Andalusian Journalists’ Opinion about Online Press Conferences as a Public Relations Tool during Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the professional practices in the communication sector. Before a situation of lockdown and extension of the health crisis, organizations and journalists had to adapt to a new situation where online press conferences became a usual tool to get information. This research aims to analyze the way that press offices use this resource and the opinion of journalists in Andalusia. For this purpose, this research follows a descriptive study based on a quantitative methodology with the survey as the main technique, answered by 188 journalists from all Andalusian provinces. Results show that online press conferences are a very useful tool both for organizations and journalists, although it also outlines certain concern for media journalists mostly about the necessity of accessing to the sources and the possibility of questioning the representatives when it is considered that they have avoided the answer.