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Online radio in Ecuador: Findings and new features

Abstract:

The research we present analyzes the online radio system in Ecuador. The objective was to determine the content and use characteristics of the hypermedia elements that the Internet provides. For the analysis, 19 stations were established, which were determined through the application of a census, to later establish some variants that they present in terms of: updating of contents, formats and use of multimedia resources. To achieve this, digital ethnography was used, through the composite week; The method was completed with interviews with station administrators and managers. Among the results we obtained, it was determined that Ecuadorian stations, native to the Internet, in a high percentage do not update their content; It was also detected that they abuse three formats for their programming: interviews, news and music. Finally, it was found that they are very far from a real use of all the multimedia potential that the Internet offers; the audios are not complemented with visual resources, the stations that do so are marked. All this journey indicates that they are not yet a strong and consolidated organizational structure. The lack of a clear financing model does not allow the good initiatives they present to take off. Some of them have a temporary appearance; They become an experimentation of enthusiastic people who, taking advantage of the ease of creation and dissemination, try to undertake proposals of this type, an action that in the short term, due to lack of financial resources or ignorance in the management of an online medium, they abandon the project. However, much remains to be analyzed about the future of online radio in Ecuador.