Veronica Villafañe


A prominent latina journalist said Tuesday that democratization and digitalization have changed media by increasing competition and opportunity and by amplifying diversity of voices. 

Veronica Villafañe said that media are competing now, more than ever, for money, advertisers, credibility, and audience views. Companies need to produce better content in order to capture a viewer’s attention.

Villafañe said that democratization has greatly influenced monetary income and expenses for media companies. Although it is now cheaper to publish content because there are less printing expenses, media companies have more money issues to worry about. She said that advertisers prefer to pay for print advertising rather than online. So digital media have to compete more for advertisers.

Another issue is that media consumers today are so used to free news, they have come to expect it. Villafañe said that it is hard to support journalism when people want the content for free. Increased competition also causes mass layoffs in the media industry.

However, Villafañe pointed to the positive aspects of these changes. She said that the dawn of social media has brought with it many more ways to both access media and produce media and that there are fewer barriers. One can simply publish on social media or a blog. This has brought with it the possibility to create content that normally wouldn’t have exposure.

Increased opportunity also means increased diversity of voices. New groups, including ethnic media, are being heard.

Villafañe is a Latina journalist who has worked for companies such as Univision, Telemundo, CNN en Español, Los Angeles Fox and San Jose Mercury News. She was inducted into the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Hall of Fame in August 2016. Villafane founded Media Moves in June of 2007. She started Media Moves in an effort to get more ethnic voices heard in the media. Media Moves is an online newspaper that features Latino Journalists.

Villafañe spoke Tuesday at CU Boulder. The speech was in a small classroom. The audience sat at desks, arranged in a rectangular formation, listening to her speak. The audience got to ask questions after her lecture.


October, 2017

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