection on the empirical object—telejournalism. To close this social, cultural technological, and tangled scenario where telejournalism is present it is also necessary to situate the process of mediatization in which society is inserted, which Hjarvard [16], in the search for a concept presents as: “a double-sided process in which the media has become a semi-independent institution in society to which other institutions have to adapt” ([16], p. 53). To formulate a theory of mediatization, the author asks how does the media alter both the inner workings of other social entities and their mutual relations. After identifying the various fields of contemporary society where the effects of mediatization can be observed, Hjarvard [16] draws connections and comparisons with some communication theories, such as Thompson’s theory of modernity, because he sees mediatization as an integral part of the development of modern society. The invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century witnessed the birth of a technology that made possible the circulation of information in society in an unprecedented way ([16], p. 58). With books, newspapers, magazines, and other printed possibilities, the modernization process accelerated. Then with radio, TV, and the Internet, and as cultural consequences is the emergence of large organizations on a national and global level. According to the author Hjarvard [16], media alter human communication and interaction through four processes that: (1) extend the possibilities of human communication in both time and space; (2) replace social activities that previously occurred face-to-face (such as going to the bank); (3) a merging of activities, personal communication combines with mediated and media; and (4) accommodate-adapt behavior (sound bites). In this case, mediatization can be a metaprocess on par with individualization and globalization, “as an ongoing process in which media alter human relations and behavior and thus alter society and culture” ([16], p. 57).

Another theory that Hjarvard ([16], p. 60) presents in line with mediatization theory is the theory of the medium or media ecology, “with respect to observing the different formatting of each medium and its impacts on the interpersonal relationships to which it gives rise.” Mediatization in postmodern theory is observed with restrictions by the author, who from the hyperreality proposed by Baudrillard, who presents the simulacrum—symbolic world of the media replaces the real world, taking as an example the Gulf War (1990–1991), “which did not happen, but was another invention of the media simulacra” ([16], p. 61). It is in this context of convergence, with a mediatized society, and the power of participation that the current stage of Brazilian telejournalism is found, where the news programs Jornal Nacional (TV Globo), Jornal da Record (TV Record), Jornal da Cultura (TV Cultura), Jornal da Band (TV Bandeirantes, and SBT Brasil (SBT) were analyzed and observed virtually in order to identify an ecology of Brazilian telejournalism.

4. Analysis, commentary, and participation in television news

During the virtual observation of the content of the five news programs, it was possible to identify some adaptations due to the course of a pandemic, which required measures of social distancing and sanitization of the equipment and spaces. All the interviewees clarified that there was a strict hygiene and distancing protocol in place from the beginning of the pandemic for those who remained working, in order to keep the news programs on air. Professionals older than 65, pregnant women, and those with any comorbidities, because they were in the COVID-19 risk group, were removed from daily work through vacations, leaves of absence, and even negotiated layoffs and retirements. Some of those removed kept their activities remotely, as was the case, for example, of reporters Natalia Ariede and Andrea Sadi (both from Globo), commentator Miriam Leitão (Globo) and presenter Celso Freitas (TV Record), and commentator and Journalism director Fernando Miter (TV Bandeirantes), among others.

A good part of the news reports of all TV news programs researched are being prepared remotely, with rare exceptions, when there is a need for images from the street, broadcasters have had to adapt due to the technical quality, and develop strategies for the remote work elaboration, with the possibility of using applications such as Skype or WhatsApp, Google Meet, among others. The technical teams from all the stations were activated and began to have a greater workload due to the quality of the interviews and reports carried out remotely. Image editors in particular have suffered from the significant increase in work to edit audio and video produced via digital platforms, remotely. Some of the characteristics identified is the interviewee’s point of view, which, in this circumstance, is no longer the one who responds to someone, but who responds to a camera/screen, as a result, at the time of the exhibition the interviewee’s eyes, most of the time, are at the height of the viewer’s eyes, causing a visual esthetic discomfort at first, but in the context and relevance it has become the “new normal” (emphasis added).

In addition to the mandatory use of masks in all environments of all stations and the disinfection of equipment and the frequent use of alcohol gel, the new social practices adopted, with the use of remote interviewing and reporting have proven to be as efficient as the face-to-face activities, with the possibility of continuing to be used even after the end of the pandemic. All those interviewed were unanimous in stating that this new technical possibility has been discovered, and it can continue to be used, even after the pandemic is over. In this new social practice adopted by TV journalism, there is an important issue, which is the reduction of travel costs to conduct an interview or report, and this can impact on a greater production of content. Some characteristics of the remote interview and reportage must be taken into consideration, such as the possibility of an interview becoming a testimonial, without the interviewer’s control, because in some moments it is perceived that the interviewee sent a speech about the subject, and in the case of the reportage, the source sends videos about the subject of the story, which has no way of being checked on the spot. This is one more risk that journalism takes, and it depends on the suitability of the source and the interviewee, in order not to exhibit false news. All interviewees understood that this problem is and has always been a journalism challenge—to combat false information, but that in face of the strategies that have been adopted by all broadcasters, as shown in Table 3, such as the intensification of information checking with the creation of specific editorials and the participation in fact-checking pools.

