Introduction

Multimedia journalistic narrative entails one of the greatest professional and innovation challenges for the media of the 21^st century (Sánchez-García & Salaverría, 2020). In this scenario, marked by the dissolution of the differences between cultural production and consumption (^{Scolari, 2019}), interactivity is a field of study that responds to the main challenges of communication and journalism. According to ^{Oblak-Črnič and Jontes (2017)}, since interactivity began to be analyzed at an academic level in 1980, many theoretical debates have been generated. The authors distinguish three perspectives: one focused on communication and the media; another, in the public and the user; and a third, in production and journalism.

Technological evolution has generated new ways of interaction between users and devices in recent years (^{Tejedor et al., 2020}). Journalism has been impacted by these transformations. The media is striving to redefine and reinvent its connection with the public. Along these lines, transmedia narratives encourage the participation and involvement of audiences (^{Mut-Camacho & Miquel-Segarra, 2019}).

Authors such as ^{Jenkins (2008)}, ^{Scolari (2013)}, ^{Arrojo (2015)}, ^{Rodríguez-Ferrándiz and Tur-Viñes (2015)}, ^{Robledo-Dioses et al. (2017)} and ^{Irala-Hortal (2019)} highlight the importance of interactivity in the conception and development of transmedia content. The created story is transmitted through various media and platforms, and the public feels the need to actively participate in this narrative world. There is a co-creation of content or, as ^{Guerrero-Pico and Scolari (2016)} defend, a scenario emerges that amalgamates the classic or official production (the canon) with the production of the fans (the fandom). The great challenge is to promote scenarios where audiences get involved and commit. For this, interactivity becomes a decisive resource.

The generation of interactive spaces is linked to the development of creative and collaborative practices. ^{Vázquez-Herrero et al. (2017)} define interactivity as the “qualitative leap towards personalization, narrative expansion with user-generated content, and participation” (p. 410). The way in which the media facilitate this interactivity will promote social dialogue and will motivate or not the commitment of the public with the stories. This is how this research seeks to answer the following questions: What types of interactivity can be apply in journalism?; and which of these can be identified in the digital media with the most subscribers in the world?

Methodology

The research, with a descriptive, explanatory and exploratory nature, analyzes the interactivity of the cybermedia with the most subscribers in the world through a content analysis of one publication of each one. We apply the guidelines of the interpretation of texts (^{Andréu-Abela, 2002}) to identify their basic components (^{López-Noguero, 2002}).

Results

The application of the taxonomic model on each of the productions of the sample (Table 5) allows us to see that the totality resorts to the development of the types of interactivity of personalization and social, and only one publication to the generative/productive one. This case is that of “USA and China can evolve into oligarchies, says Branko Milanovi” from the Folha de São Paulo newspaper. In it, generative interactivity materializes in recognized contributions and influential interactions, based on the invitation made to the user to collaborate with their own news and notify possible errors in the publication.

The analysis carried out also shows that the practices analyzed do not reach a maximum development of interactivity. Except “USA and China can evolve into oligarchies, says Branko Milanovi”, the productions do not invite the user to interact with the media through recognized or influential contributions, or the generation of their own content; and much less, reach navigation interactivity. What is missing is interactive productions that allow the user to have an approach experience to the addressed fact, or augmented reality or immersion.

The total sample analyzed develops consultative personalization interactivity (Table 6). To do this, publications resort to tactics such as reading related content (21 posts), providing the option to follow hyperlinks (19), interacting with dynamic data visualizations (10), reading on another platform (4), deciding whether to read or listen to the footnote (2), read in two languages (1), select questions to get answers from the media (1) and read the trailer (1) or summary (1) of the post.

Conversational personalization interactivity is applied in the majority of posts (91.3%). Invitation to subscribe (21 publications) and the user can save the news in their personal profile (9). It is understood that this type of interactivity is directly related to media subscription (^{Young et al., 2018}).

All of the productions analyzed develop social interactivity that allows the generation of horizontal dialogue (Table 7). That is, they offer the option to comment on the content on the website itself and also to share the news on social networks, and thus extend the discussion around the topic. Likewise, most of the publications (86.9%) facilitate the generation of vertical dialogue, thanks to the option to comment and, in some cases, the option to directly contact the author of the journalistic product, since, together with the name, it offers their contact details. One particular case provides the opportunity to rate the story as meh, solid or awesome (“One-way system, no spitting, bring your own ball - inside PL training grounds”), and another gives the option to report bugs (“USA and China can evolve into oligarchies, says Branko Milanovi”). Regarding the interactivity that leaves open the possibility of diagonal dialogue, it is only used in one of the publications: “In the water, the virus does not catch. They go by kayak from Wigry to Gdańsk. They collect money for a common room for children” from Gazetta Wyborcza. This production invites readers to provide financial support to the protagonists of the story.

