El Journalistic treatment of information vs. infodemic in pandemic times: contrasts between professional journalism and so-called citizen journalism.

Abstract

In a landscape of challenges, crisis and accelerated technological evolution, the COVID-19 pandemic accentuated the positive and negative aspects of the informational context linked to the real and virtual world: first, remote work with portable digital communication tools, provides access to broadcast and distribute without intermediaries and with a speed unthinkable in traditional media. Second, the overproduction of information, thanks to these new processes available to everyone, pose risks that result in misinformation, fake or misleading news and the handling of data at convenience by public or private entities. This historical moment requires a reflection of the information processes from the media and from abroad, where civil society produces, circulates, accelerates or slows down the messages that are relevant to it. It is pertinent to re-take advantage of digital communication tools with an ethical and professional use, where journalists, the media and universities have a leadership role and an example in the face of the abundance of information, which in the environment of the pandemic has been cataloged as infodemic.