Convergence Across Divergence: Understanding the Gap in the Online News Choices of Journalists and Consumers in Western Europe and Latin America

This article contributes to understanding whether there is a thematic gap between journalists’ and consumers’ preferences, and whether the media converge or diverge across nations. The concurrent news choices of journalists and consumers in 11 online newspapers from six countries in Western Europe and Latin America were examined. A comparison of the most prominently displayed stories on the homepages of each of these sites and the most frequently clicked stories on these sites shows a pattern of convergence across divergence: A thematic gap in the online news choices of journalists and consumers that is shared by all sites despite different levels of preference for public affairs reportage (news about political, economic, and international topics). The theoretical implications and social relevance of these findings are discussed.