Broadcaster	TV News	Initiative
TV Globo	Jornal Nacional	Fato ou Fake1
TV Record	Jornal da Record	Central de Notícias
SBT	SBT Brasil	Projeto Comprova2
TV Bandeirantes	Jornal da Band	Projeto Comprova3
TV Cultura	Jornal da Cultura	Aos Fatos4

Table 3.

Fact-checking editorials/partnerships.

¹

Available from: https://g1.globo.com/fato-ou-fake/.

²

Available from: https://www.sbt.com.br/jornalismo/comprova#noticias.

³

Available from: https://projetocomprova.com.br/.

⁴

Available from: https://www.aosfatos.org/.

Prepared by the author based on the interviews.

All five TV news surveyed (Jornal da Cultura, Jornal da Record, Jornal da Band, Jornal Nacional, and SBT Brasil) promote the spreading of the news content also on social networks, with profiles on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn, in a transmedia strategy that is willing to anticipate, reinforce, and unfold the news content to get closer to viewers and Internet users. The use of digital social networks happens through simultaneous live broadcasts of the content transmitted by the station, later availability of the content already aired, and also with calls before the news. There is the possibility of producing shorter content (according to the characteristics of each digital social network) that complements or unfolds the subject that was shown on television.

In general, all broadcasters use the same networks to spread the news content on the Internet (Table 4), the only exceptions are TV Cultura, which is the only one to use LinkedIn, and TV Record, which is also the only one to use TikTok. Besides the networks, the five researched networks and their respective news programs also have a specific page for each one of them, on their own platform or on platforms such as Uol, as is the case of TV Bandeirantes and TV Cultura. In a more in-depth analysis of this content spread over the web will be carried out to continue the reflections on the new forms of telejournalism spread over the internet as a way to engage the viewer, internaut, consumer, and prosumer.

Broadcaster	TV News	Digital Social Networks	TV news page
TV Globo	Jornal Nacional	Instagram, Facebook1	G1: https://g1.globo.com/jornal-nacional/ [17]
TV Record	Jornal da Record	Instagram2, Facebook3, YouTube4. TikTok5	R7: https://noticias.r7.com/
SBT	SBT Brasil	Instagram6, Facebook7,YouTube8	SBT Jornalismo: https://www.sbt.com.br/jornalismo/sbt-brasil
TV Bandeirantes	Jornal da Band	Facebook9, Instagram10, YouTube11	Band and Uol: https://noticias.band.uol.com.br/jornaldaband/videos/
TV Cultura	Jornal da Cultura	Facebook [18]12, Instagram [19]13, Twitter14, YouTube [20]15, LinkedIn [21]16	https://cultura.uol.com.br/programas/jornaldacultura/ [20]

Table 4.

Digital Networks and Platforms on the Internet.

¹

Available from: https://www.facebook.com/JornalNacional/.

²

Available from: https://www.instagram.com/jornaldarecord/?hl=pt-br.

³

Available from: https://www.facebook.com/JornalDaRecord/.

⁴

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmpHPgeCBgvk_fDXZQKsnAA.

⁵

Available from: https://www.tiktok.com/@jornaldarecord?source=h5_m.

⁶

Available from: https://www.instagram.com/sbtjornalismo/?hl=pt.

⁷

Available from: https://www.facebook.com/sbtjornalismo/.

⁸

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/SBTjornalismo/playlists.

⁹

Available from: https://www.facebook.com/JornaldaBand.

¹⁰

Available from: https://www.instagram.com/bandjornalismo/?hl=pt-br.

¹¹

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoa-D_VfMkFrCYodrOC9-mA

¹²

Available from: https://www.facebook.com/tvcultura.

¹³

Available from: https://www.instagram.com/tvcultura/.

¹⁴

Available from: https://twitter.com/jornal_cultura.

¹⁵

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbjhJbyMPIk.

¹⁶

Available from: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tv-cultura/.

Prepared by the author based on the researched data.

As for the use of LinkedIn, which is a platform for professionals and deals with employment, the professionals from TV Cultura explained that due to the changes that occur in the network’s virtual environments, the platform itself has changed its focus and is also encouraging a lot of content production. Only it is not just any content, each social network has its specific segment. In the case of TV Cultura, the platform is used for live broadcasts of special debate and interview programs.

TikTok is a digital social network, which is becoming a fever in Brazil. The platform allows the creation of videos with the audio made available on its pages. One of its distinguishing features is the way the app is built, with a menu that shows the most popular hashtags of the moment, where videos of famous and non-famous people can be found. A little different from the other networks, on TikTok you can see videos of people you do not follow. Another interesting feature is the possibility of free sharing of the content produced and available on the platform. Perhaps these characteristics have contributed to Jornal da Record being the first news program in Brazil to create a profile in March 2020. With a casual content, the profile has already attracted the attention of more than 100,000 followers. According to Record’s editor-in-chief, Patrícia Rodrigues, the result in terms of loyalty has been very positive, “we try to incorporate into this music that is being played more is that people are just dancing, we try to incorporate a little bit of news” ([22], verbal information).

