The impact of social media in lifestyle journalism in Mexico: serving citizens versus creating consumers

Abstract

This chapter takes the notion of a “convergent journalist” (Meneses, 2011)—with its demands of flexibility, capacity of adaptation and multiple skills—to explore the new demands that social media accounts of established news organisations and magazines have brought to practicing journalists. Based on semi-structured interviews with journalism professionals working in leading Mexican outlets and producing lifestyle content, it argues that the use of these platforms is perceived as benefitting the commercial interests of the media, establishing a mixture of information and advertising that, although already present in lifestyle journalism prior to digitalisation, now finds in the new platforms a scenario in which soft news content achieves a wide exposure.