Introducing new technologies in media companies from Romania, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus. A comparative approach

Media companies from all over the world are undergoing a digitalization process, forced by the rapid distribution of technologies and by the proliferation of computer networks. The multimedia newsroom has become a reality in less than a decade even in media companies that were reluctant to the introduction of new technologies. Analyzing this process often proves to be a difficult endeavor, as the rapid growth of multimedia or Internet has not been followed (for objective reasons) by adequate theoretical frameworks, which may provide pertinent concepts and models. The paper will therefore explore the introduction of new technologies in media companies in Romania, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus, using an institutional approach. We will pinpoint similarities and variations in the process of absorbing new technologies, among these countries and within these countries, in order to identify how the institutional forces (ranging from EU legislation to market forces and political systems) influence the implementation of new technologies in the newsroom. The empirical data used in this paper are part of national reports on media and new technologies in Romania, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus. The reports were made during an extensive, two-year long research exercise, developed within the framework of a Leonardo Da Vinci project (“Media DigIT. Digitization in the Communication Sector. An European Challenge”), in which the authors of the present paper played an active part.