Félix Arias, researcher of the Spanish team of JoIn-DemoS, participated in the International Congress of the Spanish Journalistic Society (SEP) 2022, held between the 10th and 11th of June 2022 at the University of Valencia, where he presented the communication “Technology in journalistic innovation: the case of Spain“. A contribution derived from the work of the project, in which researchers from five European countries participate, and funded by research support institutions from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

This communication consisted of an analysis of the role of technology in the journalistic innovations of the most innovative organisations and individuals in Spain. The aim was to make a deeper reflection on the significance of technology in journalistic work, as well as a clearer quantification of the degree of influence of technology on innovation.

Thus, the results of this research reveal an increasing trend in their influence on innovation over time, especially during the pandemic. It also shows that barely a third of the innovations detected are based on real technical advances and that technological innovation is more present in areas such as distribution than in organisation. The interim results also reflect the gap between media with a different matrix (mainly audiovisual) and one-person initiatives, which rely mainly on technological inventions from others. The research notes the problems in measuring the technological basis of innovations and reflects the weight of temporal and spatial context in assessing their influence.

It is a presentation that was successfully received in the framework proposed by the SEP in its 18th edition of the congress. Specifically, this year’s late motiv was disinformation and information disorders. As indicated by the society itself, the 2022 congress analysed the causes and consequences of the crisis of media intermediation; reflected on new journalistic formats and business channels for the updating of journalism in a context of digital transformation; and focused on the strategies of disinformative and polarising discourses as well as the role of the media in their containment, verification and delegitimisation.