Radio, music and podcast in the consumption agenda of Colombian adolescents and youth in the digital sonosphere

Abstract

This article identifies the peculiarities of audio consumption (radio, music and podcast) by Colombian adolescents and youth on their screen devices, especially the smartphone. The irruption in the digital ecosystem of radio and sound platforms redefines the industry’s relationship with new audiences. The body of research, classified into three age groups (puberty –10 to 14 years–, middle –15 to 19 years–, and full –20 to 24 years–), is made up of students in basic secondary education and university students who were consulted through a quantitative methodology (700 surveys) and a qualitative one (8 focus groups with 48 participants), which made it possible to recognize the routines and the sound agenda of the subjects of study. The results of the research outline the profile of the Colombian audio consumer, whose habits of listening to the radio alternate times of attention to the broadcast on air with the consumption of apps, websites and music distribution platforms, which evidences their digital skills and the creation of a menu that combines music, sports and entertainment content. It is a media diet built on the mediation of technological devices and the influence of family and virtual communities. The sound component is the backbone of the relationship between industry and listener, but visual and iconographic elements are added to reinforce the bonds with brand, media and producer, regardless of where audio meets audience.

The Colombian Media Industry on the Digital Social Consumption Agenda in Times of COVID-19

“…The Generation-Z Young people between 16 and 23 years of age who prioritize their consumption through audiovisual components on the Internet), Millennials (subjects between 38 and 56 years old whose media consumption is concentrated in the antenna (radio and television) and the audio-visual elements in the digital ecosystem), X (subjects between 38 and 56 years old whose media consumption is concentrated in the antenna (radio and television) and the audio-visual elements in the digital ecosystem), Baby Boomers (adults aged 57 or over with consolidated traditional media consumption and who timidly approach digital proposals.) In [7], the authors' approach establishes, in a particular way, a letter of communication alternatives that covers print, radio, television, literature, streaming, podcast, video and games [26]; analogical and digital contiguity that, regardless of age, concentrates the tactical impact on social networks.…”

“…The production routine operates according to the behavior of media agents and digital followers. It is evident that they adapt to the logic of the @ generation, provide information and respond to what the user is interested in and looks for [7]. Journalistic deployment allows the creation and strengthening of niches or communities with particular interests; a digital focus that strategically facilitates the promotion of initiatives quickly and encourages the opinion and extension of the message by users [24].…”

“…The craving for information revitalized the role of the press, radio and television in the media ecosystem, a strategic plan of action that linked the web and, especially, social media in a way that fostered a convergence of media and platforms in which new languages were assimilated [3]. The overabundance of information during SARS-CoV-2 renewed the schemes of production [4], content distribution [5] and the traditional business model of the media industry [6] meeting the presence of the public on portable screen devices-Smartphone, Tablets, iPod, MP3, MP4, among others [7,8].…”

Transformation of the Colombian Radio in the Informative Sonosphere of the SARS-CoV-2

“…The transfer of information, from one place to another, occurs through various multitasking and multiplatform channels; informative sonosphere that intermingles a series of variables that delineate a complex communication industry (Aleixandre-Benavent et al, 2020), journalistic flow that is entangled because it imposes rhythms and creation and distribution schemes that are very distant from the traditional models of action of the radio medium: productive routines to publish news on web pages, social networks, push notifications or narrative formats that do not exempt the continued taking care of the intrinsic value of authenticity, the demands of objectivity, independence and clarity inherent to the exercise of communicating (Singhal & Kim, 2021). The connection of the radio with the information agenda of the nation dates from the origin of the industry and its social function of satisfying the need to know more about the other (Barrios-Rubio, 2020), construction of reality linked to the collective imagination and legitimation culture in mediation that impacts the masses (Barrios-Rubio & Pedrero-Esteban, 2021).…”

“…The particularities that meant for the social collective the isolation and the fear for the Sars-CoV-2 promoted strategies of action, of the radio industry, based on the particularities of the digital sonosphere of the listeners/users (Barrios-Rubio, 2021; Perona-Páez et al, 2014). Although the term is recent and seems somewhat ambiguous and inappropriate to observe behaviours and audio consumption habits (Torras i Segura, 2020), far from reducing it to a discussion of reception space, this research conceives it as a tactical map that outlines a hybrid scenario made up of the web, the apps, social networks and podcasts, sound instruments that are committed to the personalisation of synchronous consumption, of the product broadcast on the antenna, and asynchronous, or on demand, of the material conceived for the digital space.…”