Engagement in newspaper newsrooms: a view from the editors in chief

Abstract

In this article, we analyze how news media editors approach the management of their audiences’ engagement, specifically detecting how they define engagement and what they comprehend about this concept. The article also establishes whether working on deeper and more qualitative knowledge allows news media editors to better understand and connect with their audience. Additionally, this work seeks to identify, through 16 interviews in Chile and Spain, the editors’ perceptions about how all this can influence decision making within the newsroom. Results show that although editors perceive that engagement is a useful tool to better understand users, they do not make concrete managerial decisions to achieve that goal.