Vol 21, No 42 (2023): Enero - Junio

Anime is a Japanese audiovisual product with great popularity and consumption around the world, including Colombia. This study presents an analysis, from the Uses and Gratifications perspective, of the relationship between anime and the university population of Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), both students and professors, in order to understand how they consume it. They sought to identify the main reasons why consumption began and why it is sustained, measuring in turn the satisfaction obtained and how it has influenced their daily lives. The methodology was quantitative with an exploratory and descriptive scope. A mixed survey was applied through SurveyMonkey between March and May 2019 and 350 valid responses were received. Among the main findings, it was found that more than half of the participants began watching anime because it is different, complex, and diverse from other cartoons, as well as because of the aesthetics and drawing style. The main need they satisfy when consuming it is entertainment, to which they give a very high degree of satisfaction, and followed by learning. Likewise, it has inspired them to introspect about their lives, understand life better and grow up as a person. Similarly, they are aware of the influence it has on them, as well as the stimulation they receive to consume other Japanese cultural products.

Communication in the food industry builds brand value and is a determining factor transmitted, among other channels, by product packaging. Packaging is present in the final product selection process and has a major influence on the purchasing decision.All communication in the food industry is regulated by precise legislation, as messages alluding to health are very frequent and are used as a lure for the purchaser, forming the branding of brands. This research identifies and analyses different elements and factors that lead to the choice of one product over another, through a sample of seven brands of biscuits on the Spanish market, by means of an exhaustive content analysis of their packaging. The ingredients considered to be more natural, as well as the health benefits of the product, are the most important elements among those considered to be objective. The brand is the most relevant subjective element to persuade consumers. Children receive additional subjective stimuli, based on figures, shapes and colours adapted to their segment in order to attract their attention.

In the midst of the global fight against COVID-19, another evil is occurring: disinfodemia, a term that refers to the massive circulation of false information related to the virus, which helps to increase uncertainty and the number of infected or dead people. In the world, more than 6,000 pieces of information have been disproved, 9 % in Colombia, thanks to the journalistic teams of Colombia Check, La Silla Vacía, Maldita.es and AFP. The purpose of this work is to identify and study, through content analysis, 549 disinformation or inaccurate information that circulated in the country in relation to the pandemic, during the year 2020. A count was made of the false information, as well as of the categories established by the checking media, in order to determine their degree of falsehood, Media and channels through which they circulated, authorship, formats and types of misinformation, among others. The analysis reveals that social networks are 87,4 % of the spaces where false information circulates the most; however, the media and some public figures also contribute to a lower percentage of the problem, with 17 %. The vaccine we propose focuses on the education of future journalists so that they can exercise the necessary verification of the growing amount of information that invades society, and that citizens recognize the veracity of the sources of the information to which they have access. These are ways to combat disinfodemia, which can be as lethal as the virus itself.

This article collects the conceptions built through the journalistic caricatures published in Colombian mass media, and the way in which university students re-signify or appropriate said communicative product. After reviewing the conceptual elements about this product of the journalistic genre of opinion in which its types, categories, uses, graphic resources used and the impact they have on the construction of reality are defined, an instrument was applied to 150 university students, with whom the study analyzed the way of reading cartoons to identify changes in understanding, mood, and type of reception to the iconic information recorded there through a measurement instrument based on aspects of the Likert scale so that the participants could qualify a group of 10 cartoons published in different media. We sought to understand the way in which the public object re-signifies or appropriates said journalistic product and the impact it has on the way of reading events. It is concluded that the journalistic genre of opinion and caricature, as one of its expressions, maintains a close relationship with the way in which university students understand their context, but the existing gap between information and this age group is confirmed. It was found that young people who watch cartoons use them to reaffirm their convictions but little to make interpretations of reality that are dissimilar to their own.