Competencia mediática de periodistas y estudiantes de periodismo de la Comunidad Andina frente a las fake news

Abstract

Journalists, both in their training process and in their professional practice, learn to use sources from different contexts, from academia to specialized sources, official statements, reports, public records and others from which they obtain relevant information to be disseminated, but not under the model of a simple reproduction of speeches and contents, but as part of a rigorous process of research, contrast and verification to clarify the doubts of the public and provide tools for decision making, which is the differentiating element of journalistic information in the context of the prosumption that prevails in the digital environment and that has become the ideal space for the dissemination of lies disguised as news called fake news. Given the huge amount of fake news and the harmful effects they have caused on a global scale, it is necessary to analyze the role of this profession traditionally responsible for media information. In this context, this thesis investigates the role of journalism in the face of fake news, from its formation in university classrooms to professional practice. The objective is to know the skills with which, on the one hand, students prepare themselves to practice the profession, and on the other hand, journalists who already practice it face this global phenomenon. For this purpose, a mixed study is proposed based on the experiences of students and journalists in the handling of information and in the confrontation of fake news, which will make it possible to know the levels of media competence they handle and the key aspects in which their training needs to be strengthened. This also entails a study of the learning objectives and results contemplated in the academic curricula of Journalism and Communication, careers from which the journalists who make up the media receive their degrees. This study is located in the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), a South American organization made up of four countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, with very similar demographic, social and cultural characteristics. Among the most relevant findings, it is evident that despite the formal education offered by universities, there are unmet needs, which allow journalists to become victims of disinformation, but which are also jeopardizing their professional practice in relation to the high competition for the creation of immediate and mass content. In view of this, it is necessary to update the training programs of both Communication and Journalism in order to strengthen the competence of professionals in the management of information and confrontation of disinformation as one of the problems of the information society. Since journalism is one of the professions most influenced by ICT, its teaching should focus on its use and mastery, as well as on the profession's own values such as verification, rigor, contrast and research, but not disregarding an open training that allows diversifying the application of the profession's knowledge, especially today, when ICTs allow any user to create informative content, whose quality can only be guaranteed by journalism, and the media find themselves in the dilemma of making their content attractive, immediate and of high quality, for which they also require competent journalists.