Cyberjournalism: The Influence of Design on Public Participation

Abstract

Journalism plays a fundamental role in the history of society and, above all, in the history of democracy. In this sense, since journalism is a product of the informative domain, which is crucial, the truth is that journalism is, at the same time, also a product of the visual realm. And this is precisely where visual communication comes in, namely, design. This article seeks to understand how the design adopted by online media can affect public participation in cyberjournalism itself, resorting to a literature review and a methodological proposal for the present theme. The analysis corpus is divided into five moments that address the themes of cyberjournalism, participation, design, and how it affects the public. The data demonstrate that design has an enormous potential to motivate or de-motivate participation through several parameters explored in this study. These data are highly relevant not only for the public but, mainly, for the news producers. This article aims to encourage quality consumption and, above all, informed participation in increasing digital literacy.