This article aims to contribute to the debate on audience participation
in the media from three points of view: (1) demonstrating
how data journalism enables an effective participation by the
public in news production, (2) establishing a typology of the
forms of contribution, and (3) performing an in-depth study of La
Naci on (Argentina), as an example of success in collaborative data
projects carried out in Latin America. In order to achieve these
objectives, firstly, all the Global Editors Network Data Journalism
Awards were analysed with the purpose of detecting projects
involving user-generated content. Secondly, La Naci on was
studied from an ethnographic perspective, as it is the medium
with the most prizes in which citizen participation was detected.
The results show that collaboration between media and audience
can make large-scale journalism projects a reality, and also that
citizens in Argentina are recruited by LN Data specially to boost
political accountability.