Reflection and discussion

Based on the list of digital media with the largest number of subscribers worldwide, we selected 23 journalistic productions to analyze their interactivity management. The totality resorts to social interactivity and personalization interactivity. Regarding the first, we find precedents in research such as that of ^{Suau et al. (2019),} who, when studying the attitudes of Spanish citizens in relation to the participatory options offered by media websites, found that the majority of participants are attracted to participatory interactivity formats.

Relating social interactivity to that of personalization, we find the reflection of ^{Krebs and Lischka (2019)}: “A greater motivation for social-interactive use is positively related to greater public participation and a frequency of personalization” (p. 723). It is logical that spaces that promote dialogue between the public, and public-producers/ characters of the stories, result in greater participation; and also involve personalization processes, even more so of the conversational type, since a greater relationship with the media begins to take shape, which can take the form of actions such as subscriptions. A point that leads to an exchange of data in favor of a more personalized content offer.

Along the lines of personalization interactivity, but this time of a consultative nature, giving audiences options to personalize their consumption experience is also very important because, in addition to improving user enjoyment (^{Zamith, 2019}), to a certain extent they are made an active participant and responsible for how they consume. In this sense, current technologies are good allies to generate this type of personalization. And although studies such as those by ^{Appelgren and Salaverría (2019)} point out, for example, that now data journalists are abandoning interactivity “returning to linear forms of content presentation” (p. 641) -what is understood, does not give them an opportunity to the public to decide how they want to do better with the content-, we consider it valuable to promote this type of interactivity.

Regarding generative interactivity, the study shows that only one of the analyzed publications uses it (“USA and China can evolve into oligarchies, says Branko Milanovi”). This makes us reflect on how the media involve users in the generation of content. It is necessary to look with real interest and make the journalist-reader collaborative practice a reality, in a process in which the contributions of both are intertwined, being clear that what makes the difference between both tasks are the values and code of ethics of journalism professionals (^{Hujanen, 2016}). This collaboration can lead to “products related to user impulses, such as tweet interviews or group cyberinterviews; and the integration of these in the narratives, for example, by mentioning the sources taken from the Internet” (^{Barredo-Ibáñez et al., 2019, p. 12}).

Navigation interactivity, on the other hand, has not been achieved in any of the analyzed publications. And although the development of technologies that allow this type of interactivity (virtual reality being its maximum expression) implies greater expenses, media such as those analyzed could allow themselves to generate productions of this type. Although until a few years ago immersive productions were an emerging trend in the journalistic field (^{Domínguez-Martín, 2015}), narratives such as gamified ones are now becoming common “in order to enhance the interactivity of their product” (^{González-Díez et al., 2019, p. 53}).

From what has been explained, we see that, indeed, interactivity is a practice of its own to continue under the deployment of a transmedia content logic. The basic points of a transmedia narration converge here: the logical use of various media and platforms, and the opportunity that thanks to these the public develops an active, creative, and conscious participation in relation to the story addressed.

Conclusions

It is understood that interactivity can be evidenced at different levels depending on the purpose of the producers, the target audience, the management of the content and the platforms, and the context in which it takes place. For this reason, this study proposed the construction of a taxonomy of interactivity in journalism based on a bibliographic review, which shed light on academic research in the field and previous efforts to classify interactivity. Thus, we established four types: personalization interactivity, which includes consultative and conversational; social interactivity, which encompasses horizontal, vertical, and diagonal dialogues; generative or productive interactivity, which considers recognized interactions/contributions, influencers, and user-generated content; and navigation interactivity, which can be approach, augmented reality or immersion/active presence.

The analysis applied to the 23 journalistic productions that make up the sample, coming from the digital media with the most subscribers in the world, showed that the types of interactivity most used in publications are personalization and social. This shows that they do not reach the maximum development of interactivity, since they do not generate productions that, for example, directly invite the user to generate their own content or that offer them an experience of active participation in an event through the use of virtual reality. There is a lack of promoting interactive spaces that arouse interest and that seek to expand the content through collaborative exercises with the user.

We consider that the results obtained are contributions at a theoretical and practical level, which serve to have an approximation of how the interactive transmedia narrative is being implemented in the digital journalistic industry. In this way, the taxonomic model raised on interactivity can be used to analyze and understand cases of this type and even undertake new ones. We recognize, however, that research can always improve. Thus, for example, the analysis sample of this work could have been broader, taking more products from each media, covering more thematic diversity and journalistic genres to obtain richer and deeper findings. Likewise, the developed content analysis tables can also evolve into measurement systems that imply giving ratings to the productions.

In this sense, we also consider future lines of research that give continuity to the one undertaken here. We believe that it is worthwhile to study the transmedia management of interactive content from the perspective of the producers and delve into the content generation process. We also consider it valuable that studies are carried out focused on the implications and rewards of the application of transmedia storytelling and interactivity at a business level (resulting business models), at a professional level (practical skills required of the informant), and at a level of the audiences (intellectual acquisitions thanks to the consumption of this type of production, media skills that must be counted on and, even, the level of loyalty that can be developed with the media).