Among the transmedia strategies adopted by the news programs of the five researched networks, besides the spread through the various networks, there are some initiatives of live broadcasting, as is the case of Jornal da Cultura, which broadcasts live the news on YouTube and Facebook, simultaneously, then the news content is available in full, for those who did not watch at the time of transmission and also, through summaries where the stories are published individually, on social networks and also on the website of the station (through a publication with photo and text summary different from the story displayed on the news), as a way to make the most of the content produced, revealed Rocha [23]. Another strategy adopted by the network is a partnership with the news portal Uol. According to the multimedia director, this is a partnership, in terms of platform. Being that Uol has within its address a relevant content with credibility from TV Cultura. The partnership also includes the joint marketing of advertising and the cession of technological tools to TV Cultura.

Band’s Jornal da Band has also been conducting this live-streaming experiment concurrently on the digital social network Facebook since 2016. In addition, the followers of the profile also receive a notification before the news broadcast. After the traditional time slot, all content is available on YouTube.

The other news programs (Jornal Nacional, Jornal da Record, and SBT Brasil) maintain the traditional broadcast via television but also make their content available on digital social networks, as is the case of SBT Brasil and Jornal da Record, which also make their content available on YouTube. The Jornal Nacional makes the content available on the G1 platform of the Globo group.

Viewer participation in the contemporary telejournalism of the five television news programs studied has been a concern for all involved in production, especially during the pandemic of the new coronavirus. All the news programs on their digital platforms have space for sending suggestions, and on the digital social networks, also for comments and followers, which corresponds to a certain level of engagement that needs to be analyzed in further developments of this research. In fact, although all the news representatives have admitted that they monitor the comments and suggestions, none of them respond to them, in order to avoid possible polemics and, consequently, virtual wear and tear on the news programs’ pages.

In fact, participation materializes more effectively in two of the news programs researched, Jornal da Record and Jornal da Cultura. In the first, the viewer’s participation is materialized by means of a frame inside the news, where the specific weather forecast is elaborated for a viewer from some location in the country. In the second, when the comments sent by viewers are inserted in a strip at the bottom edge of the screen, with the identification of the viewer’s profile, throughout the news and at the end when some viewers’ opinions can be discussed by the commentators on the news desks. According to the multimedia director of TV Cultura, with the participation, the news team can get feedback from the viewers and this helps in the decision-making process.

5. Concluding remarks

With this research, we investigated the new approaches and appropriations of telejournalism for the production and exhibition of news, in the five selected television news programs, having initially the contexts of mediatization and media convergence, with the possibility of approximations with the transmedia and cross-media approaches, but that however, during the realization of the same, what stood out, changed and influenced the study was the context of the pandemic of the new coronavirus, which was in progress during the realization of the same. Radically altering the way the research was conducted, so that field activities were changed to the remote model.

The research, that initially had the objective of analyzing the context of Brazilian telejournalism and identifying the new configurations in the production and exhibition mode of digital content of the TV news programs—Jornal Nacional, Jornal da Record, Jornal da Band, SBT Brasil, and Jornal da Cultura—had to go through a series of adaptations to keep it going. All face-to-face activities were performed remotely, also taking into account the context of social isolation determined by public health authorities.

Based on the initial hypothesis about the digitalization of broadcast TV in Brazil, and the advanced process of mediatization of society, it can be considered that all five news programs have been reinventing themselves through transmedia strategies, as proposed by Jenkins [1] through digital social networks, the station’s website, and partnership with an information portal. As a way of coping with the loss of audience and relevance, which was contributed by the pandemic of the new coronavirus—due to the need for information—provided by the context. Telejournalism resigned itself during the pandemic by continuing its activities in order to keep the population informed.

The conceptual proposals of transmedia journalism presented by Moloney [14] and by Renó and Flores [15] are configured in the form and content of the five cable news programs that were observed and analyzed during the research. Identifying that the transmedia possibilities implemented first in entertainment are already being configured in telejournalism, which can characterize a transmedia telejournalism, that is, a news program that overflows through various platforms (digital social networks, websites, etc.), besides the live broadcast, with the possibility of retrieving the full content (social networks), or in a slice, and also through summaries and developments (the station’s website and other partner platforms).

In this scenario identified as transmedia telejournalism is configured due to the advanced process of mediatization, which contemporary society is in, where reflections Hjarvard ([16], p. 64) asserts that mediatization is used as a central concept in a theory about the intensified and changing importance of media within culture and society. Moreover, mediatization is not a universal process that characterizes all societies. “It is essentially a trend that accelerated particularly in the last years of the twentieth century in modern, highly industrialized, and primarily Western societies, that is, Europe, the U.S., Japan, Australia, and so on.” ([16], p. 65). In this context, one can consider that in Brazil, in terms of telejournalism, this process of mediatization is under development, as confirmed by the Brazilian Media Survey⁶; when it revealed that about 97% of respondents watch television and that the Internet has been growing with 47% use, as an indication of the effectuation of the convergence process, which contributes to the effectuation of transmedia telejournalism.